🌕 Moonbeams✨Mythes & Madness 💫

I sit in the darkness of my yard. I’m grateful for the warmer air, especially since I fled the house with no coat.

The rhythmic hooting of a nearby owl calms me. I am struggling to regain my composure, to slow down my racing thoughts. I want to disappear into the night but the full moon bathes me in her light. I feel crazy. I think I am a “lunar”~tic.

While I may not writher around on the ground sprouting fur when exposed to the monthly glow of a full moon sky, it would seem my fangs do grow sharper, and my bark has bite.

It’s not to say I embark on a spree of verbally striking down just anyone who has the misfortune to cross my path as much as it’s more an inability to control my primal response when confronted with fear or anger during this particular lunar phase.

My teens, twenties & thirties I wrote my monthly mood swings off to pms. In my early forties when I was smacked straight into surgically induced menopause I assumed that on top of the obvious menopausal crazies, the one intensely coming out of my skin day a month was a phantom pms of sorts. Now here we are, a good few years past menopause and still I have a monthly day or two break from sanity.

Maybe what I am and have always been at the mercy of, is the moon.

Who hasn’t heard tales that hospital ER’s and jails or asylums are all the more challenging during full moons. I’ve read that crime increases on full moon nights. Some people speak of not being able to sleep. And of course there’s the fact that she (the moon) commands the oceans < now that’s power.

My sun and moon sign are the same. In the daylight sweet Libra boasts such characteristics as peace loving, fairness, and balance.

Under the light of the moon my lovely Libra personality possesses traits like outrageous flirtatiousness, an insatiable appetite for fun, and mercilessly demands loyalty from those who surround her.

The moon captivates me. I constantly find myself in awe of her beauty and her force. She is surrounded by both mythical magic and concrete science.

Moonbeams reaching into the very core of who I am, releasing an animalistic wildness does not seem out of the realm of possibility. And with such creative phrasing can almost make it seem dark, yet desirable. Freedom from society’s emotional restraints. How wickedly enticing….

Ahhh as much as I rather find myself enjoying the spin put on my occasional outrageous behavior of being some fair haired unruly moon fairy jacked up on sparkling stardust, science might see it differently….Mental Illness.

Hmmm. Well then….Turns out with a quick Google search that there actually is a documented link between bipolar disorder and the effects of the full moon.

Have I been trying to dress up psychotic breaks as pure unbridled fiery passionate moments?

I often acknowledge child me as painfully shy but if given the honest appraisal hindsight affords, the truth is it was more in line with paralyzing anxiety.

Creative cocktails of various ingredients starting around the age of 13 were the elixir that allowed me to come out of hiding and join the world. And join the world I did, I took it by storm.

That worked until it didn’t work anymore.

I suppose that could be considered the good ol’ self medicating approach. I just didn’t know that was what I was doing.

I was raised by a generation that believed you don’t show your crazy. You tuck it in, squash it down, lock it up…I have resisted this deeply rooted subconscious response as best as I’ve been able and subsequently banished a demon or two, but somewhere they remain. They have tucked themselves into the deepest darkest corners and there they stay docile until the full moon’s light is so bright it reaches into those crevices and stirs them up.

The ones I have met and acknowledged and named are the least terrifying but then there are those I run from. They are the ugliest parts of me. Some months they make their presence known more than others, and some they remain slightly more subdued.

If in fact the power of the moon does influence these moods of mine perhaps the worst corresponds with “super” moons closer to the earth, the same way their gravitational pull creates extreme low tides. That sounds like a plausible theory though with no real basis as I’ve got a somewhat unscientific simple mind. Maybe there just so happens to be other very real triggers happening in my life simultaneously and combined with the moon create a perfect storm.

Regardless, the moon now wanes and I grow more settled. I gaze at the night sky without trepidation as each evening it moves closer to my favorite phase of crescent moon…a Cheshire Cat smile.

I have a choice to make. Do I wait until my demons rise again, the way they always eventually do, or maybe it’s time to invite them out into the light of a new day.

Shall I introduce myself and learn their names? Whatever names that might be~depression~anxiety~mania~ptsd~etc.

It’s more likely I’ll slip back into denial. My general happiness and love of life is real and it propels me through most days with a well balanced ease that makes it so difficult to recall the fear felt on a moonlight night when I am helpless to contain my flurry of emotions.

Then again I have left this trail of words on a page to remind myself where I’ve been. I suppose it’s up to me now where I might go next…