Although not apparent at first, this tiny white ripple appeared in the corner of an otherwise fairly cluttered shot taken on an early morning walk along the Turon river - shooting reflections at 10 megapixels gave enough room to crop to about 10% of the original and there she was: pale phoebe, goddess of the moon. Called Hecate before she had risen and after she had set; as Astarte when crescent and Diana or Cynthia when in the open vault of heaven; as Phoebe when looked upon as sister of the sun (Phoebus) and Selene or Luna, the lover of the sleeping Endymion.
Beneath the surface is a river bed made famous in the 1851 gold rush for the rich alluvial gold it produced and the 10,000 miners who worked it, flecks and even small nuggets of which can still be found almost anywhere along its course.
The ancestors would have known exactly if the moon was rising or setting as well as its phase and worshiped accordingly; living as we do in cities and high rise and of course no longer revering her, except for the dedicated few; we are now mostly unaware of her activity.
Trout fishing in particular reawakens for me the awareness of the old natural cycles, fly casting quietly from the lake shore in the darkness, using the moon's reflection on the water to find the line on the surface and locate the ripples of a rising fish, observing the feeding activity periods that ebb and flow through the night as invertebrates react to lunar activity, changing position as the reflection path angles away, wiggling cold toes, lifting mud-stuck waders...see also the Bard
