Greetings,

As we experience and celebrate the Autumn Moon tonight, I am reminded of a poem by Savonna, who vividly illustrates the agility of children’s imaginative prowess, to bring even the most distant qualities of the natural world into the framework of their own thoughts and feelings.

                                         I know where the moon goes.
                                         It goes to the rim of my mind.
                                         It becomes my space
                                         and goes away
                                         in the day
                                         and then returns
                                         to the rim of my mind.
                                                            – Savonna, 5/6^th  Grade

This same sense and need of establishing a relationship, with the myriad phenomena that surround us, is also expressed by Corina, as she paints and writes:

Trees, water, sun, moon, gravity, fungi, minerals, insects, stars, galaxies, rocks, germs, other planets–and I feel great because I'm helping the world grow–nature grow.

– Corina, 3/4^th Grade

                                         My thought is a feather thought
                                         and shell thought and
                                         a tree thought and
                                         a circle thought
                                         and the shell thought was opening.
                                                            – Thomas, 3/4^th grade

And coming full circle, perhaps, as we look up at the sky tonight and experience the marvel and brilliance of the full moon, we too can reflect on our instinctual need to celebrate, as well bring meaning to a universe–both within and outside of ourselves.

My thought is a part of the meaning of the world, and hence I use a part of the world as a symbol to express my thought.

– Henry David Thoreau
Entry in Journal, November 4, 1852

Best,
Richard