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Lunar Reflections

December 3, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scarfield

I saw the face in this month’s full moon over last weekend. It was only late afternoon but the sunset was washing the sky in pale pink and the moon floated gracefully in the lovely colour, its facial features clearly detailed. 

Maybe there is a “man in the moon,” although nowadays we can shuffle off that gender coil and call the moon a person. It is a plain and simple face, eyes and mouth obvious, with no hair lines. Yes, yes, l know no proofs of extraterrestrial life on the moon have evidenced themselves as yet: one basic, hugely publicized man landing (“one small step…”) is the only one; otherwise scans and photos, up close and personal, and China has sent a robot to bring back some moon stuff….

When you think about all the talk of going to live on Mars, it really is remarkable how tied to the earth we still are.

Yet, we are making ourselves pretty well known to our cosmic neighbours by all the junk with which we have cluttered our own space – not a great beginning for our future as members of an intergalactic community. They’ll scoff when they talk about Terrestrials and call us purveyors of garbage and war.

On one of the most perfect planets in the Universe, we have spent our entire existence trying to destroy it and on a steady hunt for methods of causing pain and death to all our fellow creatures, including our own kind. 

Resilient as cockroaches, no matter all the cruel killing, deadly viruses and a massive climate crisis we inflict on ourselves, our global population numbers are escalating, while the numbers of Nature’s whole world is diminishing at a frightening rate. 

Those far-off beings watching us from space might well comment that Terrestrial will never travel far – their failings will keep them grounded, adding, “Let’s hope so.”

Mankind is not worthy to travel to the stars. In our other times of discovering new worlds, did we take enlightenment with us? Did we look for enlightenment in the places we invaded? No. We took disease and war with us and contempt and destruction as a reaction to the cultures that we found. 

Trekkie though l am, l cannot believe in the theory that the universe, with all its many species ( which l do believe), are all violent, battle-hungry, aggressive and deceptive, all dire failings, of which the series and the movies portray them. Even those they encounter, who appear to have beautiful, peaceful lives inevitably shelter a darker existence, frequently worse than many. Art reflecting what it know’s best. 

However, that cannot be possible. Somewhere in the endless universe, there must be truly intelligent life.

This wasted year of pandemic has more or less shut down the world. It was accurately predicted years ago by knowledgeable people, whose warnings were ignored by national leaders – everywhere. Not until Coronavirus had a grip were there moves to stop it. Too late, far too late and the global economy is a ship on the rocks, which will be righted by terrifying shifts in control, where the rules of monopoly are suddenly gone and government is re-designed in very dangerous ways.

Mankind is not worthy of space travel. Our colonization has ever been considered a “fresh start” but all we do is take our brutality to each new landing. Go to Mars? If there is anything there of value, we will claim and diminish it. Find a planet with life on it? We will “conquer” and banish them if we can, spreading our many diseases of thought and behaviour.

No. We must take a huge portion of the vast sum of money being spent on abandoning this all-but ruined planet and turn those fortunes back to the earth. All that is needed to do what we must is known; what is missing is the benign and serious will. If the force of profit is all that can actually and quickly move change in the right directions, then figure it out.

Garbage, fuels, food, conflict and poverty combine for such filth that our earth and bodies are poisoned by it.

No. Better by far to contain our fantasies of space with telescopic research, admiring and learning from what we can see, with our feet on the ground or in in space, limited to the international space station.

Much later, in the night, most of the way to the morning, the brilliant full moon swam in a black sky, wherein its powerful light buried nearly all the stars. A thin haze washed the panorama to give the moon an air of mystery. We have been in love with it, watching it, singing to it; lovers have been united by it, even at a distance, while it turns its fabled face towards us and grieves.

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