Breezes from Wonderland

Last week a reporter writing about the space shuttle asked me about moons and myths. We discussed solar mythology and the nineteenth-century belief that fairy tales enact cosmological dramas, and I pointed to the fluid boundaries between humans and heavenly bodies in Native America lore.  There are also an extraordinary number of children’s picture books either about the moon (starting with Goodnight Moon) or with the moon in the background (Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen). I like the idea of the moon as a “celestial body” (both spiritual and material) that provides comfort, brightness, and beauty in the dark.

And of course there is Moonstruck, which has the moon waxing and waning during the midlife crisis of the character played by Cher.  The connection between the moon and romance seems fairly obvious!