Tonight’s Snow Moon is so spectacular that even after an egregiously long day at work, I must share an excerpt from the equally spectacular 2012 Earth Story Calendar by local creative, Peter Adair.

The February page of his calendar opens with these show stopping words:

Earth Adopts a Child: The Moon Appears

I’ve never met Peter, but I’m studying to be a yoga teacher with a friend of his, who gifted us this calendar.

I’m a gift lover so this was a nice surprise, but it wasn’t until February that the magic of it began to unfold.

While the art of January’s Supernova Event was stunning, it’s February’s Moon that drew me in. Like a ballad, the accompanying text sweeps me up into its story again and again.

According to Peter, it’s inspired by the work of a mathematical cosmologist (Geez, where do they go to school?) who is described as having a heart of a poet.

No kidding:

Soon after Earth’s formation, during a time when asteroids rain upon the fledgling solar system, a sizeable intruder strikes our globe in a sideswipe  collision. From this shuddering meeting, a portion of Earth’s body spews into space. The interloper, its momentum reduced through the encounter, succumbs to Earth’s gravitational embrace and is received into orbit. There, it coalesces with the scattered material of Earth and becomes our Moon.

My gosh! Is it me or does that take your breath away?
But don’t stop there, it continues…

Earth’s daughter gradually slows our planet’s spin to its accustomed twenty-four hour rotation, establishes the axial tilt making possible the four seasons, and produces the caressing tides along shorelines that will become the fecund wombs of evolving life.

Who needs March when February makes you swoon;
and No, I haven’t looked ahead.
That’s taboo!
But how fortunate are we to live in such a place–
with such a daughter shining above us.

It wasn’t until I moved to Vermont that I began to truly notice the moon. Others taught me how. Women mostly. And now Peter, and his “ode to creation” in the Earth Story Calendar.  I kind of feel bad for telling you about it because it looks like they’re sold out.

There’s always next year, and in the meantime, take a drink of that gorgeous daughter in the sky.

Kelly Salasin, Snow Moon, 2012

More from the Earth Story Calendar:

The scientific account of Earth’s formation and development is a story of vibrant creativity and  stunning transformation. The journey begins within the fiery core of a star, and concludes  (for now) with the emergence of a species able  to comprehend its origin. We have learned that the unfolding of the human is interwoven with the unfolding of the planet. This is the theme of Earth Story calendar.