Maeve and the Half Moon

Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels

The following is a soulful sleep story for adults called Maeve and the Half Moon, soon to be recorded for evening listening. Read before bed to quiet the mind, hug the heart, and soothe the spirit. Share this link with others you know who might appreciate it.

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The water began to burble as the kettle sat on the hot stove. Maeve watched over it, her almond eyes tracing the shimmer-mist that danced from the narrow spout. “A watched pot never boils,” her father’s words rang through her ears. And still her gaze remained fixed, studying the etheric flow of steam that grew and grew.

Eventually, the water did come to a boil, and Maeve removed the kettle from the neon orange element. Next to her on the counter was a white glazed ceramic mug, with a sachet of lemon balm and lavender tucked inside. She poured the water into the mug and welcomed the cloud of herbal aroma as it rose to meet her nose. Ahhh. The curve of her belly extended in softness.

Maeve lived in a small cedar cabin next to a quiet lake. Far from the cacophony of the booming city, she savoured the quietude – and the snail’s pace – of her forested life. There, she journaled about the seasons as they came and as they went, to give them their due, and lived in close connection to the infinite turn of the moon. She kept a garden in the warmer months and sowed most of her seeds when the moon waned – except for root plants, which she buried when it was full.

Speaking of the moon, the half moon was Maeve’s favourite celestial body. While seeds of possibility lived within the full moon, and the darkness of the new moon carried its magic, too, the half moon – in Maeve’s eyes – was a balanced beauty. For it carried both darkness and light. Mystery and clarity. Inward retreat and outward expression. For this reason, she saw it as even more full than the full moon, encompassing paradoxes and polarities. Stunningly whole as it occupied liminal space.

On this particular night, as Maeve prepared her lavender-lemon balm tea, a half moon rose in the late August sky. The Northern air was warm like fleece, and the atmosphere was clear and nearly cloudless. It was an exceptional evening for sky gazing, and so Maeve picked up her mug, flung a marigold wool blanket over her right shoulder, and made her way to the nature-facing door.

When Maeve stepped outside, she was greeted by the sticky warmth of summer’s air, even though the sun had long set. She welcomed it deep into her belly and bones… and exhaled with a sigh. Huuuuhhh. Her shoulders pulled backward and dropped down, sinking towards the cedar deck beneath her feet. She had not realized they’d been resisting the natural pull of gravity for many hours.

A narrow pathway, lined with fancy ferns and red pines, led from the deck to the lake. Maeve took to it, one careful, barefoot step upon barefoot step. The fertile soil was cool to the touch, a sensation she swiftly embraced. As she moved, she felt Mother Earth’s pulse penetrating her soles. The subtle Earth-beat ran up and along the track of her spine. She was reminded of her roots.

Overhead, a cosmic display of light trickled down through the branched canopy. Stars shone as bright as fireflies (though still as stone). And as Maeve’s gaze dropped towards the lake just a dozen metres ahead, she caught sight of her favourite moon – that silver beloved, half-luminous, half-shadowed darling. Her chest rose gently, as if her spirit were rising to meet this celestial being.

Now, the trees lining the pathway began to part, like velvet stage curtains being pulled back. And what grander stage than this moonlit lake and the rocky peninsula Maeve now stepped onto: quiet, hushed, healthy, complete. Like the half moon, there was nothing lacking here.

Maeve’s soft soles made their way across the chilled rock-face of the Earth, arriving at a smooth stretch of granite that edged towards the water. Enough light graced the lake that she could make out that delicate tipping point between earth and water. Bunching her long linen dress at the knees, she edged towards the lake and gently dipped her toes into nature’s bath. The water was crisp but comforting. She inched in a little further, until her feet, ankles, and calves were consumed. Her lower jaw softened, dropped away from the upper, and a gentle sigh escaped.

After a few moments of allowing her feet to dance in the shallows, held by the sturdy rock bed below, Maeve stepped back onto dry land. The lake-wet hemline of her dress brushed against her ankles. She savoured its raw touch – a reminder to let go and let the world in.

Maeve tugged at the blanket flung across her shoulder, spreading it atop the granite. She lowered herself to meet it, crossed her legs, and hugged her tea close to her chest. Inhale.

Lemon balm traveled to the back of her throat and lavender to her third eye. There, the herbal mist danced, quieting her mind and soothing the muscles that stretched across her forehead. Here I am, she whispered into the listening air. Here I am. She envisioned the healing herbal mist dancing through her head and neck for a few more breaths… and then returned her sights to the moon-kissed lake.

Like black glass, the water reflected everything above it – the treeline, the moon, and even the mystic Milky Way. As above, so below, she noted.

And from that sheet of glass, Maeve’s eyes rose to meet the night’s enchanted moon: her primary reason for coming down to the water’s edge tonight.

Again, she was reminded of the half moon’s perfection in its dance of opposites. The dark and the light. The yin and the yang. The paradox of opposites co-existing – in harmony. There was no battle between these halves; rather, they rested effortlessly, in seamless embrace.

Maeve loved that about the half moon; it was not at war with itself. In reverence, she raised her palms towards the sky, bringing the heels of her hands to touch. She squinted her left eye shut and held her hands like an open cup, cradling the moon within it. 

The world was all but silent. Whispers of other night-beings faded into the periphery. It was just Maeve and the half moon.

Maeve swaddled the moon in her palms for a few breaths… and then a stinging awareness burbled to the surface. Maeve lowered her hands into her lap as the words emerged: “I don’t know how to hold myself like that.”

Like the rest of her humankind, Maeve was paradox embodied. She was both wise and immature. Responsive and also reactive. Loud and also timid. Fierce and also gentle. But she struggled to reconcile these opposites – and others – within her. She clung to some of her ways of being and pushed away others. Some she admired in the light while others she left relegated to the shadows. She, like the half moon, embodied both lightness and darkness, but she did not hold it all with care.

Tiny tear-beads formed in the outer corners of her eyes before rolling gently down her cleansed cheeks. She whispered to the moon: “I do not know how to hold and love the whole of me, even though I hold and love the whole of you. How… how can I hold and love the whole of me, too?”

Silence continued to pulse through the evening air. The moon held steady; not a flinch, not a whisper. Maeve closed her eyes. She inhaled… and exhaled. Inhaled… and exhaled.

Then, amidst the night’s silence that cloaked her, a lunar whisper came:

“Perhaps first you might let me hold and love the whole of you? Would you allow me to do that? To hold you in your darkness? To hold you in your light?”

A river of release came cascading down Maeve’s cheeks as she replied: “Yes. Yes, dear moon.”

Maeve felt the moon’s maternal glow shining down upon her, witnessing her within her totality – without judgment, without fear. With complete and total acceptance. In love. This light of love permeated her warm ivory skin, kissed every frown line, every fear, soothed every harsh thought she had ever directed upon herself.

As the moon embraced the whole of Maeve, a stream of bittersweet sobs sung their way towards the water. She stayed there a while, allowing their passage, letting herself be loved… until the river ran dry.

Shame and self-judgment had been shed, rolled down from her cheeks, across the smooth rock beneath her sitting bones, and into the healing waters. Stories of rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness, dissolved like salt in hot water.

Maeve’s body now felt light and grounded, like a tree with steady roots and freedom in its leaves. Spaciousness filled the river bed. And all she heard now was the oceanlike wave of each breath.

After a few breaths, another voice came: “This wild and wonderful world is woven with paradox, with complexities, and with seeming contradictions. Could you be any different, my dear? You, too, are of the world.”

Was this voice the voice of the moon? Or was it a voice that came from inside her? Maeve could not be sure, but it did not matter. She had received the medicine her mind-body needed. For the first time, Maeve understood in her bones why she had been attracted to the half moon all these years. It held a teaching she needed – and a love that she needed.

Maeve remembered the mug of tea in her hands and took a few sips between snail-paced breaths. Her insides softened, free of the need to contract into just one thing.

The silver light of the moon pulled at her gaze again, illuminating their deepening kinship. And in that moment, the moon whispered:

“I will hold and love you whenever you need me to – and even when you don’t need me to. But I also live within you. Find me tucked in the center of your chest whenever you are feel at odds with your paradoxes. My medicine lives within you.”

Maeve placed her right palm on the center of her chest. “May I hold and honour the half moon within me,” she whispered. “May I hold and honour the half moon within me.”

A wild gust of air swept across the lake, caressed every inch of Maeve’s exposed skin and each silky strand of her auburn hair. Her belly relaxed as she sunk deeper into the Great Mother beneath her. She envisioned thick, braided roots growing from the base of her spine, descending into the fertile Earth below. She lifted her crown towards the light above and bowed her head to her teacher:

“Thank you, half moon, for reminding me of my wholeness.”

A sacred shiver ran down Maeve’s spine as silver light consumed her. She bathed in its blessing of acceptance.

She then lifted her chin and opened her eyes, admiring the stars strewn across the night sky. The brightest of all those cosmic diamonds caught her eye. “I could make a wish,” she thought. All her life she considered stars to be guardians of our deepest desires.

And yet, as she searched for a wish to bestow upon that star, no wish came. There was nothing more Maeve felt that she needed. Not here. Not now. “I have everything I need within me,” rolled off her tongue, dancing like sweet smoke into the cosmos.

Maeve spent a few final breaths steeping in August’s sumptuous air. As the night tiptoed towards midnight, the air cooled. Quietly, so as not to disturb the peace of the night, Maeve rose to her feet and swung the wool blanket around her shoulders. Mug pulled snug against her chest, Maeve’s bare soles began their way along the granite, towards the pine-lined pathway. Back along the fertile earth, and back up to the cedar deck that hugged the cabin.

As she reached her blessed abode, Maeve extended her fingertips towards the worn brass doorknob and turned it clockwise. The door creaked open and she settled back into her home.

Maeve’s bedroom was towards the rear of the cabin, but many nights she chose instead to fall asleep in the wide open living space of the front. Expansive glass windows that ran nearly the length of the cabin peered over the moonlit lake. After changing her clothes and brushing her teeth, Maeve turned off the lights and cocooned herself upon the corduroy sofa. From where she rested, she had a direct view of the world beyond those window panes.

The vastness of outer space with its gemstone stars cloaked her, as did her woolen blanket. She reached for its tasseled edge and pulled it up beneath her chin. Her entire body softened as she watched the world from within the comfort of her cabin. All fell quiet.

As her eyes yet again met her moon mother, a light wave of awareness washed through her. I am whole, it whispered. I am whole.

Maeve eye’s fluttered shut, closing the door upon the world outside as she attuned to the one within. As she did, a pale golden glow became known in the center of her chest. It was the moon within her; a wisdom she could not separate herself from. Even if – or when – a veil came to cloud that inner light, the way clouds cover the moon from time to time, she would know – deep in her bones – that indeed, she was whole. Behind the clouds was always wholeness.

Her breath moved slow and steady, singing the way the ocean sings from a distance. That rhythmic dance of life force sustained her – her body and her attention. The breath was all she needed now, and so her spirit surrendered to it as her body surrendered into the cushions beneath her. 

And as effortlessly as the moon passed through the nighttime sky, Maeve descended into that quiet, spacious abyss of slumber. All the repetitious thoughts she carried throughout the day had lost their stick, and she surrendered into a well-deep sleep.

That night, as her body and mind restored themselves, all the tiny cells in her body processed the evening’s remembrance, processed her words: I am whole. I am whole. Indeed, like the moon, she was already whole – in light of all her contradictions. Just as she was, she was whole.

© Gillian Florence Sanger