Hang It On The Moon

Hang It On The Moon

There was once a little girl born under a waning crescent moon. Her father, an amateur artist, presented her mother with a custom hand-painted art work of the infant sound asleep cuddled on the arch. The picture hung over her bed all of her childhood years. She carried it to her college dorm room and to her first home when she started adulting on her own with the first job of her career as a space scientist. While others romanticized about the full moon she felt an unwavering attachment to that slender hook of a moon.

Perhaps it was the influence of that curved crescent cradling the innocent infant but she can not remember a time when she was not a scientist interested in the heavenly bodies. Her trips to the library with her mother as a preschooler had her searching out books on planets and solar systems and the beautiful aurora borealis. Her grandfather brought her striated rocks to study from the quarry he managed. Santa brought planetariums, microscopes, chemistry sets, geology books, and math toys every year. Posters on her teen-age walls were of the Saturnian system and lunar maps not rock bands and smoldering hot movie stars.

So the child had moon dust in her lungs and stars in her eyes. She was a child of the cosmos, a ruler of the skies...

First personal connections with outer space probably had to do with having more opportunities than most other kids to see the night sky. Her parents were in college or graduate school for most of her childhood and since her father worked until three or four in the morning as a member of the military, the household was naturally shifted to the night-time hours and all engaged in cheap forms of entertainment, such as low-tech stargazing.

The mystic of the moon was a natural draw. Never sleeping much before midnight, she'd stay up at night thinking, or staring out a window, and this evolved into thinking too hard about what was up there. The silvery beams beckoned.

Knowing it was either planetary science or insanity, the aspiring researcher doubled majored in astronomy and geology. From there it was a simple straight shot besides connecting with anyone in the field and developing entrepreneurial skills to be prepared to be able to write winning grants and presentations.

To become successful get a High School Diploma and of course Bachelor's Degree. Then Master's Degree and on to Ph.D. followed by Postdoctoral Appointment(s) and finally Principle Investigator which equals a Real Job. Simple step by step how to be a space scientist.

The official job title is research scientist. Research scientists make a living by developing ideas and serving as principal investigators on grants and contracts. Grants one has to win to stay employed. Research scientists can work in universities, national labs or other institutes. A theorist or experimentalist does scientific experiments and computer calculations, as well as manage project budgets and people.

Research specialties can be in planetary science and astrophysics. A planetary scientist is someone who studies solar systems and also anything found in a solar system, like planets, moons, asteroids, meteorites, comets or dust. Planetary scientists are generally hybrid experts in astronomy, geology, chemistry, physics, and/or biology. Astrophysicists focus more on how physics is applied to astronomical objects like stars, galaxies, the interstellar medium, etc.

As happens to most young women she met a young man. Not having a lot of time outside her field of study to meet others, he was in the same line of work. Common to the nature of the course they didn't have control over where in the world they might be called. Still they fell in love and put the moon into service as their go to liaison. When finally able to co-exist the natural progression happened and now they have the crescent moon art work hanging above the crib of their own little asteroid. Maybe the next generation of moon gazer?

Not into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) like this little girl? Who she is is not important. Like the phases of the moon tracking across the night sky it is the career path she chose to make her astral dreams reality.

Let's reflect upon the luminous moon of earth and all the meanings it has for humankind. How many volumes have been written in prose, poetic verse or song about the celestial body?

Imagine moonstruck lovers on lovers' lane gazing at the full serene moon making pledges to one another. He'll lasso the shimmering moon for her, get her everything she wants. They may sing to each other the moonlight serenade. Struggling once in a very blue moon after parting then longing over moon river to be in each other's arms again. Fighting the moon and the sky not to give up the relationship after trying their best. Finally running out of moonlight as they want to spend as much time with the other before they walk out forever.

How many have howled at the cloud shrouded harvest moon feeling wild and free? Or crept in shadows of the spectral moon looking for hope in hopeless situations? Searched for a sense of reality in a dream-like world under a paper moon? Shame blamed the moon for loss of innocence? Shot the moon when love changes like the seasons?

For millenniums everyone has been drawn towards the beacon at the window to talk to the man in the moon hoping he will understand how it feels to be away from the one they love or how hard it is to over come life challenges. Will he see the duality of human nature how the world often sees the worst in us? Can you hang your heart out on that hook of the crescent moon knowing he'll watch over it for you until you are ready to trust it to another?

The moon proves you do not have to be whole in order to shine. Even if only a slice is showing the whole moon is there. Just as it gravitates the oceans it can pull you to its ever beaming reflection of sunlight and tug at your heartstrings. If you are to love, love like the moon loves. It does not steal the night, it only unveils the beauty of the dark as it keeps its silent watch.

Each of us is like the moon - cratered with imperfections and concealing a dark side. The moon keeps secrets. Tell it whatever weighs on your heart. Hang your troubles on the moon. It may give you a wink and float them away. It may cradle you like an innocent child and lull you to sleep in peace.