The Moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven...

This week I went with friends to the wonderful Moon exhibition at the Greenwich Maritime Museum, celebrating fifty years since the first moon landing:

"The Moon is the UK’s biggest exhibition dedicated to Earth’s celestial neighbour.

Charting the cultural and scientific story of our relationship with the Moon, the exhibition features over 180 objects, including artefacts from Nasa's Apollo 11 Mission.

Reconnect with the wonders of the Moon through artefacts, artworks and interactive moments, and discover how it has captivated and inspired us throughout history."

 (from the Museum webpage)

The exhibits include:

• Lunar samples collected from NASA’s Apollo missions and the Soviet Union’s Luna programme
• A Mesopotamian Tablet from 172 BCE, one of the oldest objects on display, showing how lunar eclipses were considered to be bad omens
• The Hasselblad camera equipment that captured some of the most recognisable and iconic space photos of the 20th century
• Hugh Percy Wilkin's moon map
• The “Snoopy Cap” Communications Carrier, worn by astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin during Apollo 11 (one of my favourite exhibits)
• Artworks from artists including J M W Turner, El Anatsui, Tom Hammick and Larissa Sansour

What struck me most was the incredible bravery of these remarkable men who, on landing on the Moon's surface, did not really know what was out there, how deep the dust was, and whether they were going to make it back. It is an iconic moment in the history of humanity, driven by the Cold War space race, but more particularly by Mankind's relentless drive to explore the "outer" world. Alongside films of the missions, and measuring instruments from across the centuries, was artwork; we saw paintings and other artistic productions inspired by our Moon. And of course a copy of Hergé's 1954 Tintin adventure "Nous avons marché sur la lune"!

Here is a brilliant documentary on Neil Armstrong, well worth watching. We can see what a special man he was, the first human being to set foot on another heavenly body. He truly is a hero of the twentieth century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-OcW3Qhjg

Humans are remarkable; this moment is a testimony to that energy, invention, curiosity, to push back the frontiers of scientific knowledge, in the face of apparently impossible odds.

Moon exploration has also given us another sense of ourselves and our miraculous blue planet, hanging in space. This photograph was taken in 1968 by astronaut William Anders in Lunar orbit. It has been described as one of the most influential environmental photographs ever taken.

 

The poets too have always looked to the moon, as source of meaning and inspiration; suspended in our skies in a pale mystery and beauty that no scientific instrument can understand. We have certainly lost that sense of mystery, of a Cosmos that speaks on a metaphysical level to us. The Moon has symbolised countless things, has its own goddess Diana, inspires a sense of beauty, of melancholy, embodies change through its waxing and waning, the great rhythms of life, of our bodies, of the seas. It gives light when the sun leaves our horizon, it is the great reflector. Only someone completely dead to the world can fail to be deeply affected by its presence.
John Keats based his long poem "Endymion" on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved of the Moon goddess Selene.

Shakespeare savours the very poetry of the word "Moon", its soft pale sounds, especially in A Midsummer Night's Dream, whose verse is impregnated by its magic transformative presence in the forest outside Athens. The Moon is evoked in the very opening lines to the play. Here are Theseus and Hippolyta on the eve of their wedding:

Theseus, Duke of Athens:
 

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in

Another moon; but O, methinks, how slow

This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,

Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,

Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

Hippolyta:
 

Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

 

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It symbolises the ending of an old cycle, and the renewal of the next. The new Moon will preside over festivities and bless the union, as a symbol of fertility, just as it can be a symbol of virginity: "the chaste beams of the watery moon...". The moon is a living being, looking over us.

One of the fairies says to Puck in Act I, scene 2;

I do wander everywhere, 
Swifter than the moon's sphere...

An unusual thing to say; what is it to be "swifter than the moon's sphere"? But the fairy associates herself with the power of the moon. And its power can be destructive, governing floods, almost a sinister pre-Christian force in Titania the Queen of Fairies' words:

"No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound..."

She can cause chaos and confusion in the natural world, and in human affairs.

These visions of the moon are far removed from the Apollo missions, but perhaps not entirely. The astronauts themselves spoke of feeling awe, and being deeply moved by what they saw. This is what the astronaut Edgar Mitchell said of his experience, close to some of the intuitions of the poets:

"That's a powerful experience, to see Earth rise over the surface [of the Moon]. And I suddenly realised that the molecules in my body, and the molecules in the spacecraft and my partners had been prototyped, maybe even manufactured, in some ancient generation of stars. But instead of being an intellectual experience, it was a personal feeling...And that was accompanied by a sense of joy and ecstasy, which caused me to say 'What is this?'. It was only after I came back that I did research and found that the term in ancient Sanskrit was Samadhi."