Six Words: skilled, continuous, moon, inspiration, gem, vision
The moon has revolved around the earth continuously since it formed, perhaps by being a chunk that broke off from the Earth in some cataclysmic collision. A collision so cataclysmic that it is hard to envision. Since time immemorial, the moon has not only affected the tides, it has also affected creatures on Earth. Many people are affected emotionally, but as far as I know, there are only a few creatures that are affected physically. We’ve heard wolves or coyotes howling at the full moon. If we haven’t heard them ourselves, we’ve heard about it.
Men are affected by the moon, and so are women, but they are affected differently. Some of those differences have changed as people changed, from being roaming hunters and gatherers, to shepherds and farmers, to gathering in towns and cities. Some of those differences go back to our earliest beginnings, before people wrote poems and songs or looked through telescopes. When did ancient humans first notice that the moon shrinks and grows and shrinks again about every 28 days? When did people, especially women, realize that the moon isn’t the only thing on a 28 day cycle? Only a few other mammals have such a recognizable experience. The great apes do, and so do some monkeys. So do bats, elephant shrews, and spiny mice. Gravity explains why the tides have a 28 day cycle, but why mammals? It’s not going to be important to this story, but why don’t lions, or tigers or bears react to the moon. Or birds? Or fish?
Men are affected by the moon in a way that doesn’t occur on any regular cycle, nor even to all men. Some – and not only men – skilled and unskilled, write poetry about the moon. Some men see the moon as an inspiration, as a gem floating in the sky. John F. Kennedy inspired the nation in a speech to Congress on May 25, 1961. You will all remember the words: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” At the same time, he asked for increased funding for defense and foreign aid; and for economic recovery, including job training programs and measures to combat unemployment – things that help people. Later that year, at Rice University, he said: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
He wasn’t the last president to lay out bold and noble challenges. There have been others since, and there will be again. I can hardly wait.