A few days ago, I had the most vivid dream. I dreamt that the moon exploded. It was twilight just after sunset. I was making my way through a crowd. I think I was on my way to work. I noticed that everyone was looking up anxiously. I looked and I saw the moon on fire. Black smoke poured out of the right side of the moon. I then saw red flame appearing through the smoke. Suddenly, the moon exploded in a huge fireball. People around me screamed and shouted, then everyone started running. I tried frantically to call on a phone that didn't work. Then, I pushed my way through the jostling crowd when I woke up.
The dream felt very much like my experience of September 11, 2001, and I assume it was that experience once again manifesting itself. For two or three years after that event, I had a string of vivid dreams about it. But I haven't dreamt about it in many years, and I'm not sure why I should dream about it now.
I don't really believe that dreams are prophetic or revelatory. I think they are nothing more than rummaging around in the psychic attic where thoughts and memories are thrown around and chaotically stuffed together in old boxes all marked "miscellaneous." I'm just not sure why those particular memories should come up now.
Walking home from my studio this evening I saw a big full moon rising over the Brooklyn side of the East River. I've never been more happy to see the moon in all my life. I don't think I'll ever look at it the same again. I'll always be glad that it's there in the sky.
At a time dominated by anger, paranoia, hatred, where people no longer trust their own eyes and sincerely believe the most ludicrous stories, it seems that I'm always watching the funeral of all things true, good, and decent. Scoundrels with too much power gamble away the lives of the powerless. Traditions and institutions that served people well for decades and centuries get trashed under brutal hurried feet. Angry nihilists want nothing more than to set everything on fire and watch it burn.
I'm happy to see that the moon is still there untouched by our lunacy, that it will outlast the madness, outlast me, and probably outlast humankind.
Some of my favorite paintings of the moon:
Ma Yuan, Viewing Plum Blossoms by Moonlight, 13th century
Aert Van Der Neer, Night Landscape with a River, 17th century
George Inness, Moonlight, Tarpon Springs, 1892
Ralph Blakelock, Moonlight, ca.1890
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