There was a full moon, but the night was also lit by the street lamps. I was twenty six, living in East Massapequa on Long Island and taking a walk to the bay at the end of my block with Lestat, my black doberman mix. On the way back home the moon was on my right, it seemed to be shining on my face, it was if I could feel it’s heat on my cheek. As I got closer to my house I realized I had been repeating the words The Moon is my Mother over and over to myself. I had no idea where the words came from. Later I made a found object sculpture using a blue and white speckled enamel pot cover attached to an old piece of wood. Around it, in rickrack, I wrote the words The Moon is my Mother. The pot cover became a symbol for the moon, a breast, the feminine.
Yesterday I read the Sylvia Plath poem The Moon and The Yew Tree. One of the lines in the poem is “The moon is my mother“. I’m not aware of ever having read this poem before. Maybe I did, sometime before I took that walk down to the bay in the moonlight and the forgotten words came back to me. Or maybe the words are an archetypal truth. Something each of us just innately know.
Fascinating. The past can be so relevant…only know in the future for its importance…or maybe not known?
Interesting that you would connect to that specific poem, Maria…it was one of the most powerful poems Plath wrote in her short but important sojourn at Court Green. Your moon seemed to signify warmth, the call of home perhaps, or the longing for home. Sylvia’s moon was full of despair….the antithesis of positive femininity. I love your sketch….I can this blossoming into a vision of warm comfort in your hands – in colors that reflect that. I’ll be looking for signs of its future!
I didn’t know anything about the poem Tara, and from what I’ve heard and read, like you say her moon was not a positive symbol.
I love this story, Maria. This poem by Plath is quite haunting. Sad, but beautiful.
What a lovely story! Annie