Not to be outdone by the morning light, tonight’s sky was also as impressive as yesterday’s dawn.

While the full moon was technically last night, driving home this evening and seeing it low in the sky, bathed in a reddish-orange haze, was a sight to behold. It reminded me of a book called Moon of Popping Trees, for no other reason than because of the Native American names given to each month’s full moon. “Wolf Moon” is January’s, since the hungry wolf packs — searching for food during the frigid, snowy season — could be heard howling outside the villages.

As the freeway would bend slightly, different shapes were backlit. Buildings and towers boasted crisp, inky-black outlines; more than once a plane’s silhouette was revealed, only to disappear as the aircraft continued on its journey. Palm trees were my favorite thing to identify, their tall stalks exploding into a comical, spiny mess, not unlike a jester’s hat.

The Moon of Popping Trees was the name for the month of December. The Lakota would say that you could hear the branches and small twigs snapping in the freezing air; it’s an appropriate name for me, for last month. I felt mostly out of sorts the majority of those 31 days, something I suppose wasn’t helped by the knee issues and ingestion of pain medication. Not much seemed to warm the right side of my brain, and I was searching for a new project to latch onto.

Enter: January. Wolf Moon, a moon that spoke of the hunger surrounding it. With a renewed focus on writing and a few new songs in the works, I find tonight’s moon a nice reminder that even as the months change, so will one’s outlook if you allow it.  

Tonight I am grateful for the simple pleasures of being at home, hungry to create. Whether it be music or writing, the output is worthwhile so long as the heart sings.

“Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.” -Michael Landon