Moonlight reflections

June 13.




Approaching the pond down Hubbard's Path, after coming out of the woods into a warmer air, I see the moon's inverted pyramid of light shimmering on its surface. I am startled to see midway in the dark water a bright flame- like, more than phosphorescent light crowning the crests of the wavelets. Though one would have said they were of an intenser light than the moon herself, on coming near to the shore of the pond itself I see this is so many broken reflections of the moon's disk.


I see reflections of the moon seeming to slide along a few inches with each wave before they are extinguished like so many lustrous burnished coins poured from a bag. And I see how farther and farther off they gradually merge in the general sheen, which, in fact, is made up of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon with equal brightness to an eye rightly placed.

The pyramid or sheaf of light which we see springing from near where we stand is, in fact, only the outline of that portion of the shimmering surface that an eye takes in. If there were as many eyes as angles presented by the waves, covered with those bright flame-like reflections of the moon's disk, the whole surface would appear as bright as the moon; and these reflections are dispersed in all directions into the atmosphere, flooding it with light.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1851

I see the moon's inverted pyramid of light shimmering on its surface.. . . which, in fact, is made up of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon See April 3, 1852 ("A pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June Moonlight and   Dogen:

~ Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky . ~

June 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 13

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021