I took my first full moon walk at Joseph Grant park. It was from 8-10pm, led by two rangers. We were half an hour late, fortunately we caught up with the group just before dark. There were about 15 people, from kids to seniors, some with fancy night vision light (which l learned is a red light), reminds me of those ghost hunting shows. The lead ranger did the talking, he’s done it 4-5 times, walking with a stick and red light on his forehead. He has a good solid pace, once a while will stop and point out frogs in the grass. I’m amazed how he can see it, maybe it’s the red light, maybe from his experience.
It’s a little less than 2 miles walk, on a trail I’m quite familiar with, since we’ve done it many times in the daylight. At night, it all looks very different, I can still see the silhouette of trees, mountains, the rest all melt into the darkness. The sound effect is amazing: the screeching of owls and some other nameless birds, crickets chorusing in the valley, once a while a jackrabbit or maybe a deer got scared and sprung up and out into the darkness. That is a totally different world, summer night in the mountains!
The moon never came out during our walk though, until right after we got back. While walking back to the car, the brightest moon suddenly jumped out the edge of the dark rim, lighting up the entire valley. Knowing our trail should be lit up by the beautiful moon light put a smile on my face: that’s between me and the mountains.
Even though it was a moonless moonlight walk, I enjoyed it immensely. The rising moon hanging over the rim of mountain, along with the sound of summer night mountains are forever etched in my mind. To me that is Santosha in Yoga, contentment: enjoy what you have, embrace what is perfectly imperfect.