It was a deep silent night, a night perfect for magick and reflection. I snuck out of my dorm room and followed a hidden way up to the top of the buildings to a perfect ledge. This ledge was my favorite spot. Once there I lit a candle I brought and buried it in a pile of sand. Next to that, I placed a cone of incense. Neither of these was I supposed to have but only on special occasions would I dust them off and use them while in the dorm.

Beneath me, the whole campus seemed to spread outwards from my dangling feet. It was almost like walking on the air, through a silent depth of an urbanized forest. Here you could see and observe the entire campus especially the lake below. The yellow safety lights flickered across the lake surface, so far beneath my feet. I soon closed my eyes and tried to meditate when I felt it happen.

There were no outward signs for me to pick up but I still felt it. I opened my eyes and there she was. The large silver orb of the moon so close I felt like I could reach out and touch her. She hung there for a moment before the skittish clouds covered her face again but I could clearly see the silver rays pierce the clouds a little to the right. In a few moments, this moon slipped from beyond the clouds like a woman slipping out of a silken nightgown. She hung there naked, bright to the world. She stood there like a proud mother showing off her youthful body. I watched and stared to meditate, that silver round orb my mandala.

Like dozens of times before I felt the pull of thoughts, memories trying to distract me. I let them pass from my mind like the lines of a road viewed from a car on the highway. However, there was this one piece of thought that did not leave me alone. It floated there like a ribbon caught in a tree, fluttering in the wind. It was an old faded piece of a memory, twisting and teasing me to track it down. I let it stay there as I tried to refocus my mind but that ribbon of thought teased me. It floated there like a string from a kit, ready for the child's hand to grab it. It stood bright in my mind like a hesitant bubble, ready to be caught by the wind but also waiting for more bubbles to be blown by the bubble wand. Like any child, I wanted to touch that bubble but just when you reach for it, it pops. I thought that was the last of the thought but soon it came unbidden to me again. Like that immortal worm to the fish so was that thought to me. I chased that ribbon of thought through the dusty closet of my mind.

I followed that ribbon of thought past memories in my mind until I found the end. It was a plain looking memory, as if a package wrapped up in the comic section of the newspaper. I pulled on the ribbon to release the memory and was immediately welcomed to my great-grandmothers arms. My Great-grandmother was a special person. The type of person whose eyes glittered with a secret she wants to tell. Her mouth was one of those that never could quite stretch to a frown. Most of the time she never tried. My great-grandmother was also the teller of stories and this particular memory was of the moon.

"Did you know the moon can get pregnant?" her voice echoed in my mind from that long ago time. "It does, you know. Every month she grows with a new baby. I've watched the world change from a time when the prairies were so big you could walk a day and not see a road. Now a days you can't walk a mile without those roads splitting up the land, but through all of that I have watched the moon. She is truly a magical, beautiful thing.

In the beginning, she was just a sliver of what she is today. A child new to the world. But like most children she learns quickly the joys of the world and grows up quickly. She becomes a woman and like any woman she wants a baby. That is what happen, she gets bigger every night with her baby growing inside her. Every night her light shines stronger and brighter while her stomach gets bigger, which is the sliver of light in the night. She is a happy mother growing as her child inside her grows. She grows and stretches, that is what those dark spots are, until she cannot get bigger. This is when she has her baby. The baby wriggles around her pregnet stomach and after 3 days comes out."

"Where does the baby go," I ask.

"Why up in the sky where she can keep an eye on her children. Can you find her baby? Hint they glow like her every night."

"The Stars, those must be the moon's babies. Boy she has a lot of children."

"Uf da, that she does. Every month she has a new baby and it lives in the sky with her. That is why the moon fades away, she becomes a tired and old mother. Soon she will die but her babies will stay on glowing in her celestial house. That is why the stars glow so bright, they love their mother and are honoring her memory. The stars do not cry, they know that a new moon will appear, like a new friend from an old. The new moon will leave a bit of it behind every time. A new star, a new baby, a new time to be happy. That is what the moon reminds us of, all the good times with friends."

"Will you go away like the moon someday?"

"Like the moon I will grow weak and die. But my time with you has been longer then the moon's time with her children. Someday it will be my turn to change like the moon into someone new. It is not a time to be sad but a time to remember what I was and I hope I was a good enough person to make you special like the moon makes the stars special. Glow bright my child."

Today I glow bright for that wonderful lady. She showed me what it was to be human, what it is to enjoy the world. The nights belong to her now as she glows brightly in the northern sky, a star among many.