Anniversary

Happy Flower Moon anniversary to my sweet ole husbo. :) We renewed our marriage tonight, as we do each year... 6 years, woohoo! I love our ceremony, and all the beautiful relics from our first wedding. We married ourselves at a waterfall, under a moonbow (really, a moonbow). Each year we write new liturgy for what we wish to call into our marriage from each elemental "quarter" of our lives. We use candles we made together from beeswax and Cumberland River sand 6yrs ago. We had to patch one tonight but they may even last another year. We have river water, river coal, birthstones, a cord woven of strands representing the Flower Moon, Spring and Renewal, and love. We have our wedding knot. He brought me wildflowers from the roadside and we laughed at how he'd done this on our trip 6yrs ago, and I'd sniffed them and hung them in front of my car vent, then ended up in a fit of allergies for days. He was so cute then, worrying about it.

What is this moonbow? When I was growing up, we had relatives who lived near Cumberland Falls, and I visited there several times... it's gorgeous enough without the moonbow, which I'd never seen until our wedding. Back then, park interpreters told us that there was only one other waterfall in the world where a moonbow could predictably seen, some waterfall in Africa. And in my lifetime, that waterfall's contour has eroded such that a moonbow is no longer predictable there. But at Cumberland Falls, on a clear night with a full moon, there will be a moonbow. The image above shows color, but that is a trick of photography... to the naked eye, the moonbow is ghostly white. When we arrived at nearly midnight, the moonbow arced from the top of the 60ft fall all the way down to the river below. Depending on the orientation of the moon with season, the arc may come in from another direction.

I hope to take DS there next year or the year after to show him. I can't wait... it is a pilgrimage place for us. It is also the place where husbo realized he had a southern accent. He grew up in Little Rock, what was he expecting? It stopped him in tracks, in disbelief. I just laughed... I love accents, and wear my own as lyrically as possible.

He's a wonderful person, this husbo. I hope to have many, many years ahead with him.