I’ve always loved the full moon but didn’t fully appreciate it until I moved to Italy. I would read in a novel how the smugglers had to wait for a moonless night or how the heroine was able to make her escape by the light of the full moon…but I couldn’t really comprehend why it would make such a difference.
That’s because having lived virtually all my life up to that point in the San Francisco Bay Area — with all its artificial light — I had never experienced the contrast of a new moon versus a full moon night.
But then I moved to Ananda Assisi, located in the rural Umbria countryside. I still remember the first time I left an evening program on a full moon night. I was enthralled as I walked home, marveling at how the moonlight could be so bright as to create shadows!
No need for a flashlight on those nights, but come the new moon it was another story entirely!