I'm mostly not very interested in the moon as A Rock In Outer Space, because the most prominent ways this viewpoint are utilized are:
a) as a prop for a global dick-measuring contest (which used resources extracted from the earth and our communities, the effects of which are still felt today), a tool to prove how great Humanity is and how we've Surpassed Nature,
and b) as someThing to exploit further. ive heard talk in years past of hydrogen andor helium existing on the moon, I don't remember details, and I'm sure there are other resources that the Agents of Real want to pull away from Her. Objectifying her, as they do us all. Claiming to value humanity while putting us all to work - and for our gods and goddesses, and our nurturesses, that work eats away from them in a way more visible than the psychological withering.
The way I do treat her is as a comforting presence in the sky. The sky is unreachable, but there's a sense of familiarity to it. Even if you move great distances, and even if the clouds change, even if you leave the lightning that pierces you in the refuses-to-be-dead downpours of some nights behind, the sun and the moon persist.
They change too, of course! They might be higher or lower. They might fluctuate back and forth from the center line, where they didn't before. You might notice, in nine years and 4 gregorian-months' time, that your moons are much higher or much lower than they once were. And in another nine, she might be back to how she was; it was your memory that things were once different that brought on that change, and that drives all cycles.
But the two of them will return to you. Even a night that lasts half a year and that only offers the moon shows you the road to the sun, and there is a slow but certain dawn. And the moon? You can look at her. She's not blinding like the sun is. But she will drive you crazy. Join me in my Lunacy?
My hand is outstretched.
as frivolous and petty as our reasons for pursuing her may have at first been, she offered something far beyond settling a vain squabble
perspective
that our world, our home, is so small and frail and distant when seen from even our nearest neighbor in the heavens
that it truly is all we have, and that we should take care of it, and of each other as we dwell upon it, for that which seemed like such a big deal, like nations themselves, became invisible as home faded to something one could hide behind their thumb
and so too is this offered by the other places within the heavens that we've glimpsed
mars so cold and still, venus so hot and intense, are glimpses into what could have been, and what may still be yet to come, into a beauty distinct from our own, and a majestic hostility that reminds us not to take what we have for granted
folks may someday try and claim them all, futile as that may be. but not, i hope, before we've learned what they all have to teach us
