“
Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
”
”
Elif Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love)
“
In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15).
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (High Tide in Tucson : Essays from Now or Never)
“
But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
“
Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so short-sighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lover’s of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full. (9)
”
”
Elif Shafak
“
You first."
"No, you."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid."
"Of what, my Sassenach?" The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light.
"I'm afraid if I start I shall never stop."
He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. "It's nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne." He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart.
"I love you.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
“
Do not think of yourself as a crescent moon, waiting for someone else to fill in the missing part of you. When you stand alone like a full moon, already complete in yourself, you will meet another person who is whole and complete just like you, and between you two, a healthy relationship can grow. Do not try and fit yourselves to each other to make one whole moon. Instead, be more like two full moons. You’ll respect each other’s individuality and interests while creating a relationship in which each of you shines brightly on the other
”
”
Haemin Sunim (Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection)
“
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.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
“
She walks barefoot into the humid night, moonlight on her freckled shoulders. Near a huge, live oak tree on the edge of her father's cotton fields, Sidda looks up into the sky. In the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful heart. She kicks her splendid legs like the moon is her swing and the sky, her front porch. She waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted an old buddy.
Sidda stands in the moonlight and lets the Blessed Mother love every hair on her six-year-old head. Tenderness flows down from the moon and up from the earth. For one fleeting, luminous moment, Sidda Walker knows there has never been a time when she has not been loved.
”
”
Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)
“
A mother's body remembers her babies--the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has its own entreaties to body and soul. It's the last one, though, that overtakes you. I can't dare say I loved the others less, but my first three were all babies at once, and motherhood dismayed me entirely. . . . That's how it is with the firstborn, no matter what kind of mother you are--rich, poor, frazzled half to death or sweetly content. A first child is your own best food forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world.
But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.
”
”
Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
“
...winter crescent resting in the high pine bough - you fly through the woods like a lone snow bird...
”
”
John Geddes (A Familiar Rain)
“
I watched him with wonder like the stars watch the moon, falling in love with every crescent, dark side, and dream.
”
”
Piper Payne (White Lies (The Black and White Duet, #2))
“
Beauty means this to one person, perhaps, and that to another. And yet when any one of us has seen or heard or read that which to him is beautiful, he has known an emotion which is in every case the same in kind, if not in degree; an emotion precious and uplifting. A choirboy's voice, a ship in sail, an opening flower, a town at night, the song of the blackbird, a lovely poem, leaf shadows, a child's grace, the starry skies, a cathedral, apple trees in spring, a thorough-bred horse, sheep-bells on a hill, a rippling stream, a butterfly, the crescent moon -- the thousand sights or sounds or words that evoke in us the thought of beauty -- these are the drops of rain that keep the human spirit from death by drought. They are a stealing and a silent refreshment that we perhaps do not think about but which goes on all the time....It would surprise any of us if we realized how much store we unconsciously set by beauty, and how little savour there would be left in life if it were withdrawn. It is the smile on the earth's face, open to all, and needs but the eyes to see, the mood to understand.
”
”
John Galsworthy
“
Your skin reminds me of everything beautiful I've ever loved...
how the moon gets jealous at how you mock her crescent figure with the shape of your mouth...
echo of unborn galaxies bounce forth through your vocal chords...
”
”
Brandi L. Bates
“
She tucks the veil of her hair behind the crescent moon of her ear to reveal the stars in her eyes.
”
”
Curtis Tyrone Jones
“
The sky was dark and cold as she longed for the one man who could chase away the demons of the night.
”
”
Grace Willows (Legend of the Crescent Moon)
“
Tis said if you will but cast a desire under the crescent moon as stars cross its path, your wish will always come true.
”
”
Grace Willows (Legend of the Crescent Moon)
“
When someone you love disappears, it's like the light goes dim, and you're in the shadows. You try to do what people tell you: put one foot in front of the other; keep looking up; give yourself over to the seconds and minutes and hours. But always there's taht glimmer of light-that way of living you once knew-sort of faded and smoky like the crescent moon on a winter's night when the air is full of ice and clouds, but still there, hanging just over your head. You think it's not far. Your think at any moment you can reach out and grab it.
”
”
Lee Martin (The Bright Forever)
“
There are all sorts of loves in this world, I know that now. I don’t know it completely—it’s not a full moon of knowing just yet, maybe at best I’m at the waxing crescent of understanding what I can about love. They say it conquers all, but does it? Can it even? All is so vast.
”
”
Jessa Hastings (Magnolia Parks (Magnolia Parks Universe, #1))
“
But show me just this one thing, my darling, i seek a heart stained like a poppy flower.
”
”
Fatima Bhutto (The Shadow of the Crescent Moon)
“
He said her name, repeatedly, so that she never lost the sound of his voice around it. So that every time someone called her name, she would be able to hear only Aman Erum.
”
”
Fatima Bhutto (The Shadow of the Crescent Moon)
“
if they didn’t have wood or kindling, they curled against one another, barely touching, but by morning, they’d be pressed together, breathing in tandem, cocooned in muzzy sleep, a single crescent moon.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
Put your arms around my waist,
Hold me close for a kiss and savour the taste,
I love you now I love you true,
Can I drown please in your eyes so blue?
Let’s hang our hearts on a crescent moon,
And skinny-dip in starlit lakes to loves sweet tune,
Let’s dance on boithrins grassy line,
And waltz 'Neath the canopied leaves of nature fine.
Lets sit afore fires on a winters night
Let me read you poetry aloud by candlelight,
Let’s lay under the skylight and tell constellations apart,
And I’ll remind you of the place you have in my heart.
”
”
Michelle Geaney (Under These Rebel Skies)
“
. "There are many levels of hell Elizabeth. Rest assured I have visited them all. And I would damn well follow you back into its deepest pit to claim what is mine. You are mine.
”
”
Grace Willows (Legend of the Crescent Moon)
“
Sweet Crescent Moon..." he whispered, his lips barely able to form the word. He began to shiver.
"Up in the sky..." He hummed a few bars of the song, a lullaby that seemed barely familiar. "You sing your song so sweetly... so sweetly... after sunshine passes..."
The last word hovered unspoken as he stopped shuddering and lay still, his blue eyes staring upward like empty marbles.
”
”
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
“
My beloved has arrived, but rather than greeting him,
All I can do is bite the corner of my apron with a blank expression-
What an awkward woman am I.
My heart has longed for him as hugely and openly as a full moon
But instead I narrow my eyes, and my glance to him
Is sharp and narrow as the crescent moon.
But then, I'm not the only one who behaves this way.
My mother and my mother's mother were as silly and stumbling as I am when they were girls...
Still, the love from my heart is overflowing,
As bright and crimson as the heated metal in a blacksmith's forge.
”
”
Kim Dong Hwa (The Color of Earth (Color Trilogy, #1))
“
The sleep that flits on baby's eyes - does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes.
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps - does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning - the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.
The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs - does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love - the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)
“
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.
”
”
Nataša Pantović (A-Ma Alchemy of Love (AoL Mindfulness, #1))
“
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!
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore
“
A dark shadow rose from the depth of the watercourse. Forced to crawl out of the oceans rolling waves, it struggled against the pull of the undertow. Rising, it moved further up the white sandy beach away from the cold water. The creature collapsed onto the cool sand as the crescent moon above shone on his sleek gray skin revealing two immense leather-like wings protruding from his back. Exhaustion clouded his mind.
The darkness of night was soothing, refreshing. Somehow he knew it would bring him strength and sustenance. The creature watched as a great rolling storm cloud sunk into the salty water before him and he tried to remember why he had come.
”
”
Alaina Stanford (As Darkness Falls (Hypnotic Journey #3))
“
The moon is made round by the right hand of God.
The moon is made crescent by His left.
But it is God’s heart that makes my love for you forever.
”
”
Deborah Rodriguez (The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul)
“
The night was nippy and a few stars were out, dimmed by the grin of a crescent moon.
”
”
E.E. Giorgi (CHIMERAS (Track Presius #1))
“
No way was she forcing Reece into a mating he didn't want. Wolves mated for life and it wouldn't be fair to either of them. And she wasn't ashamed to admit that she wanted love and a lasting partnership. She refused to settle for less.
”
”
Savannah Stuart (To Catch His Mate (Crescent Moon, #5))
“
Homer's Hymn to the Moon
Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.
Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody,
Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy
Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth,
From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth,
Far light is scattered—boundless glory springs;
Where'er she spreads her many-beaming wings
The lampless air glows round her golden crown.
But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone
Under the sea, her beams within abide,
Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean's tide,
Clothing her form in garments glittering far,
And having yoked to her immortal car
The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high
Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky
A western Crescent, borne impetuously.
Then is made full the circle of her light,
And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright
Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then,
A wonder and a sign to mortal men.
The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power
Mingled in love and sleep—to whom she bore
Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare
Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are.
Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity,
Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee
My song beginning, by its music sweet
Shall make immortal many a glorious feat
Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well
Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.
”
”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley)
“
After an hour my senses begin to vibrate in a definite rhythm, I tune into the great stillness, I tune in. I gaze at the crescent moon sitting like a white shell in the sky, and I have a feeling of love for it, I feel I’m blushing. It’s the moon, I say softly and passionately, it’s the moon! And my heart beats toward it with a gentle throbbing. It lasts for several minutes. It blows a little, a strange wind is coming, an unusual blast of air. What is it? I look around and see no one. The wind calls me and my soul bows in answer to the call,37 I feel myself lifted out of my sphere, pressed to an invisible breast, my eyes are moist with tears, I tremble—God is somewhere near looking at me. This lasts for another few minutes. I turn my head, the strange blast of air is gone, and I see something like the back of a spirit wandering soundlessly through the forest. . . .
”
”
Knut Hamsun (Pan)
“
Another dead thing to haunt me in the night. And we will holler at lifeless crescent moons never begging for air or freedom. A flickering of a candle whose wick will not burn out as much as it will be extinguished by being drowned out. A wolf without teeth, howling his desires to unburden his soul.
”
”
Apollo Figueiredo (A Laugh in the Spoke)
“
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.
”
”
Chila Woychik (On Being a Rat and Other Observations)
“
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?
”
”
B.J. Daniels (Renegade's Pride (The Montana Cahills, #1))
“
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.
”
”
Holly Black (The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air, #2))
“
The panel delivery truck drew up before the front of the “Amsterdam Apartments” on 126th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. Words on its sides, barely discernible in the dim street light, read: LUNATIC LYNDON … I DELIVER AND INSTALL TELEVISION SETS ANY TIME OF DAY OR NIGHT ANY PLACE. Two uniformed delivery men alighted and stood on the sidewalk to examine an address book in the light of a torch. Dark faces were highlighted for a moment like masks on display and went out with the light. They looked up and down the street. No one was in sight. Houses were vague geometrical patterns of black against the lighter blackness of the sky. Crosstown streets were always dark. Above them, in the black squares of windows, crescent-shaped whites of eyes and quarter moons of yellow teeth bloomed like Halloween pumpkins. Suddenly voices bubbled in the night. “Lookin’ for somebody?” The driver looked up. “Amsterdam Apartments.” “These is they.” Without replying, the driver and his helper began unloading a wooden box. Stenciled on its side were the words: Acme Television “Satellite” A.406. “What that number?” someone asked. “Fo-o-six,” Sharp-eyes replied. “I’m gonna play it in the night house if I ain’t too late.” “What ya’ll got there, baby?” “Television set,” the driver replied shortly. “Who dat getting a television this time of night?” The delivery man didn’t reply. A man’s voice ventured, “Maybe it’s that bird liver on the third storey got all them mens.” A woman said scornfully, “Bird liver! If she bird liver I’se fish and eggs and I got a daughter old enough to has mens.” “… or not!” a male voice boomed. “What she got ’ill get television sets when you jealous old hags is fighting over mops and pails.” “Listen to the loverboy! When yo’ love come down last?” “Bet loverboy ain’t got none, bird liver or what.” “Ain’t gonna get none either. She don’t burn no coal.” “Not in dis life, next life maybe.” “You people make me sick,” a woman said from a group on the sidewalk that had just arrived. “We looking for the dead man and you talking ’bout tricks.” The two delivery men were silently struggling with the big television box but the new arrivals got in their way. “Will you ladies kindly move your asses and look for dead men sommers else,” the driver said. His voice sounded mean. “ ’Scuse me,” the lady said. “You ain’t got him, is you?” “Does I look like I’m carrying a dead man ’round in my pocket?” “Dead man! What dead man? What you folks playing?” a man called down interestedly. “Skin?” “Georgia skin? Where?” “Ain’t nobody playing no skin,” the lady said with disgust. “He’s one of us.” “Who?” “The dead man, that’s who.” “One of usses? Where he at?” “Where he at? He dead, that’s where he at.” “Let me get some green down on dead man’s row.” “Ain’t you the mother’s gonna play fo-o-six?” “Thass all you niggers thinks about,” the disgusted lady said. “Womens and hits!” “What else is they?” “Where yo’ pride? The white cops done killed one of usses and thass all you can think about.” “Killed ’im where?” “We don’t know where. Why you think we’s looking?” “You sho’ is a one-tracked woman. I help you look, just don’t call me nigger is all.
”
”
Chester Himes (Blind Man with a Pistol (Harlem Cycle, #8))
“
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.
”
”
Suzan Tisdale (Isle of the Blessed)
“
He embraced her. And touched her. And found her. Yennefer, in some astonishing way hard and soft at the same time, sighed loudly. The words they had uttered broke off, perished among the sighs and quickened breaths, ceased to have any meaning and were dissipated. So they remained silent, and focused on the search for one another, on the search for the truth. They searched for a long time, lovingly and very thoroughly, fearful of needless haste, recklessness and nonchalance. They searched vigorously, intensively and passionately, fearful of needless self-doubt and indecision. They searched cautiously, fearful of needless tactlessness. They found one another, conquered their fear and, a moment later, found the truth, which exploded under their eyelids with a terrible, blinding clarity, tore apart the lips pursed in determination with a moan. Then time shuddered spasmodically and froze, everything vanished, and touch became the only functioning sense. An eternity passed, reality returned and time shuddered once more and set off again, slowly, ponderously, like a great, fully laden cart. Geralt looked through the window. The moon was still hanging in the sky, although what had just happened ought in principle to have struck it down from the sky. ‘Oh heavens, oh heavens,’ said Yennefer much later, slowly wiping a tear from her cheek. They lay still among the dishevelled sheets, among thrills, among steaming warmth and waning happiness and among silence, and all around whirled vague darkness, permeated by the scent of the night and the voices of cicadas. Geralt knew that, in moments like this, the enchantress’s telepathic abilities were sharpened and very powerful, so he thought about beautiful matters and beautiful things. About things which would give her joy. About the exploding brightness of the sunrise. About fog suspended over a mountain lake at dawn. About crystal waterfalls, with salmon leaping up them, gleaming as though made of solid silver. About warm drops of rain hitting burdock leaves, heavy with dew. He thought for her and Yennefer smiled, listening to his thoughts. The smile quivered on her cheek along with the crescent shadows of her eyelashes.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (The Time of Contempt (The Witcher #2))
“
The Light Of The Crescent Moon
***
The full moon, my moon
The light of the crescent moon
Showers on my entire entity
The honey tasted lips
The discussing eyes
The touching, smiling
The perfumed personality
The future prime minister
Of my heart and mind
I love you
As like everyone loves you.
”
”
Ehsan Sehgal
“
Hello, Evelyn, the Sea says. Evelyn stretches her arms and opens her eyes. She looks as her memory thinks she should look, with long black hair and skin smooth like a crescent moon. She is lovely. She belongs to the Sea. Hello, Mother, she says. She reaches up, to the light of the sun, to the surface. Where is Flora? Close, says the Sea. Her daughter smiles, and how pleased the Sea is to see her baby smile. To feel her joy as if it is her own. Let us find her.
”
”
Maggie Tokuda-Hall (The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea)
“
...I think I loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her in her palace, even though she was so high above me that she might as well have been the moon. But she saw me, too. And somehow, she picked me. Out of all of them, she picked me.' He shook his head, the words creaking from him as they crept from that box he'd locked them in all this while. 'I would have done anything for her. I did anything for her. Anything she asked. And when it all went to Hel, when they told me it was over, I refused to believe it. How could she be gone? It was like saying the sun was gone. It just... there was nothing left if she wasn't there.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1))
“
Hand in hand, my love, come away
with me into the blackness—
by the trunk of an old strong oak:
I long to hold you
all through the night
and, knowing not of dawn,
to not talk once—
a pair of hands
nightswept-earth….
Dawning starlight above
splinters the sky to nerves—
now's time for leaving:
poised on the verge
of shorelines burgeoning
everything inside is
raw and tingling….
Over the mountain in utter aloneness
winds are blowing in a cold void….
Just a few promises I’d packed
when I made my way east
like a cloud torn from moorings
always there've been those of us
who sought their origins
on the road
— under an empty moon—
and the origins of origins….
In electrical well-spring vision
nuzzled in the bosom of hills
on the roaming magnetic earth—
far away though they are
the cloud-river
of stars configures
over and over
these visions of you….
Shaking off its dust—
that glittering icy swirl abides….
On the roaming magnetic earth
lying flat, my eyes shocked awake
by the electric liquid light:
chilling winds do not chill me
I know no harm can hold me
even a killing wound will only
seep me back into the stars...
be seeping out from me:
in the float of her womb
and cradled from the cold—
that cradle-of-stars hanging
the milky way….
Over the bay just-beginning—a cusp and
crescent sliver—by the constellations paling fading….
Transient as I am
from before and into after—
like blue vapor, breath travels
in a light from long ago…
here though I knew she'd be
to be here with her
in scorn of all happenstance
is more than a choice:
a joy that's almost loss—
lightning and paralysis….
The blue fire of delight flickers
through sockets of her skull—
so all the world knows not
or pretends not to know:
a person takes a lifetime
to get to know
but the thrill of remembrance
when our eyes met
was just one instant:
it happens all the time….
”
”
Mark Kaplon (Song of Rainswept Sand)
“
be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
”
”
Elif Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love)
“
Sun drifts, moon breaches, cool air whispers into the night. Tears fall, arms comfort, birds in the distance take flight. Waning crescent, smother my cries, take me up to the inky skies.” She
”
”
Melissa Foster (Seaside Nights (Love in Bloom: Seaside Summers, #5))
“
TTien shall follow the Conjuration of Diana. Scongiurazione a Diana. You shall make cakes of meal, wine, salt, and honey in the shape of a (crescent or homed) moon, and then put them to bake, and say: Non cuoco ne il pane re il sale, Non cuoco re il vino ne il miele, Cuoco il corpo il sangue e 1' anima, L' anima di Diana, che non possa Avere ne la pace e ne bene, Possa essere sempre in mezzo alle pene Fino che la grazia non mi fari, Che glielo chiesta egliela chiedo di cuore! Se qaesla grazia, o Diana, mi farai, La cena In tua lode in molti la faremo, Mangiaremo, beveremo, Ealleremo, salteremo, Se questa grazia che ti ho chiesta, Se questa grazia tu mi farai, Nel tempo che balliamo, H lume spengnerai, Cosi al 1' amore liberamente la faremo I Conjuration of Diana. I do not bake the bread, nor with it salt, Nor do I cook the honey with the wine; I bake the body and the blood and soul, The soul of (great) Diana, that she shall ARABIA Know neither rest nor peace, and ever be In cruel suffering till she will grant What I request, what I do most desire, I beg it of her from my very heart! And if the grace be granted, O Diana I In honour of thee I will hold this feast. Feast and drain the goblet deep. We will dance and wildly leap, And if thou grant'st the grace which I require, Then when the dance is wildest, all the lamps Shall be extinguished and we'll freely love! And thus shall it be done: all shall sit down to the supper all naked, men and women, and, the feast over, they shall dance, sing, make music, and then love in the darkness, with all the lights extinguished; for it is the Spirit of Diana who extinguishes them, and so they will dance and make music in her praise. And
”
”
Charles Godfrey Leland (Aradia, Gospel of the Witches)
“
Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to. You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see and my self is the earth’s shadow that keeps me from seeing all the moon . . . what I am afraid of, dear God, is that my self shadow will grow so large that it blocks the whole moon, and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing. I do not know You God because I am in the way.10
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God)
“
Pink-rimmed, silver clouds billowing across a purple sunset, bleeding into a night sky flecked with glow-in-the-dark stars and a great, white moon—her childhood bedroom, back in Blackpines. Her mother had painted a princess, sitting in the moon’s crescent curve, her curly black hair catching stardust. The princess looked like her.
”
”
Addison Lane (Blackpines: The Antlers Witch: The Overcrowded Heart)
“
To her, Alex was like the moon. Distant, cold, and lonesome, but he was breathtakingly beautiful and exuded a light that always warmed her heart. He was ever-changing and the light that he exuded changed all the time. Despite that, she managed to embrace all those sides of him no matter when he was shining brightly or when his light dimmed like the full moon turning to its waning crescent phase. But this time, she failed. When he lost all his warmth and light, she started to tremble in fear, like how people only appreciated the moon when it exuded beauty and light and shunned and ignore it when what it showed was its mere dark side. She felt like she had done that to him tonight-when the moon turned dark, she feared him.
”
”
KazzenlX (Hellbound With You)
“
The sun is still the sun whether it rises or it sets, and the moon is still the moon whether it is full or a crescent.
”
”
Melody Godfred (Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers)
“
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.
”
”
J.F.C. Fuller (The Star in the West; A Critical Essay Upon the Works of Aleister Crowley)
“
The poets of past and present,
sing of heartbreaks and depressions,
making the full moon quietly crescent,
causing the world to stir with impressions.
”
”
C. Madan (The Poetic Refuge: An Anthology)
“
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.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2))
“
Love your life, you never get it wrong, and you never get it done. Life flows eternally, unfolding like a beautiful work of art created with love by your own hand.
”
”
Clara Fay (Mark of a Crescent Moon)
“
Why did you come back for me?” she breathed as she broke the kiss. I brushed my fingers up her neck until my thumb caressed the crescent moon behind her ear. “Because you’re mine, love. Not even death can take you from me if I decide against it.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Caged Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary, #1))
“
Another rule said, Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
”
”
Elif Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love)
“
I loved her while she was alive. But I think I fell in love with her after she died.
”
”
Aditi Chandak (Under The Crescent Moon)
“
I wonder if the moon and crescent knew that they'd crash into each other meeting like long last lovers dissolving the distance. That's how we fit you and me without even trying to, I don't have to pretend to remember your favorite color or the tiniest details about your face, I just do. What I'm saying baby is with you I don't have to try and it's nice not having to try. After a while, you get tired of trying to fit the pieces that just don't get along. It's nice to see it all come together on its own.
”
”
awakeningthewriter
“
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.
”
”
Hazrat Inayat Khan (The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan)
“
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.
”
”
Hazrat Inayat Khan (The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan)
“
Once it drew me into its gravity, this strange and alien land I’ve chosen to call home for long stretches has been the one true constant in my life. Taiwan has granted me a near-constant reprieve from my most feared nemesis, boredom, but at times she’s driven me half-mad. Taiwan has been my muse, the source of inspiration for much of my creative output as a writer, while at the same time never quite letting me forget that the language in which I write is not the lingua franca of the place about which I write. I have loved Taiwan for nearly all of my adult life. At times this love has shone as brilliantly as the moon over Kenting during the Mid-Autumn Festival, at others far less brightly, like a crescent moon during the long rainy season in Taipei,…. So when I sang it was this love for Taiwan, waxing and waning, but always present, that I felt.
”
”
Joshua Samuel Brown (Formosa Moon)
“
White of snow or white of page is not"
the white of your skin, for skin, except
when truly albino, always has some other color
sleeping within it—a hint of red maple leaf,
a touch of the blue ice at the edge of a melting
stream, a richness implied of its many layers,
the deltas of cells and blood, that deep fecundity
that lies within and makes the skin shed, not
like a snake, but as a tree (one of those golden
cottonwoods flaring just now at the edge
of the river) that sheds its leaves each moment
while an eternity of leaf remains. Oh, nothing
seems to me as white as your skin, all your languid
ease of being—one resting upon the other,
the sliver of your shoulder against the black
fabric—reminds me so of the lost realm of beauty
that I am afraid of nothing, and only dazed
(as I was that day at the aquarium when the beluga
whales came swimming toward me—how white
they were, slipping out of the darkness, radiant
and buoyant as silence and snow, incandescent
as white fire, gliding through the weight of water,
and when they sang in that chamber as small
as the chambers of the human heart, murky
with exhaustion and captivity and the fragments
of what they had consumed, I was almost in love
with them; they seemed the lost children
of the moon, carrying in their milky mammalian skins
a hint of glacial ice and singing to each other
of all the existences they had left behind, their fins
like the wings of birds or angels, clicking and whistling
like canaries of the sea: there was no darkness
in their bodies, like clouds drifting through
unkempt skies, they illuminated the room).
So I did not think of you so much as I felt you
drifting through my being, in some gesture
that held me poised like a hummingbird above
the scarlet blossoms of the trumpet vine, I kissed you
above the heart, and by above I mean there,
not that geometric center, the breastbone
that so many use to divide the body in half and so mistake
for the place where the heart lies, but the exact
location, a little to the left, just on the crescent
where the breast begins to rise; oh, I know
all that drift of white implies, the vanished clothing,
the disappearing room, that landscape of the skin
and night that opens in imagination and in feeling
upon a sea of snow, so that just one kiss above
the heart is a kiss upon the heart, as if one could
kiss the very pulse of being, light upon the head
of that pin that pins us here, that tiny disk where
angels were once believed to dance, and all that
nakedness without could not have been
except for all that burning deep within
”
”
Rebecca Seiferle (Wild Tongue (Lannan Literary Selections))
“
love isn’t meant to be like that, fixed and unrelenting. It needs room to grow, to make mistakes and turn into something new. It has to account for the living parts of yourself.
”
”
Stacy Sivinski (The Crescent Moon Tearoom)