OuterBliss: Moon, Mardi Gras, & Mortality

Some of my favorite trees on the planet
(at Chautauqua Institute).

Listening to: Who knew these guys were making new music?

Bliss: Early, classic swing. Great mood inducing stuff. Coffee later with a friend who has been living out of the country. It's Fat Tuesday, so donuts for dinner! (Just kidding...kinda.)

Today is the new moon. The full moon that will come in approximately fourteen days is called the Storm Moon, the Wind Moon, the Crow Moon, or Sleepy Moon by the Chinese.

Storm and Wind Moon are most appropriate in my part of the world.

Though I have come to love winter (yes, I said that), spring and I still have a thing going. I'm not crazy about spring. I guess because the whole bi-polar thing throws me off -- whether it be in weather or people.

During the spring, I feel my worst. My joints ache from the moisture and the cold. My digestion is precarious at best. I'm more likely to get a headache if I drink a small glass of wine. My whole system is out of whack.

But doesn't that make sense? The whole earth is going through birth pangs in the spring. What a messy, but ultimately, beautiful thing, indeed.

Lent is an acknowledgment of this natural rhythm. Lent says, hey, slow down, take it easy during this potential craziness. Go inside. Spend some time just listening. Planning. Preparing.

But first, let's have a big ol' party! And so today is a new moon and Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. Of course, if you were in New Orleans or Rio (we can dream), you'd have been partying for days by now, celebrating Carnival.

Alas, Marcy and I are not in Rio, so we will be feasting on donuts tonight, a fairly traditional fatty food to eat before Lent begins.

What is this all about? This explosion of music and food and decadence? Death, of course.

It is remembering that we are creatures destined to die that gives such a sweetness to life. It is remembering that we will die that makes us want to fully live.

And so tomorrow, we will go to Mass or a service and have ashes placed upon our foreheads.

These bodies are only dust, those ashes say. I am concerned with bigger things, that mark tells others who see it.

For forty days, that is what we are contemplating. We are contemplating the temporary illusion of this flesh sheath. We are contemplating our soul's place in our life. We are contemplating how we should be using our time here.

We are, simultaneously, contemplating our mortality and our eternity. Forty days for that? Seems like a good use of a few weeks.