title: The Moon in Hand : A Mystical Passage
author: Eclipse
description: "...gentle enough to be used with children; but powerful enough to reshape your world. Use it and enjoy it." -- <i>Luisah Teisch, author of Jambalaya </i><br /><br />"A lovely book of rituals and meditations that will be a valuable resource..." -- <i>Starhawk, author of The Spiral Dance, and The Twelve Wild Swans </i><br /><br />"The rituals, exercises and teachings in [this book] are simple, elegant and infused with Eclipse's tender, personal touch..." -- <i>Margot Adler, author of Drawing Down the Moon</i>
zlib_text: ## CHAPTER XIV.
  
  
  ## HURLED FROM THE MOON.
  
  
    
  
  
  Together we stood gazing in silence out into the abyss over the small surface
  of the moon that was visible to us, oppressed with a sense of awe as the sun
  dropped from sight, leaving us plunged in darkness.
  
  
  Suddenly there appeared from out of the inky blackness of the heavens a huge
  crescent, stretching across the sky far above us. The sight of it fascinated
  us, and, as we stood lost in admiration at the majestic proportions of the
  beautiful arch of light, ever growing in width, we gradually realized that it
  was the sun-tipped rim of the planet which our moon was journeying around—the
  world from which we had been hurled and to which we must return.
  
  
  A sense of great reverence overpowered me; I realized that we looked upon
  sights, and felt great forces never before bared to mortals. Through my mind
  ran lines of Addison's ode:
  
  
  > "The spacious firmament on high
  
    
  
  > With all the blue ethereal sky,
  
    
  
  > And spangled heavens, a shin