The Lunar Calendar determines – and remembers – so much for Muslims.
All the key historic events during the earliest years of Islam. The Hajj. And, of course, Ramadan.
I installed these images the day before Ramadan 2022 started.
So check this out for an appropriate starter image:
Whoever sights (the new moon) Let him fast 2/185
Nocturnal view inside my flat.
There’s a blue glow within a huge angle of windows. Outside, left to right, there’s a massive, only-just-visible tree; a darkened building; two red lights atop a crane; and six storeys of white, brutally elegant flats. Over a fountain – or is that an explosion? – of flaming yellow light.
Highest up, furthest left, seven golden crescents are nestled within a red moon.
These multiple small replica overlaid moons are what I was seeing when I started recording the moon.
After I had an operation, I stopped seeing the ‘moonlets’, and started seeing double – or double-double:
and by the moon when it becomes full Q84/18
Four glowing full moons burst upward left to right over a faraway horizon of construction cranes and … London.
In the middle third, is that snow – shimmering white behind a forest of winter trees?
Out front, to the left, is a pop of red: an old fashioned telephone box.
This is the only photo not taken from my own flat – I walked up three floors to get a better view across London.
Later on during the month:
and the moon – we have determined for it phases until it returns (appearing) like an old date stalk Q36/39
Extravagant clouds hang in the Night Sky. Top left, a wizened crescent gleams. And then you see another, smaller, tucked in, darker. Doubling up like a date-stalk.
All the colours tumble down from here, skimming over golden front room windows, bouncing over yellow balconies, and ending with the orange of a security guard in hi-vis.
More generically:
the moon therein [is a reflected] light and … the sun a burning lamp Q71/16
You can clearly see this in the panoramic view from my urban balcony.
Left to Right: dawn clouds ease out pink over a dark London building. Towards the centre, the burning sun hasn’t arrived yet. But somehow … it has … reflecting orange off the sixth floor, yellow off the fifth floor of some prime brutalist architecture.
Further right, completing all those reflections, the silvery moon is hanging in the sky – just about to disappear.
Until the next night.