Magic Lies Here

The moon is as close to the earth as it’s been since 1993. That factoid has been plastered in every corner of the internet for the last week…in case any one could forget there’s a moon….

But it’s cool, no sarcasm here, I enjoy all things lunar related. Of all the super enormous celestial bodies that hang in our skies, the moon is my second my favorite. It’s pale, silvery glow can warm the heart almost as much as the sun or a warm brownie on a frosty evening.

The thing is…it’s full tonight as well. Every one has been so enamored with the proximity of the moon it seems we have all ignored that little tidbit. It’s not just a moon that is appearing 14% larger in the sky tonight, it’s a FULL moon….

Does that matter?

It sure as hell does when you live here. I stood outside snapping photos with our camera, wishing NASA was my best friend or at least a second cousin who didn’t mind lending out their awesomer cameras to me and whilst I shivered in the cold night air I heard something that sent skitters of primal fear dancing up my spine.

Howling.

Not wolves…I don’t think. Are there wolves in Arizona? Here in our valley? I’d think it highly unlikely….but the human howls that echoed through the night, bouncing off the ring of mountains that surround us…they had such an animal like quality to them…like a wolf…only human.

Scarier than either thing alone.

I know what I’m hinting at here..hinting because the idea is too insane to admit…it’s lunacy…..LUNACY. There’s a reason the word lunacy sounds like lunar…it comes from it. Historically people get a little crazy during full moons….

What do they do during full moons and when that moon is as close to the earth as it ever is…get 14% crazier? Ha…I’d laugh…but I can’t shake the shivers. I can’t shake the sound from my head…it echoes inside my mind in concert with the wild calls outside my door.

I see eyes in the dark…in the shadows…I hear rustling in the brush…I hear footfall and breathing and the rush of air when things run by….

Our little valley is awake tonight. Lights burn in every house. The vehicles are silent…the people are not in their houses…no televisions glow their unearthly blue light in the windows….the people are outside and they’re howling….
It doesn’t feel violent. It’ not that…it just feels…so wild, primitive…a little feral…..

Our cat hides under the bed.

The moon glows so brightly I see the shadows cast across the yard…the flit of dark shades and shapes that dance around the valley.

I am not afraid..but…I feel the urge to go back outside…to lift my face to the moon and feel it’s cool light wash over me…I want to sing…to be a part of that rising chorus of howling that is overtaking the valley.

I don’t just want to, I need to….I have to.

It’s a full moon tonight…..as close to earth as it’s been since 1993…and this place is reacting to it. Lunacy is in the air like sweet music and I can almost….almost make out the tunnnnnnnnnne…

Lookie what I found whilst working on my Gawker's Tan.

I will eventually get a gawker’s tan.

It’s inevitable. My habits are so ingrained that one of these days when I look in the mirror…with another mirror held behind my head so I can see front and back at the same time……(like there’s any other way to look in a mirror) I will be faced with the truth…my neck will be sun browned and reddened like a farmer’s and my face will be pale and vampire-esque like a seasoned gawker.
Like the amateur rock hound that I am, wandering about the gravely back yard and desert landscapes beyond, head always down as I peer at every bit of stone and pebble and fleck of shiny desert dirt that catches my fancy.

The sun will do it’s thing, the shade will do it’s…and I will have that gawker’s tan and wear it with pride and maybe briefly consider on occasion if I shouldn’t be wearing my hat…
But anyhoo, my rebellious sunscreen-less-capades aside, gawking has found me a new treasure. Not just the gold-y specked rocks that my sun fevered brain half hoped was REAL gold..the sort I could sell, make a fortune and buy a pair of them sweet, sweet magnifying goggles like my dentist wears on occasions. I should say in my dentist’s defense it wasn’t like a “go to the supermarket and get more organic tomatoes” sort of occasion, but a “lets see how many instruments I cram into your mouth and see if you can still breathe whilst I squirt water, suction and drill at the same time whilst practically bumping your nose with the afore mentioned goggles” sort of occasion. (I like to “afore mention” a lot, deal with it.)

So anyhoo, gawking, staring at pretty rocks, thinking of dentist goggles and admiring the incredibly micro flowers this valley has in bloom at the moment and I step on a circle.

A circle.

Not a rock, or another flower or even a lizard (thank God) but a circle. In the dirt.

Mysterious circles in the desert

Just…a perfect little circle….inside another circle…inside another circle….next to another circle full of circles until I backed up a few steps and surveyed the ground as a whole instead of one pretty little rock at a time like I’d been doing and….there were circles every where.

I about wet my pants. Too much? Honesty hurts, deal with that too.

I thought of wards and frozen patches of time…I thought of bugs and critters and natural phenomenon…I thought of wind patterns, dust devils and eventually crop circles.
I thought a lot. I stared a lot.

But those circles weren’t talking. I gingerly passed my hand over them…if they’re warding, guarding something, I can’t tell. If they were frozen patches of time like I’d run into before (literally) I’d have been able to tell…these were just…circles. Hell, you know as much as I do at this point.

The largest circle of circles was about a foot, maybe foot and a half across. They varied in size…I could see no rhyme and reason…my mind hopped to crop circles again…
But these were only vaguely like those. I’ve watched the documentaries on those things, they’re so much more complex and intricate, these looked more…primitive.
I crouched down, trying not to fall on them, sun warming my neck, and stared hard, trying to pick out a rhyme or reason for their un-natural existence.
I saw a little flower in the center of one…but only one. But it was perfectly in the center and it made me wonder if it was related to the odd circular phenomenon or just a coincidence.

Micro flower in the center of the circle of circles.

I dunno.

That’s what I’m left with, a desert full of cool looking circles, a gawker’s tan and a pocketful of “I dunno”.

Look at 'em all...circles of circles.