In the fading light of dusk a waxing crescent hangs on the horizon. A Pale Beauty moth emerges into her first night, dressed in the ephemeral wings of her ancestors. She is surrounded by paper birch leaves.
Like the Moon, she is just emerging, cast with the shimmer of new things. Vibrant and untouched, her wings have not lost one scale.
There are many Pale Beauties cocooned within us, things that have been tucked away, sleeping, waiting for their time to emerge. But we are hesitant to release them. We want to protect the pale beauties of the world, whether they be our own children, or our ideas, or things we have crafted from our hands and hearts. We do not want them to lose one scale from their luminous wings. We do not want them to be the meal of a bat or owl.
But release them we must, for the world needs their newness, their perfect color, their shimmering wings. And yes, their wings will tatter, and the owls will eat, and the Moon will grow full. And some will return to us, heavy with eggs, and stories, and as the Moon folds herself into darkness we will find ourselves once again holding the dark grains of secrets. We will find the Earth’s potent imagination quickening within us once again.