The Woman in the Moon
by Dana Gerhardt

We all know of the man in the moon.  There’s a rabbit in the moon too (as you may remember from a previous column of mine).  But I wonder if you know about the woman in the moon.  I learned of her from an old Chippewa tale. Nearly every winter since, there’s always a wistful moment when I long for more light, and looking at the moon, I remember her story.  It is that time again. 

The only child of She Eagle and Dawn of Day, Lone Bird was proud and strong and beautiful.  Braves from all camps of the Chippewa nation sought her favor, but not one of them won her heart.  Soon everyone was saying that Lone Bird’s heart was like winter’s ice.  Trying to breathe warmth into the situation, her father sang the praises of several braves he knew.  With that beautiful curving mouth of hers and her round, soulful eyes, she just smiled:  “The dear love of my parents is all I need.” 

After an exasperating season, her father decided to choose her mate by contest.  He sponsored a foot race among the top braves.  Everyone came but Lone Bird, who spent the day inside her tent.  The race was both exciting and strange.  It ended in a tie between two braves, Bending Bow and Hunter of Deer.  Both had loved Lone Bird for many moons.  They raced again.  They got the same result.  They tried a jumping contest.  Neither could beat the other.  Next day they held a hunting contest.  Each threw down the same number of skins, ten bears and twenty wolves.  The elders of the tribe began muttering.  Surely Great Spirit’s hand was at work in the matter.  Reluctantly, Dawn of Day called off the contest. 

Summers passed, autumn leaves fell.  Lone Bird watched her parents age.  She grew sad.  Winter came.  And as if for the first time, she wondered, what would come of her after they were gone?  She had no brother nor sister, no children, no one to share her tent with.  For the first time she felt lonely, realizing that neither flowers, nor trees, not even the wild geese lived alone.  Still, she was glad she hadn’t wed.  She sat on a rock in the forest for a long time, until the moon rose, marking a silvery path across the lake.  “You are beautiful,” she said to the moon.  “If only I had you to love, I wouldn’t be lonely.”

No one saw what happened next.  Had Great Spirit heard her cry?  When Lone Bird failed to return to her tent, her worried parents searched camp and forest.  “Have you seen Lone Bird?” they asked all around, but everyone shook their head.  In great despair, they looked up at the shining moon.  And there, they found their daughter.  Held in the pale moon’s arms, she smiled down at them in such a way that their grief disappeared. She had found her mate.  They knew she would now be cared for, tenderly and soulfully, by the constant, loving moon.

Lone Bird finds light and love in the middle of winter.  Her loneliness is relieved, her heart warmed.  Sometimes when I think of this story, I marvel at Lone Bird’s courage.  She knows her own mind and stands her ground until her mysterious karma can ripen.  Hers was a family-oriented culture, where mating meant one’s very survival.  Resisting this tradition couldn’t have been easy.  I’ve also read Lone Bird’s story and felt a deep kinship with her desire to remain single.  I too have spent many seasons alone, with little interest in finding a mate.  At those times I’ve been encouraged by the story’s resolution.  Most of my culture’s fairy tales won’t stop until they find some suitor clever enough to come to a reluctant maiden’s rescue.  It’s hard not to read that as a negative commentary on being a woman (or man) alone, which many of us are, or have been. 

This year, in my own fairy tale, such a clever suitor finally did show up.  And after spending many winters as a single mom with one son, I now find myself in a full and noisy house, with a mate and three new step children.  And yet, I can still relate to Lone Bird.  Why?  It seems there is a deeper loneliness that goes beyond the presence of lover, family and friends.  And I think it’s often the austere beauty of winter that brings this out.  Recently I was talking with a wise friend about depression.  I asked her what she thought was at the root of this emotion.  Her theory was that we become depressed when we are separated from our own divinity.  “Depression,” she said, “may be a natural, even intelligent, reaction to feeling disconnected from the spiritual world.” 

I remembered the story of Lone Bird and wondered if the desire to connect with spirit was the real meaning of her going to the moon.  Perhaps she showed us that we can indeed bridge the separation between ourselves and the great divine world.  And maybe tonight that is the hope…  offered by the woman living in the moon, smiling above, around, and within us all. 

See James Riordan, The Woman in the Moon and Other Tales of Forgotten Heroines, (Dial Books for Young Readers, 1985)