Crescent Moon And Stars Quotes

The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.

Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky, Won't you sing your song to Earth as she passes by? Your sweetest silver melody, a rhythm and a ryme, A lullaby of pleasant dreams as you make your climb. Send the forests off to bed, the mountains tuck in tight, Rock the ocean gently, and the deserts kiss goodnight. Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky, You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by.

The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by Elvish smiths, and on its blade was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and rayed Sun, and about them was written many runes; for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor. Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, its edge was hard and keen. And Aragorn gave it a new name and called it Andúril, Flame of the West.

My eyes crinkle into crescent moons and sparkle like the stars. Gold flecks dance and twirl while stories whirl in their oolong pools, carrying tales of the past and hope for the future.

A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

He didn’t want to be another moment stolen from a thousand. He wanted every sunrise and every crescent moon. He wanted to be the reason for every rare blush, the cause of every breathless sigh.

I watched him with wonder like the stars watch the moon, falling in love with every crescent, dark side, and dream.

She tucks the veil of her hair behind the crescent moon of her ear to reveal the stars in her eyes.

Tis said if you will but cast a desire under the crescent moon as stars cross its path, your wish will always come true.

II A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,       A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,       Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,           In word, or sigh, or tear — O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,       All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky,       And its peculiar tint of yellow green: And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel how beautiful they are! III           My genial spirits fail;           And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?           It were a vain endeavour,           Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

September drank in the starry sky with a longing and a tugging and a sigh. All the way up, to that enormous crescent in the black.

The moon grew plump and pale as a peeled apple, waned into the passing nights, then showed itself again as a thin silver crescent in the twilit western sky. The shed of leaves became a cascade of red and gold and after a time the trees stood skeletal against a sky of weathered tin. The land lay bled of its colors. The nights lengthened, went darker, brightened in their clustered stars. The chilled air smelled of woodsmoke, of distances and passing time. Frost glimmered on the morning fields. Crows called across the pewter afternoons. The first hard freeze cast the countryside in ice and trees split open with sounds like whipcracks. Came a snow flurry one night and then a heavy falling the next day, and that evening the land lay white and still under a high ivory moon.

He had known then, not that he had ever doubted it, that even if God existed He preferred not to listen, and all the stars, crosses and crescent moons in the world would not make an iota of difference.

Her name, said the Oracle, will this time be Ama, a female that sleeps in every one of us, Yin of Creation, a wisdom guide that with her purity extinguishes thirst for spiritual longings. She is the one that stands on a crescent moon with stars in her hair, pouring water from jars of her soul into lakes of emotions, awakening compassion for humankind and its Chaos, nourishing Earth and Her constant renewal.

...Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best from the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune Terrapin Station...

Hard Times Music is silenced, the dark descending slowly Has stripped unending skies of all companions. Weariness grips your limbs and within the locked horizons Dumbly ring the bells of hugely gathering fears. Still, O bird, O sightless bird, Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings. It's not melodious woodlands but the leaps and falls Of an ocean's drowsy booming, Not a grove bedecked with flowers but a tumult flecked with foam. Where is the shore that stored your buds and leaves? Where the nest and the branch's hold? Still, O bird, my sightless bird, Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings. Stretching in front of you the night's immensity Hides the western hill where sleeps the distant sun; Still with bated breath the world is counting time and swimming Across the shoreless dark a crescent moon Has thinly just appeared upon the dim horizon. -But O my bird, O sightless bird, Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings. From upper skies the stars with pointing fingers Intently watch your course and death's impatience Lashes at you from the deeps in swirling waves; And sad entreaties line the farthest shore With hands outstretched and crooning 'Come, O come!' Still, O bird, O sightless bird, Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings. All that is past: your fears and loves and hopes; All that is lost: your words and lamentation; No longer yours a home nor a bed composed of flowers. For wings are all you have, and the sky's broadening countryard, And the dawn steeped in darkness, lacking all direction. Dear bird, my sightless bird, Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings!

When the stars and the moon met, a song began among the moonside Kakri. “Where is the fountain which brought joy to the city, clean and clear at its heart?” There were no instruments, just voices. The starside Kakri answered, also in song, “It has been carried away, the water spilled to the sand, the water given to the sun.” The song, beautiful and strange, reached out to Jason like the tendrils of a plant opening in the morning dew. He felt himself alive, transported, and filled with a deep, melancholy sadness.

A crescent moon hung in a black sky brushed with stars.

even if God existed He preferred not to listen, and all the stars, crosses and crescent moons in the world would not make an iota of difference.

The night was nippy and a few stars were out, dimmed by the grin of a crescent moon.

My crown was crafted of silver and diamond, all fashioned into swirls of stars and various phases of the moon. Its arching apex held aloft a crescent moon of solid diamond, flanked by two exploding stars.

In the distant past, Muslim doctors advised nervous people to look up at the sky. Forget the tight earth. Imagine that the sky, all of it, belonged to them alone. Crescent, low moon, more stars than the eyes looking up at them. But the sky was free, without any price, no one I knew spoke of it, no one competed for it. Instead, one by one those who could afford it began to sleep indoors in cool air-conditioned rooms, away from the mosquitoes and the flies...

There was a gaping hole in his chest without her. The three weeks he’d spent with her had been the best of his life. She was like this bright, shining star that had been ripped away from him. He was territorial as hell and he wasn’t letting her go.

All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow green: And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

crescent (1) The moon between the new moon and first quarter, and between the last quarter and the next new moon. (2) Anything shaped like the crescent moon. • The symbol of Islam is a crescent moon with a star between the points, an astronomical impossibility.

Writing is making love under a crescent moon: I see shadows of what’s to come, and it’s enough; I have faith in what I can’t see and it’s substantiated by a beginning, a climax, an ending. And if it’s an epic novel in hand, I watch the sunrise amid the twigs and dewing grass; the wordplay is what matters. Simply put, I’m in love, and any inconvenience is merely an afterthought. The sun tips the horizon; the manuscript is complete. The author, full of profound exhaustion, lays his stylus aside. His labor of love stretches before him, beautiful, content, sleeping, until the next crescent moon stars the evening sky.

Even when we cannot see parts of the moon, they are still physically there. During a new moon, when it is completely lit from behind, it appears only as a black, starless circle in the sky. For while we sometimes cannot see the moon, it is still there as a silhouette. Which is why I get upset when a crescent moon is shown with stars visible through the middle of it!

I dip my hand in the brook and feel the stream; in an instant the particles of water which first touched me have floated yards down the current, my hand remains there. I take my hand away, and the flow—the time—of the brook does not exist to me. The great clock of the firmament, the sun and the stars, the crescent moon, the earth circling two thousand times, is no more to me than the flow of the brook when my hand is withdrawn; my soul has never been, and never can be, dipped in time. Time has never existed, and never will; it is a purely artificial arrangement. It is eternity now, it always was eternity, and always will be. By no possible means could I get into time if I tried. I am in eternity now and must there remain. Haste not, be at rest, this Now is eternity.

Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky, Won’t you sing your song to Earth as she passes by? Your sweetest silver melody, a rhythm and a rhyme, A lullaby of pleasant dreams as you make your climb. Send the forests off to bed, the mountains tuck in tight, Rock the ocean gently, and the deserts kiss good night. Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky, You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by.

She helps Holly and me to decorate the sky-blue bedroom with sparkly stars and a crescent moon painted in silver acrylic paint. We paint a wide, arching rainbow that stretches from one corner of the room to another. When my new baby sister looks up from her cot, she’ll see stars to wish on, a moon to soothe her to sleep, a slice of rainbow to remind her that magic is always just round the corner. I

Staring at the sky in Bharata was like exchanging a secret. It felt private, like I had peered through the veil of a hundred worlds. When I looked up, I could imagine—for a moment—what the sky hid from everyone else. I could see where the winds yawned with silver lips and curled themselves to sleep. I could glimpse the moon folding herself into crescents and half-smiles. When I looked up, I could imagine an existence as vast as the sky. Just as infinite. Just as unknown. (p. 3)

Moonlight spilled onto the stairs, brighter than our candle flames. I glanced up through the window and I saw the full moon. The cloudless sky was splashed with stars beyond all counting. “That’s the moon,” I said. “Gran likes it like that,” said Lettie Hempstock. “But it was a crescent moon yesterday. And now it’s full. And it was raining. It is raining. But now it’s not.” “Gran always likes the full moon to shine on this side of the house. She says it’s restful, and it reminds her of when she was a girl,” said Lettie.

He knew that she was watching him but he didn’t look back, simply raised an arm in silent salute and was swallowed by the dark. There was some light though, a bright slice of crescent moon and a scattering of the faintest stars as though someone had flung a handful of diamond dust into the dark. The Queen-Moon, surrounded by all her starry Fays, although she suspected Keats was writing about a full moon and the moon above Argyll Road seemed more like a moon-in-waiting. She was in a—rather poor—poetic mood. It was the enormity of war, she thought, it left you scrabbling for ways to think about it.

As she reached the stairs, she made a quick detour and stepped outside. A crescent moon hung in the midnight blue sky along with trillions of twinkling stars. Out here there were no streetlights to wash out the view. She loved being able to see the stars. Tonight, the mountains were etched deep purple against the night sky. The white snowcapped tips gleamed silver. Nearer, silhouetted pine trees swayed in the breeze as if in a slow dance. “You are such a romantic,” Trask had once told her. “Are you sure you want to open a bar? You should be writing poetry.” She’d laughed. “How do you know I don’t?

Then he said something about how L.A. is dust and exhaust and the hot, dry wind that sets your nerves on edge and pushes fire up the hillsides in ragged lines like tears in the paper that separates us from hell, and it’s towering clouds of smoke, and it’s sunshine that won’t let up and cool ocean fog that gets unrolled at night over the whole basin like a clean white hospital sheet and peeled back again in the morning. It’s a crescent moon in a sky bruised green after the sunset has beaten the shit out of it. It’s a lazy hammock moon rising over power lines, over the skeletal silhouettes of pylons, over shaggy cypress trees and the spiky black lionfish shapes of palm-tree crowns on too-skinny trunks. It’s the Big One that’s coming to turn the city to rubble and set the rubble on fire but not today, hopefully not today. It’s the obviousness of pointing out that the freeway looks like a ruby bracelet stretched alongside a diamond one, looks like a river of lava flowing counter to a river of champagne bubbles. People talk about the sprawl, and, yeah, the city is a drunk, laughing bitch sprawled across the flats in a spangled dress, legs kicked up the canyons, skirt spread over the hills, and she’s shimmering, vibrating, ticklish with light. Don’t buy a star map. Don’t go driving around gawking because you’re already there, man. You’re in it. It’s all one big map of the stars.

Perhaps a necklace of tears to weep so that she won't have to? A pin of teeth to bite annoying husbands? No.' He continues to walk through the small space. He lifts a ring. 'To bring on a child?' And then, seeing my face, lifts a pair of earrings, one in the shape of a crescent moon and the other in the shape of a star. 'Ah, yes. Here. This is what you want.' 'What do they do?' I ask. He laughs. 'They are beautiful- isn't that enough?' I give him a skeptical look. 'It would be enough, considering how exquisite they are, but I bet it isn't all.' He enjoys that. 'Clever girl. They are not only beautiful, but they add to beauty. They make someone more lovely than they were, painfully lovely. Her husband will not leave her side for quite some time.' The look on his face is a challenge. He believes I am too vain to give such a gift to my sister. How well he knows the selfish human heart. Taryn will be a beautiful bride. How much more do I, her twin, want to put myself in her shadow? How lovely can I bear her to be? And yet, what better gift for a human girl wedded to the beauty of the Folk? 'What would you take for them?' I ask. 'Oh, any number of little things. A year of your life. The luster of your hair. The sound of your laugh.' 'My laugh is not such a sweet sound as all that.' 'Not sweet, but I bet it's rare,' he says, and I wonder at his knowing that. 'What about my tears?' I ask. 'You could make another necklace.' He looks at me, as though evaluating how often I weep. 'I will take a single tear,' he says finally. 'And you will take an offer to the High King for me.

On the road leading from his ranch to Samantha's, Wyat t drove his surrey up a small hill and caught his breath as the beauty of the large crescent moon dangling just out of reach over the crest A full moon would have been plump with luminescence, yet the pearly surface of the sickle still cast enough light to shadow his surroundings and seemed close enough that once he drove to the top of the hill, he'd be able to touch the bottom horn or at least toss a rope around it. He slackened the reins, slowing the horse, knowing that the higher he climbed, the sooner the illusion of closeness would disappear and he wanted to preserve for a moment the fantasy that the moon was within his grasp. The stars, by contrast, were distant pricks of diamond light farther out than a man could dream. He sighed. Life as a rancher or as a rancher's wife was not moon and stars easy or romantic. What would put stars in Samantha's eyes?

SIDDHARTHA LEARNED SOMETHING NEW ON every step of his path, for the world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the distant beach with its palm-trees. At night, he saw the stars in the sky in their fixed positions and the crescent of the moon floating like a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows, rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river, the glistening dew in the bushes in the morning, distant high mountains which were blue and pale, birds sang and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field. All of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always been there, always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes, looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible.

The walls behind the counter had deep floor-to-ceiling shelves for vases and jam jars and scented candles, and there was an old wrought-iron revolving stand for cards. But most of the space in the long, narrow shop was taken up with flowers and plants. Today there were fifty-two kinds of cut blooms, from the tiny cobalt-blue violets that were smaller than Lara's little fingernail to a purple-and-green-frilled brassica that was bigger than her head. The flowers were set out in gleaming metal buckets and containers of every shape and size. They were lined up on the floor three deep and stacked on the tall three-tier stand in the middle of the shop. The plants, huge leafy ferns and tiny fleshy succulents, lemon trees and jasmine bushes and freckled orchids, were displayed on floating shelves that were built at various heights all the way up to the ceiling. Lara had spent weeks getting the lighting right. There were a few soft spotlights above the flower displays, and an antique crystal chandelier hung low above the counter. There were strings of fairy lights and dozens of jewel-colored tea lights and tall, slender lanterns dotted between the buckets. When they were lit, they cast star and crescent moon shapes along the walls and the shop resembled the courtyard of a Moroccan riad- a tiny walled garden right in the middle of the city.

Roses, roses! An interminable chain of these royal blossoms, red and white, wreathed by the radiant fingers of small rainbow-winged creatures as airy as moonlight mist, as delicate as thistledown! They cluster round me with smiling faces and eager eyes; they place the end of their rose-garland in my hand, and whisper, "FOLLOW!" Gladly I obey, and hasten onward. Guiding myself by the fragrant chain I hold, I pass through a labyrinth of trees, whose luxuriant branches quiver with the flight and song of birds. Then comes a sound of waters; the riotous rushing of a torrent unchecked, that leaps sheer down from rocks a thousand feet high, thundering forth the praise of its own beauty as it tosses in the air triumphant crowns of silver spray. How the living diamonds within it shift, and change, and sparkle! Fain would I linger to watch this magnificence; but the coil of roses still unwinds before me, and the fairy voices still cry, "FOLLOW!" I press on. The trees grow thicker; the songs of the birds cease; the light around me grows pale and subdued. In the far distance I see a golden crescent that seems suspended by some invisible thread in the air. Is it the young moon? No; for as I gaze it breaks apart into a thousand points of vivid light like wandering stars. These meet; they blaze into letters of fire. I strain my dazzled eyes to spell out their meaning. They form one word—HELIOBAS. I read it. I utter it aloud. The rose-chain breaks at my feet, and disappears. The fairy voices die away on my ear. There is utter silence, utter darkness,—save where that one NAME writes itself in burning gold on the blackness of the heavens.

Reaching into his sporran, he pulled out a small bundle wrapped in fine linen. “I want to give ye somethin’, somethin’I want ye to wear this day.”Carefully, he unfolded the linen and held his hand out to her. Josephine’s eyes widened with curiosity and joy. “’Tis beautiful, Graeme!” “It be a brooch that each MacAulay lad receives when he turns six and ten. I want ye to have it.” Josephine carefully took it and studied it closely. Made of pewter, in the center of the brooch were two hands, one decidedly masculine, the other feminine. The masculine hand held the feminine hand in his palm. In the center of her palm was a tiny ruby. To one side, the circle had been engraved to look like stars twinkling near a crescent moon. On the other were the words aeterna devotione. Eternal devotion. Tears filled her eyes as she looked into his. “Ye want me to have this?” “Aye, I do, Joie,”he said as he placed a kiss on her forehead. “Me great-great-great grandfather presented a brooch just like this to his wife, me great-great-great grandmum. But no’until the first anniversary of their weddin’day. ’Twas a symbol of the great love they had found with one another. ’Tis tradition for the MacAulay men to only give their brooch to a woman who has stolen their heart, a woman they love and trust above all else.” Tears trailed down her cheeks, her heart beating so rapidly she was certain it would burst through her breastbone at any moment. “I do no’quite understand how it happened, or how it happened so quickly, Joie, but it has. Amorem in corde meo ut arctius coccino colloeandus arctius ideo astra,”Graeme said first in Latin and then again in Gaelic, “Toisc go bhfuil do ghrá eitseáilte isteach i mo chroí i corcairdhearg, mar sin tá sé eitseáilte amonst na réaltaí.”He placed a tender kiss on her cheek. “As yer love be etched into me heart in crimson, so it be etched amongst the stars,”he told her. “As me grandda said those words to me grandmum all those many years ago, I say them to ye.

S e r p e n t Oh slithery serpent tongue, Work wonders with italics! ...Punctuate…punctuate… Parenthetic lips, appealing & concealing the precipice, The cratered, crescent moon Dipping, whipping, winding Lambent, luscious, luminous Waning, waxing, waning And swallowing the taper Burning, burning, brighter Brighter,whiter,whiter coming, coming, coming AHHHAHHHHAHHHHH Gently, gently expiring Like collapsing stars Blackholeofmass From which nothing, Nothing escapes, nothing

Catty had tattooed the crescent moon and star on Jimena's arm. Jimena also had two teardrops tattooed under her eye. Her other tattoos, remnants from her gang days, were hidden under her clothes. She, too, had a gift. She received premonitions about the future.

Coming home! The moon’s crescent hangs onto the afternoon as if it is going to slip off the day and fall down with all the blinking strawberry blossom stars along the shoulder of this road that takes me home.

The crescent moon goddess (and virgin warrior Goddess of the morning star), Al-Uzza, was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs as "The Mighty". Some scholars believe that in very ancient times, it was she who was considered enshrined in the black stone of Makkah, where she was served by priestesses. Her sacred grove of acacia trees once stood just south of Makkah, at Nakla. The Acacia tree was sacred to the Arabs who made the idol of Al-Uzza from its wood.

Planetara was still in the earth’s shadow. The firmament––black interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars––lay spread around us. The moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung, a great silver ball, over 317 our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side, Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigarillo in the blackness. The earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible––a giant sphere, etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one limb a touch of the sunlight hung on the mountain-tops with a crescent red-yellow sheen.

He even saw clearly the world she inhabited, a still snowscape where the sky was forever graced with silver stars and a crescent moon, the snow falling steadily. In the silence you could practically hear the snowflakes coming to rest on the ground like smooth white sugar. In her exquisite cabin in the snow, the Eve that Luo Ji had formed out of one of his mind’s ribs sat before an ancient fireplace quietly watching the dancing flames.

The symbol of the Sufi Movement, which is a heart with wings, denotes its ideal. The heart is both earthly and heavenly. The heart is a receptacle on earth of the divine Spirit, and when it holds the divine Spirit, it soars heavenward; the wings picture its rising. The crescent in the heart symbolizes responsiveness. It is the heart that responds to the spirit of God which rises. The crescent is a symbol of responsiveness because it grows fuller as the moon grows fuller by responding more and more to the sun as it progresses. The light one sees in the crescent is the light of the sun. As it gets more light with its increasing response, so it becomes fuller of the light of the sun. The star in the heart of the crescent represents the divine spark which is reflected in the human heart as love, and which helps the crescent towards its fullness. The Sufi Message is the message of the day. It does not bring theories or doctrines to add to those already existing and which puzzle the human mind. What the world needs today is the message of love, harmony, and beauty, the absence of which is the only tragedy of life. The Sufi Message does not give a new law; it awakens in humanity the spirit of brotherhood, with tolerance on the part of each for the religion of the other, with forgiveness from each for the fault of the other. It teaches thoughtfulness and consideration, so as to create and maintain harmony in life; it teaches service and usefulness, which alone can make life in the world fruitful, and in this lies the satisfaction of every soul.

Salat Most gracious Lord, Master, Messiah, and Savior of humanity, We greet Thee with all humility. Thou art the First Cause and the Last Effect, the Divine Light and the Spirit of Guidance, Alpha and Omega. Thy Light is in all forms, Thy Love in all beings: in a loving mother, in a kind father, in an innocent child, in a helpful friend, in an inspiring teacher. Allow us to recognize Thee in all Thy holy names and forms: as Rama, as Krishna, as Shiva, as Buddha. Let us know Thee as Abraham, as Solomon, as Zarathustra, as Moses, as Jesus, as Muhammad, and in many other names and forms, known and unknown to the world. We adore Thy past; Thy presence deeply enlighteneth our being, and we look for Thy blessing in the future. O Messenger, Christ, Nabi, the Rasul of God! Thou Whose heart constantly reacheth upward, Thou comest on earth with a message, as a dove from above when Dharma decayeth, and speakest the Word that is put into Thy mouth, as the light filleth the crescent moon. Let the star of the Divine Light shining in Thy heart be reflected in the hearts of Thy devotees. May the Message of God reach far and wide, illuminating and making the whole humanity as one single Brotherhood in the Fatherhood of God. Amen.

The indigo sky is strewn with stars, which cluster in countless thousands close over our heads. The rising moon is a thin crescent disc of silver light. On our left the evening fireflies are making the compound grove radiant, and above them the plumed heads of tall palms stand out in black silhouette against the sky. My adventure in self-metamorphosis is over …

Champagne mixes with salt. Rain mixes with sea. Am I dead myself? How long have I been here and gone at once? I feel something inside my heart, something that reminds me of someone I used to know, long ago, in a city no one remembers but me. I feel old things running around this place, like we’re in the center of the smoke of a burning book of wonders, as though all the pages have gotten stuck together and now it’s a world of everything at once, a pitcher of water in my hands, a stand of trees somewhere in the middle of a desert, a bed of white linen sheets, above me the moon crescented, stars I don’t know, wine in a cup, smooth wet sand around me packed down, a cave, a tomb, a room, a rock rolling across the entrance, a stick made of old wood. And here, a country of claws, a mob of monsters. Look at them as we fly and look at us, all of us, the desperate desiring humans of this place, no longer. The story is shifting, things are changing. All is well and will be well.

Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) that reveals that heylel also means “the morning-star or crescent moon.

A female of pure flame. Or that was how she chose to appear. Not how Lehabah had been made of flame, with her body visible, but rather a female cloaked in it, only a flash of a bare wrist or an ankle or shoulder through the veil. She was humanoid, but that was all he could glean. She looked like one of the radical sun-priests who’d gone rogue and immolated themselves to be close to their god. Who are you? he asked. Who are you? she challenged. Not one hint of her face. I asked first. Her flame flared, as if in annoyance. But she said, The little black dog sleeps soundly on a wool blanket. Ruhn blew out a breath. There it was—the code phrase Cormac had given him to confirm her identity. He said, And the gray tabby cleans her paws by the light of the moon. Utter nonsense. But she said, I’m Agent Daybright, in case that wasn’t clear enough. Now…you are? Ruhn peered down at himself, swearing. He hadn’t thought to hide his body— But he found only a form of night and stars, galaxies and planets. As if his silhouette had been filled by them. He lifted a hand, not finding skin but the starry blanket of the sky covering his fingers. Had his mind instinctively shielded him? Or was this what he was, deep below the skin? Was this fire-being standing thirty feet down the mental bridge what she was, deep below her own skin?

We see the mortal form of the immortal healer climbing along the jutting cornice of some cliff, in search for the simples of life; and as the zephyrs waft his long ashen locks around his furrowed brow, his trembling hand clutches some rugged crag, more perhaps from joy than fear. And so, as we now open the works of Aleister Crowley, we are filled with an exhilarating chain of pangs; mortal-like we are never sated, and as our lips taste the nectar of true poetry we tremblingly clutch the crags of Parnassus in search for the Asphodel of Love, Wisdom, and Beauty. Here, as we turn some beetling height, the dying rays of the Swinburnian sun sink, those rays that ruffled the vestal purity of the clouds to the rosy blush of a lover’s kiss, and in the departing light we again find the mystic Trinity midst the hellebore and thistles of existence, enthroned, eternal. The sun sinks, and the last notes of the nightingale die into the stillness of falling night. The emerald sky like the robe of some car-borne Astarté, slashed with an infinite orange and red, fades into the sombre garment of night; and above silently breaks a primal sea gemmed with all the colours of the opal, deepening into a limitless amethyst, darkens, and the sun goes out. The spangled pall of Night is drawn, and the lull of death is o’er us; but no, hark! the distant boom of a beetle is carried across the still glowing welkin, it is the signal drum announcing the marriage of Night and Day. The crescent moon rises, diaphanous and fair, and the world wakes to a chant.

A cold east wind wailed over the waste; a white fog like curd lay on the water, and the surface of the saltings, clinging to the surface and rising scarce above three feet from it. Here and there it lifted itself in a vaporous column, and moved along in the wind like a white spectral woman, nodding her head and waving her arms cumbered with wet drapery. Above, the sky was clear, and a fine crescent moon sparkled in it without quenching the keenness of the stars. Cassiopeia was glorious in her chair, Orion burned sideways over Mersea Isle. No red gleam was visible to-night from the tavern window at the City, the veil of fog hung over it and curtained it off. To the north-west was a silvery glow at the horizon, then there rose a pure ray as of returning daylight, it was answered by a throb in the north-east, then it broke into two rays, and again united and spread, and suddenly was withdrawn. Mehalah had often seen the Aurora, and she knew that the signals portended increased cold or bad weather.

In Ernie’s book I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon, the cover shows stars shining right through a crescent moon. And in a “C in space” segment, the moon looks surprisingly happy, despite the fact that these stars are shining through it. OK, yes, the moon having a face and emotions is not astronomically accurate either, but that is still no excuse for teaching children inaccurate geometry. I expect more from a supposedly “educational” program. The only explanation I can think of is that, in the extended Sesame Street universe, there are Muppet bases on the moon, and those are the dots of light we are seeing.

I am at lessons in the palace grove, sitting in the long shadows of the late afternoon. The moon has already risen, a sharp crescent in the cloudless blue sky. I draw a star chart from memory, my ink a dark red that clots on the paper. It's blood, I realise. I am dabbing my quill into an inkpot full of blood.

That peculiar light just before sunset, before gloaming: it is then that Essa sees for the first time the famous dunes at Avanue, which roll like fat people in their sleep, and shift restlessly forever. “They cast long shadows, these sleeping giants, and Essa shivers. She has walked too far—after the trip north she was so grateful to be out of hospital—her hands and feet are cold, and she is dizzy with exhaustion. She sits down on the ragged grass at the edge of the bluff which overlooks the dunes, and tries not to hate them. “Her mother’s words, remembered in a dream, sound like water flowing in her thoughts. There is no water here. The grasses under her are dry and stiff, and they grow in sand so fine it grits through her clothing against the skin of her ass. The sea is too far away to see or smell. But at least she is alone. “Though she is shivering, it is still a hot day, and the sun has warmed the sand. The ground radiates heat into her body. She lies down flat on her belly, her head to one side so that she can still see the dunes, and puts her hands beneath her; gradually they warm. “Gradually her body comes back into balance and she starts to see an eerie beauty before her. The sun is fully down when she sits up, brushes the sand away as well as she can, and hugs her knees to her chest. She puts her chin on her knees and watches darkness descend over the low rolling landscape. “This is unlike any cliff on which she has rested yet. It is low and gives no perspective. The dunes come up almost to her feet. Yet the demarcation is quite abrupt: there is no grass growing anywhere after this brief crumbling drop-off, and she can see as the land-breeze begins to quicken that ahead of her the sand is moving. In fact, she realizes, she can hear it, a low sweeping sound which has mounted from inaudibility until it inexorably backs every other sound: sounds of grasses moving, insects scraping, birds calling from the invisible sea far beyond her viewpoint are all subsumed in one great sand-song. “It is a sound so relentlessly sad that Essa can hardly bear to listen, but so persistent that she cannot ignore it now that she has become aware of its susurration. She pulls her sweater—the one her mother made by her knitting—around her and waits. “When it is fully dark and the wind has died again, she rises and begins the long walk back to town in the dim light of stars and crescent moon.

Peggy closed her eyes and saw her river of stars, her forest glade, and the dunce-hat towers against an inky sky with a crescent bowl of moon. “They are like dreams. In a fairy tale, words and curses and spells have power. There is magic. Everything is animated, from a grass blade to a talking owl, from a table carved of hazelwood to a fish that warns you not to drink the river water.” She opened her eyes and looked at him, wanting him to understand. “Magic is the point of it all.

... she would cry at my pain and my feelings. Knowing how lonely I felt now that I couldn't find her. But she was not here. There was no one around to understand these feelings, only the lonely moon, the stars, and the darkness enveloping my shoulders.

Just before dark, they left for their boathouse, carrying binoculars as well as the radio. Joe unloosed the moorings and they shoved off. The motor purred into action, but the young detectives decided on a trial spin before heading toward the open sea. “She’s okay,” Frank called, after the boys had circled the bay a few times. He guided the motorboat out of the inlet, which they had negotiated so perilously the evening of the storm. Tonight the ocean was as smooth as a new highway. Stars twinkled in the cloudless sky, but there was little light from the thin crescent moon.

A sun for me because I’m the center of attention, obviously,” Ashley had said as she picked them out from the wall of art options at the tattoo shop. Then she handed a star to Noelle. “A star for the A-plus student. Here you go, Ms. Valedictorian.” Noelle rolled her eyes, but accepted her fate. Then Ashley gave me the crescent moon. “And a moon for the woman who reflects the best of us. The friend who manages the ebbs and flows of our relationship without any of the glory.

The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by Elvish smiths, and on its blade was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and the rayed Sun, and about them was written many runes; for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor. Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, and its edge was hard and keen. And Aragorn gave it a new name and called it Andúril, Flame of the West.

I want you to tattoo me." "Tattoo? I don't know how." "You draw," Jimena explained. "That's all you need to know to do a jailhouse tattoo. I'll tell you the rest." An hour later the tattoo of a crescent moon and star was bleeding on Jimena's arm. "It looks good," Catty said with pride. "Yeah." Jimena stood in front of the mirror and admired Catty's work. Excitement ran through her when she looked at herself. She glanced at Catty and knew she was feeling the same. They stared at each other's reflections. "You look... like a goddess," Catty said, smiling. Jimena remembered she no longer had her gift. Could she even call herself a goddess now? With rising self-assurance, she knew it was her rightful title. The power was inside her.

Everything that ever happened to me, it was all so I could meet you, Quinlan. Be here with you. I'm yours. Forever.' Her throat tightened, and the star on her chest flared, lighting up the entire conservatory like a small moon. Bryce kissed him back, not caring who saw, only that he was here. 'Everything I am is yours,' she said against his lips.

He who plays his music to the stars is standing at your window with his flute.