A cinematic quality to your moonish meandering accompanied by hounds. What a deeply precious moment Suleika. What a gift. Thank you for letting us peep inside.
I read Orbital by Samantha Harvey over Christmas while suffering from terminal flu (actually I felt furious, flu and cancer. Eff that!). And since then I am like a 5 year old about the night sky. Is that a star? A planet? What, actually Venus? Stopppp. But there they sit, winking and guiding us away from the trials on Earth and up to the cosmos, the beauty. Libby, thank you for sharing the idea of a ritual walk. Gosh 5am though! I am waiting for results of a scan to check on my lovely lungs. A walk, a frosty walk, yes. Thank you all here for seeing the beauty in the bricks. ✨
I love your writings, and those of others that you share. My life is so busy, I go to work, 40 plus hours/week. My shift starts at 4am, so I usually don't get to spend much time outside in the morning. But, because I have dogs, I am always in and out with them. Thankfully, my yard is fairly private, and big enough that my ball chaser can run at full speed when I throw it (during daylight). Today I woke up to moonshine in my bedroom.
The tuxedo cat...one street away from my beloved home, and I see it climb from the sewer opening at the base of the sidewalk. We meet eyes as I slow my car to stop to a stop to let her cross the street. She took her time. I love that about cats. My gut reaction was to feel sorry for it (it's still snowy and cold here), but it was well nourished, glossy, and I then thought, "She is out for an adventure and is going anywhere she wants to go. I need to be more like her.
Your words are luminous, a perfect echo of that moonlit walk you so vividly describe. It’s rare to read something that feels both deeply personal and profoundly universal, but you’ve captured it here — the strange magic of the in-between hours, when the world is quiet enough to hear the pulse of life itself.
I love the image of you wrapped in a quilt, breath clouding the air, River and Sunshine transformed into solemn moonlit companions. That “thrumming fullness” you describe resonates — how illness, for all its cruelty, can paradoxically open up moments of connection to something vast and ineffable. It’s as though the universe slipped you a reminder in that silver glow: you are still wild, still part of the great rhythm.
And Roethke’s lines! They settle in like an exhalation, the perfect companion to your musings. “This shaking keeps me steady” — isn’t that the crux of it all? How the very things that unmoor us can also root us in deeper truths?
Your story reminded me of a night years ago when I found myself awake at an odd hour. It had been a hard day. On a whim, I grabbed a coat and stepped outside, where I found a frost-covered world under a clear, starry sky. I wandered aimlessly, my breath forming tiny clouds, until I stumbled upon a frozen pond. It glowed faintly in the starlight, and I just stood there, overwhelmed by the quiet beauty of it. I’d been feeling so disconnected and burnt out, but in that moment, I felt oddly whole, as if the universe had gently nudged me to pay attention, to be present, to breathe.
Thank you for sharing your own moonlit pilgrimage — it inspires me to step into my own small meanderings with more wonder and maybe a little quilt-wrapped mischief.
I love how you took your night awakening and made it a magical moment. You’re really good at that. I haven’t been following you lately because I recently made my winter pilgrimage from upstate New York to West Palm Beach, always so much to do . Now that I am on the upside of 80 , sometimes I don’t sleep much and often wake before Dawn. the beauty is I get to sit on my front lanai and watch the first light and then the beautiful Florida pink sky. My two little dogs are always by my side. we listen as the world awakens. The birds, early risers in cars on Dixie Highway just a block away. Yesterday on my way to get sushi I watched and waited quite a while, to cross a busy road as our new president, who lives only across the intercoastal, headed for the airport with a motorcade of at least 50 cars. How did this happen? I ask myself, but I know that to be serene. I must accept that which I cannot change.🙏🏻
It is miraculous that so many of us were connected by that marvelous full moon. For me that reflects Gods presence in our world and the hope for peace.
Forever and a day, waking is way before dawn. Traveling, I Love to see the cities awakening, memories of fresh bread being left in a basket outside a store. Where was that? Turkey? Dog walking no matter how familiar the streets is an adventure with the unexpected. Quite early philosophical discussions for a minute or two with a fellow explorer from Turin. And then the pups Mozart whose parents house refugee children until their parents are settled. The little Westiie whose Mom and I have heated political discussions. And the lady with flowers on her walker. Her home is emblazoned with politics and love. We talk and she shares stories of life in Germany during unsettled times.
I think I was up with the very same moon, standing by the window watching. But you — you grabbed that quilt, you opened the door, you set off for an adventure into the woods, down by the creek, beside that dusting of snow. You've taken us all there. We've danced with you. And yes to Libby—to how and what we discover when we open ourselves to it.
I wake each night around two, search for the moon. Sometimes I never fall back to sleep. A few days ago, around five, I went outside, but only briefly. Suleika's story here is one of great beauty, and heartbreak, of course, and always. A dear friend of mine, Will Dowd, who is also living with a body that does not equal his great mind, has a Substack, the Lunar Dispatch, that tells the story of the full moon each month. He is a poet and historian with a soul-shatteringly gorgeous way of searching and seeing. His stack, when he is able to write it, might inspire your moon journey.
I admire your bravery Suleika! I felt like a little kid reading about your 3am walking adventure and your friend’s delightful walk in the darkness. For me, reaching out to a friend I raised babies with, and hadn’t seen in 30 years. We’ve reconnected our friendship. Her life has never changed in routine, playing canasta, and living in the same apartment all these years that when I reconnected I felt like I went back in time. My life has been all over the place, but what I’ve learned from my reconnection is we’re very different and I accept my friend the way she is not the way I want her to be, and she accepts me. What a gift and blessing! Thank you beautiful Suleika and thank you to this gorgeous community.
Thank you. The moon has seen me through some very tough times. She’s so steady and inviting. There are great comforts in her presence, gifts beyond measure. Heal well. Your voice is needed here for a lot longer. ✨
Fresh air is amazing. Sometimes I open the window over the bathtub to let in some fresh cold cold winter air. The contrast with the hot bath water is delicious. When I smoke a puff of medical marijuana, blow it hard out the window, the deer look up and we lock eyes. I don't make them nervous at all. They know me, the lady blowing puffs out of her window. We are accustomed to each other.
Thank you both for the lovely images. Happy Sunday.
What a delicious story and prompt. I just finished responding to another thoughtful prompt having to do with silence. That prompt issued an affirmation to all the reading I’ve been doing lately about Chinese Ch’an, books by David Hinton: “China Root”, “the selected poems of Wang Wei”, and “Awakened Cosmos”. In that prompt I wrote about a recent encounter with a small red fox. And now, coyote. Another lovely creature who always leaves me in silent wonder. What is it about dear red fox and coyote?
A few years ago I was living in a very small cottage nestled up against woods. One room was my living space, one room my ceramic studio. I would sit at the potter’s wheel throwing porcelain bowls, pause, look up to gaze out the window, to see an old barn covered in green moss, and just beyond the barn, an arch of branches inviting me into the woods. One day as I gazed out the window a coyote appeared in the arch of tree limbs. The coyote stood in silence, then disappeared. What a lovely mystery. Where did it come from? Where did it go?
Years later, now reading about Ch’an, I have words for the experience of silent wonder when red fox and coyote invite me to be still, very silently still. If you are interested, please refer to these books I mentioned. They will richly invite you, as red fox and coyote do, into a state of mirror-mind, quiet Consciousness witnessing itself. After this first sighting of coyote I would ache for another sighting. “Please come back, dear coyote”, became a daily wish. Then one day, feeling this ache, I gazed out my window and coyote stepped again into the arch of tree limbs. This coyote appeared, seemed to silently “say” “I am here”, then still as can be disappeared. Ch’an refers to Absence and Presence. Here in meeting red fox and coyote I experienced “mirror-mind”; what more can I say, other than “thank you”. 🏮
As you began to describe the walk towards the wood I could hear as clearly as if he was singing in my ear; “Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance …”
*Please know you are not alone in this time of physical pain and illness. I felt like you have been living in MY body and brain as you described the vague line between awake and asleep. Aware and asunder. I root for a better time soon; knowing we have only a modicum of control over such things at this point in the journey. I know we are all thinking of you and very grateful that amidst these trials you choose to give us the gift of a Moondance. ☮️❤️🌷
Delicious wild meanderings in the darkness. I like that .
My close quarters commitment to doing hbot with 2 friends. For 2 months daily , an hour and a half long sit in the 'roundhouse'.
Benefit , the commitment itself. The enforced isolation + 2. Moments of utter stillness interspersed with silliness. I bring books and paper , pencils and embroidery and phone and after all of the must-be busyness is out of my system, the delicious sensation of giving in to just being. Feeling safe with trusted people. A gift.
I live two blocks from the Mississippi River just a bit north of where it meets the Minnesota River. This is sacred Dakota land where they believed the world began. We are home to quite a few nesting pairs of bald eagles. Nests can be found along both rivers about every two miles or so. I keep tabs on each nest as I go about my walks here. It is mating season and soon the nests will hold one or two eggs and the precarious journey to fledgling and survival will begin. Eagles are monogamous and equally share the work of sitting on the eggs and then feeding and protecting the eaglets. It is a gift to be able to witness this amazing ritual in this wild place between two urban areas.
A cinematic quality to your moonish meandering accompanied by hounds. What a deeply precious moment Suleika. What a gift. Thank you for letting us peep inside.
I read Orbital by Samantha Harvey over Christmas while suffering from terminal flu (actually I felt furious, flu and cancer. Eff that!). And since then I am like a 5 year old about the night sky. Is that a star? A planet? What, actually Venus? Stopppp. But there they sit, winking and guiding us away from the trials on Earth and up to the cosmos, the beauty. Libby, thank you for sharing the idea of a ritual walk. Gosh 5am though! I am waiting for results of a scan to check on my lovely lungs. A walk, a frosty walk, yes. Thank you all here for seeing the beauty in the bricks. ✨
Hoping for good news about your lovely lungs. ❤️
It will be good news. I know it. 😚
I love your writings, and those of others that you share. My life is so busy, I go to work, 40 plus hours/week. My shift starts at 4am, so I usually don't get to spend much time outside in the morning. But, because I have dogs, I am always in and out with them. Thankfully, my yard is fairly private, and big enough that my ball chaser can run at full speed when I throw it (during daylight). Today I woke up to moonshine in my bedroom.
Thankyou for helping me to appreciate all this 💗
The tuxedo cat...one street away from my beloved home, and I see it climb from the sewer opening at the base of the sidewalk. We meet eyes as I slow my car to stop to a stop to let her cross the street. She took her time. I love that about cats. My gut reaction was to feel sorry for it (it's still snowy and cold here), but it was well nourished, glossy, and I then thought, "She is out for an adventure and is going anywhere she wants to go. I need to be more like her.
Love this! The confidence of kitties!
Your words are luminous, a perfect echo of that moonlit walk you so vividly describe. It’s rare to read something that feels both deeply personal and profoundly universal, but you’ve captured it here — the strange magic of the in-between hours, when the world is quiet enough to hear the pulse of life itself.
I love the image of you wrapped in a quilt, breath clouding the air, River and Sunshine transformed into solemn moonlit companions. That “thrumming fullness” you describe resonates — how illness, for all its cruelty, can paradoxically open up moments of connection to something vast and ineffable. It’s as though the universe slipped you a reminder in that silver glow: you are still wild, still part of the great rhythm.
And Roethke’s lines! They settle in like an exhalation, the perfect companion to your musings. “This shaking keeps me steady” — isn’t that the crux of it all? How the very things that unmoor us can also root us in deeper truths?
Your story reminded me of a night years ago when I found myself awake at an odd hour. It had been a hard day. On a whim, I grabbed a coat and stepped outside, where I found a frost-covered world under a clear, starry sky. I wandered aimlessly, my breath forming tiny clouds, until I stumbled upon a frozen pond. It glowed faintly in the starlight, and I just stood there, overwhelmed by the quiet beauty of it. I’d been feeling so disconnected and burnt out, but in that moment, I felt oddly whole, as if the universe had gently nudged me to pay attention, to be present, to breathe.
Thank you for sharing your own moonlit pilgrimage — it inspires me to step into my own small meanderings with more wonder and maybe a little quilt-wrapped mischief.
Gorgeous, all around.
Oh what delicious words. ⭐️
I love how you took your night awakening and made it a magical moment. You’re really good at that. I haven’t been following you lately because I recently made my winter pilgrimage from upstate New York to West Palm Beach, always so much to do . Now that I am on the upside of 80 , sometimes I don’t sleep much and often wake before Dawn. the beauty is I get to sit on my front lanai and watch the first light and then the beautiful Florida pink sky. My two little dogs are always by my side. we listen as the world awakens. The birds, early risers in cars on Dixie Highway just a block away. Yesterday on my way to get sushi I watched and waited quite a while, to cross a busy road as our new president, who lives only across the intercoastal, headed for the airport with a motorcade of at least 50 cars. How did this happen? I ask myself, but I know that to be serene. I must accept that which I cannot change.🙏🏻
It is miraculous that so many of us were connected by that marvelous full moon. For me that reflects Gods presence in our world and the hope for peace.
Forever and a day, waking is way before dawn. Traveling, I Love to see the cities awakening, memories of fresh bread being left in a basket outside a store. Where was that? Turkey? Dog walking no matter how familiar the streets is an adventure with the unexpected. Quite early philosophical discussions for a minute or two with a fellow explorer from Turin. And then the pups Mozart whose parents house refugee children until their parents are settled. The little Westiie whose Mom and I have heated political discussions. And the lady with flowers on her walker. Her home is emblazoned with politics and love. We talk and she shares stories of life in Germany during unsettled times.
I think I was up with the very same moon, standing by the window watching. But you — you grabbed that quilt, you opened the door, you set off for an adventure into the woods, down by the creek, beside that dusting of snow. You've taken us all there. We've danced with you. And yes to Libby—to how and what we discover when we open ourselves to it.
The same moon and what we do? That would be a great journal prompt. I am going to try the adventure next time!
This would be such a great prompt!
I wake each night around two, search for the moon. Sometimes I never fall back to sleep. A few days ago, around five, I went outside, but only briefly. Suleika's story here is one of great beauty, and heartbreak, of course, and always. A dear friend of mine, Will Dowd, who is also living with a body that does not equal his great mind, has a Substack, the Lunar Dispatch, that tells the story of the full moon each month. He is a poet and historian with a soul-shatteringly gorgeous way of searching and seeing. His stack, when he is able to write it, might inspire your moon journey.
I admire your bravery Suleika! I felt like a little kid reading about your 3am walking adventure and your friend’s delightful walk in the darkness. For me, reaching out to a friend I raised babies with, and hadn’t seen in 30 years. We’ve reconnected our friendship. Her life has never changed in routine, playing canasta, and living in the same apartment all these years that when I reconnected I felt like I went back in time. My life has been all over the place, but what I’ve learned from my reconnection is we’re very different and I accept my friend the way she is not the way I want her to be, and she accepts me. What a gift and blessing! Thank you beautiful Suleika and thank you to this gorgeous community.
Thank you. The moon has seen me through some very tough times. She’s so steady and inviting. There are great comforts in her presence, gifts beyond measure. Heal well. Your voice is needed here for a lot longer. ✨
Fresh air is amazing. Sometimes I open the window over the bathtub to let in some fresh cold cold winter air. The contrast with the hot bath water is delicious. When I smoke a puff of medical marijuana, blow it hard out the window, the deer look up and we lock eyes. I don't make them nervous at all. They know me, the lady blowing puffs out of her window. We are accustomed to each other.
Thank you both for the lovely images. Happy Sunday.
Sending love.
What a delicious story and prompt. I just finished responding to another thoughtful prompt having to do with silence. That prompt issued an affirmation to all the reading I’ve been doing lately about Chinese Ch’an, books by David Hinton: “China Root”, “the selected poems of Wang Wei”, and “Awakened Cosmos”. In that prompt I wrote about a recent encounter with a small red fox. And now, coyote. Another lovely creature who always leaves me in silent wonder. What is it about dear red fox and coyote?
A few years ago I was living in a very small cottage nestled up against woods. One room was my living space, one room my ceramic studio. I would sit at the potter’s wheel throwing porcelain bowls, pause, look up to gaze out the window, to see an old barn covered in green moss, and just beyond the barn, an arch of branches inviting me into the woods. One day as I gazed out the window a coyote appeared in the arch of tree limbs. The coyote stood in silence, then disappeared. What a lovely mystery. Where did it come from? Where did it go?
Years later, now reading about Ch’an, I have words for the experience of silent wonder when red fox and coyote invite me to be still, very silently still. If you are interested, please refer to these books I mentioned. They will richly invite you, as red fox and coyote do, into a state of mirror-mind, quiet Consciousness witnessing itself. After this first sighting of coyote I would ache for another sighting. “Please come back, dear coyote”, became a daily wish. Then one day, feeling this ache, I gazed out my window and coyote stepped again into the arch of tree limbs. This coyote appeared, seemed to silently “say” “I am here”, then still as can be disappeared. Ch’an refers to Absence and Presence. Here in meeting red fox and coyote I experienced “mirror-mind”; what more can I say, other than “thank you”. 🏮
As you began to describe the walk towards the wood I could hear as clearly as if he was singing in my ear; “Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance …”
*Please know you are not alone in this time of physical pain and illness. I felt like you have been living in MY body and brain as you described the vague line between awake and asleep. Aware and asunder. I root for a better time soon; knowing we have only a modicum of control over such things at this point in the journey. I know we are all thinking of you and very grateful that amidst these trials you choose to give us the gift of a Moondance. ☮️❤️🌷
I have just joined substack and I really enjoy reading you! Thank you for the inspiration! Wishing you loads more moondances <3
Delicious wild meanderings in the darkness. I like that .
My close quarters commitment to doing hbot with 2 friends. For 2 months daily , an hour and a half long sit in the 'roundhouse'.
Benefit , the commitment itself. The enforced isolation + 2. Moments of utter stillness interspersed with silliness. I bring books and paper , pencils and embroidery and phone and after all of the must-be busyness is out of my system, the delicious sensation of giving in to just being. Feeling safe with trusted people. A gift.
I live two blocks from the Mississippi River just a bit north of where it meets the Minnesota River. This is sacred Dakota land where they believed the world began. We are home to quite a few nesting pairs of bald eagles. Nests can be found along both rivers about every two miles or so. I keep tabs on each nest as I go about my walks here. It is mating season and soon the nests will hold one or two eggs and the precarious journey to fledgling and survival will begin. Eagles are monogamous and equally share the work of sitting on the eggs and then feeding and protecting the eaglets. It is a gift to be able to witness this amazing ritual in this wild place between two urban areas.
Very exciting …nesting bald eagles!
Here in Valley Forge we have a heron rookery. These birds and wild ones are such a gift!