Kate's Impressions

Kate is a high school Special Education teacher committed to the cross sections of social justice, environmentalism, and spirituality. Oakland, CA

Also in the video is Ben, a geologist and experiential educator who recently completed a 30-year career in environmental consulting and now teaches high school environmental sciences. Orinda, CA.

Expressions: Moon Story*

Kate's Moon Story introduction: This children's story came to me on one of the last evenings on the solo time during the vision fast. So many nuanced, complicated feelings had surfaced during the course of my solo time on the land and I wanted a way to be able to whittle them down to a level my 2 year old niece could understand. The moon had just risen and with it the question "does the moon ever miss the earth?"

Moon Story

The moon once broke off from the earth. It used to be rock and mountain and magma and ocean floor, just like all the land that you know. It used to spin in one with earth. It was the earth, it is earth. Everything was normal until one morning. BOOOOOOOOM. A boom louder than you can ever imagine. A boom louder than when Mommy drops the groceries on the counter. In that moment an asteroid hit the earth, and as a result, part of the earth broke off spinning head over heels into space, into orbit.

The earth would never forget that sweet chunk, it would leave a crater in the Earth to always remember.

The chunk of earth kept spinning higher and higher, getting better and better views of the Earth. Hey look there's Hawaii! Greenland is looking particularly cold today! She loved this vantage point. She had never such magic. Traveling through stars, watching comets zoom by, she never thought of herself as an adventurer until now.

It was dark out there, so dark that she sometimes got scared. She sometimes felt alone. She wasn't sure if there were creepy crawlies up here like back at home or if there were different forms of life. But she learned a trick, if she dug down deep, told herself it was going to be okay, and asked for a little help from the sun, she could start to glow. She glowed so hard, she lit up the night.

Spinning and spinning in space eventually rounded her out just like pizza dough, and when she learned to LOVE her curves and her own craters, she decided she'd stay put for a while.

She loved her new home. She had plenty of room to herself, plenty of room to play, she loved her views, she loved seeing the stars, she loved the feeling of crisp air, she loved being able to smile back at home.

But just like every adventurer, she sometimes missed home. Missed the way her bed felt and the soft touch of wind and rain. Some nights she could see her crater back down on earth and longed to be back there. This feeling created the waves of the ocean. The moving tides. She yearned so strong, she created something so beautiful.

But she's older now. Wiser now. And sometimes when brave campers are sleeping outside at night and, look up at the moon, they ask: Does the moon ever want to be back here with Earth?

The moon smiles and says: Sometimes it sounds nice to rest my head back down on Earth like you, but that would mean not having danced with the stars or having learned about this light that glows inside me, or not learning to love my roundedness and my cracks, not seeing all the beautiful sights I've seen. So the answer, my child, is I will always love the Earth, I will always call it home, I will tuck it in every night and tell it I love it, and keep my adventures with me. I do not wish away my cracked past and my crooked nose.

Child, may you always know your cracks and curves are blessings.