A Moon Larger Than This Moment in History

March 15, 2025

It wasn't supposed to be a clear night, and yet there was a red blood, full-eclipse moon arriving last night. I read a lot about it—how there would be so many beautiful things that could happen with all of these moon elements coming together in one fell swoop. It was going to be at two-thirty in the morning, and that is when I wake up every night, sometimes falling back asleep and sometimes pondering the end of the world or the beginning of something wonderful that could happen in mine. Depends on the moment. It seemed like a sign that I should haul my body out of bed and check it out. While it was supposed to be cloudy, I thought, Well, Girlfriend, you are going to set it all up in hopes you can see it and carpe diem your way to a new beginning.

I put a candle out, and I put sage next to it, and then I laid my journal on the table by the front door. I wrote on a piece of paper the things I wanted to shut out of my life in this moment in time, and I was surprised by how easily the list flowed—one to each piece of paper. And I got the bowl of water ready to take outside to catch the energy from the moon, and of course, my coat and a wooden chair outside, where I knew it would be right under the moon’s glow.

I did wake up, and I came outside, and I sat in my chair, and it was cloudless, and the sky was magnificently covered in stars. There was the Big Dipper. Like, really there, right above me, which I don’t think I’ve seen since I was a kid, and I’m not even sure I saw it then. Maybe I pretended to see it.

I sat down and watched as the eclipse slowly moved in front of the moon. And the moon turned red when the eclipse went full force, and I stood there, stunned at how different I felt. Different, I tell you. And then I went inside, and I lit the sage and the candle, and I wrote in my journal with an abandon I haven’t felt in months. I burned the hell out of those pieces of paper, and I felt lighter still.

After I burned the sage, I kept writing, and slowly I started to write things that I wanted to celebrate. I was so grateful to have them come to me. Oh, I have so much to celebrate, even in this crazy world that scares the shit out of me. And the word magnificence kept coming up on the page, and I don’t ever use that word. I mean, those of you who have been reading me for years—have you ever read the word magnificence in my writing? When I think of magnificent, I think of a Disney character, and I’m pretty sure she was a bad human.

I came back outside, and I sat in the chair, and now I understand why it’s called the Red Full Moon. It is red, and I realize that the cataract surgery I’ve had in both my eyes in the last few months has enabled me to see it with such clarity. And that Big Dipper was moving across the sky, and I started to think—what do I want to dip it in?

Okay, you’re supposed to dance under the light of the full moon. Should I do that? This woman, who’s aging not as gracefully as she’d like, dancing under the light of the full moon like some witch from Salem? What if someone sees me, puts me away, and takes all my money that I want to go to Sarah?

Okay, I’m in. Carpe Diem.

What song?

I don’t want to play Dance with Somebody because, frankly, I would rather dance alone. This is just my time of life to dance alone, under the moon and the stars—a red moon, no less—and I will dance alone.

I danced to By the Light of the Silvery Moon, which was a favorite of my father’s, and I had no idea where it came from. I hadn’t thought of that song in decades. I moved without my usual stiffness, and I felt like I was floating. Floating, I tell you.

And the bowl of water? I still have it days later, because you’re supposed to bathe in it. I take showers, and I have no desire to sit in a bath, so I don’t know—maybe I’ll put it in the sink and put my hands in. Not sure.

But that’s not the end of the story.

It’s days later, and I’m still trying to download it all. What do I believe about the moon and the stars and all things up there? I have no idea what I believe, but I know that every single month as the full moon approaches, I go outside, and I love to look at her. I know that when my mom died, the chemo and radiation made her face blow up, and one day I told her, “Mom, you look like the man on the moon.” And she laughed, and we laughed.

A few days later, I asked her to send me a sign after she died if there was something more. After all is said and done, did she end up somewhere?

As I walked out of her front door at two-fifteen in the morning after her body had been taken away, straight ahead of me was an October Harvest Full Moon, and there was a man’s face on it.

That face, on that moon, at the same exact time as that night last week, looked exactly like my mother. I stood on her stoop and thought to myself, Well, you can believe or not. It’s up to you. It’s a sign, or it isn’t.

And then I got in the car and turned on the radio to drive back to my house. Wonderful World was playing on the radio—my mom’s favorite song.

I thought of it last week, as I’m surrounded by what is not a wonderful world. And not only that—it’s my world. It’s my country. It’s what’s happening here.

And so I’ve been reminding myself that the clouds parted, and I felt joy. Joy.

Are all these things telling me that there’s something bigger than myself and that I matter? That the horrific things horrible people are doing to the world will not destroy it—or me?

My magnificence matters. But other things matter too.

And no matter what happens, that moon is going to be a full moon once a month, hopefully from now until eternity. And I am so grateful to be on this planet, at this moment, underneath this moon, in this country that I have loved for more than 70 years.

I have to believe our community will return to its own magnificence and that I will have a part in that—however small, however large, I will have a part. All the hundreds of millions of Americans can have a part. And if we band together, then the magnificence of our sheer numbers will overthrow the evil that is sitting around us.

I’m not afraid. And I am so grateful I woke up at 2:15. And I’m so grateful I sat under the moon.

I am powerful.

So are you.

Alone we are powerful, but together, we are unstoppable.

I hope you took a moment to go outside. I’m pretty sure most of you didn’t. That’s okay. It took me 70 years to start to do things like this.

So good night, my fellow Americans.

Good night, my friends.

Good night, my enemies.

Good night moon.

I’m glad for each and every one of you.

And I’m so glad to be me at this moment—who has the memory of being under the full red moon, in the middle of a full eclipse, at a particular moment in time that will never repeat itself, but I will remember forever.