SELENE’S BOW

My dear, perceptive reader, I come back to you today with an incident, an anecdote, if you will, which set off a rather…….shall we say, unusual chain of thought within me.

About half a week ago, I saw one of the most beautiful sights of my life, a lunar rainbow!! The light of the moon differentially refracted by the mass of the clouds framing her face, creating a ring of colours, like a halo around a saint, only this was no ordinary saint I saw that day, assuredly, it was a bearer of the passion.

But, unfortunately, I had on me at that time, no way to capture the moment. So, trudging back to my room, I put out my feelers by means of that most loyal of friends, Google!! On a whim, I searched for rainbow paintings, and found not a few, but absolutely NO paintings with a lunar rainbow as the artists muse. So I asked myself, as I ask you now, my dear reader, why the lopsidedness? Why are the bursts of vibrant colour considered the sole prerogative of Helios, who cries rivers of gold? Why is Selene (Luna of the Romans) relegated to a backseat, her display of colour considered merely an aberration, something adorable, no doubt, but yet not grand or worthy of immortalization through the hands of an artist? Why must this fairest of the gods; pale maiden with the very stars as her freckles on her fair visage, sister of the Sun, mistress of the silver chariot, dispeller of the dark, temperamental as a teenager and yet mature and consistent as a matriarch, why must she be marginalized thus? This favorite of many poets, especially love poets bathes the world with her silvery light, especially beautiful when it caresses the water of a brook, bringing the feeling of romance. It is said that Selene's moon rays fall upon sleeping mortals, as her kisses fell upon her love, Endymion.

Why do we express awe at the sun and its majesty and yet treat the moon as naught but a toddler, to be coddled but yet not taken seriously? All this does is expose a larger malaise in society, our inability to break free of the bias of the collective consciousness. We form our opinions based on the opinions of our fathers and are very reluctant to discard and/or change them.

To be very honest, I am afraid of the sun. The idea of so much power in the hands of something so temperamental, so unstable terrifies me. And yet, on the other hand, Selene like a mother comes out and coddles me each night. Even on the nights she is absent, I still feel her presence, and know she is watching over me and smiling. Her power is subtle, a far cry from the blazing infernos of her brother Helios, and yet it is no less strong. She is, after all, the mistress of the waters. From her immortal head a radiance is shown from heaven and embraces earth; and great is the beauty that arises from her shining light. But then one wonders, why is she not accorded the same status in the Pantheon as is her brother? Is it just a lack of fear, a narrowness of perspective? Why, my dear reader, does one not realize that the light of the moon, while just as useful as that of the sun, poses no threat at all to us. It is a benign light, a light born of the smile of a lovely lady, a fair goddess. And yet, she looks down upon us and weeps, but even in her weeping she gives to you, my dear perceptive reader, her “Rivers of Silver”.