And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. ~ Genesis 1:14-19

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The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections. ~ Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

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There was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon. The same moon that silently floated over fields of pampas grass, the moon that rose – a gleaming, round saucer – over the calm surface of lakes, that tranquilly beamed down on the rooftops of fast-asleep houses. The same moon that brought the high tide to shore, that softly shone on the fur of animals and enveloped and protected travelers at night. The moon that, as a crescent, shaved slivers from the soul – or, as a new moon, silently bathed the earth in its own loneliness. THAT moon. ~ Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

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The surface of the Moon is not smooth, uniform, and precisely spherical as a great number of philosophers believe it to be, but is uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences, being not unlike the face of the Earth, relieved by chains of mountains and deep valleys. ~ Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius

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For me at age 11, I had a pair of binoculars and looked up to the moon, and the moon wasn’t just bigger, it was better. There were mountains and valleys and craters and shadows. And it came alive. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

After clicking on the video DEFINITELY use the full screen option tag on the far right of the task bar..

With the moonwalk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. ~ Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor 

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We walked on the moon. We made footprints somewhere no one else had ever made footprints, and unless someone comes and rubs them out, those footprints will be there forever because there’s no wind. ~ Frank Cottrell Boyce, Cosmic

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Even when the moon shrinks and disappears, it shows itself again gradually. When ancient people saw that eternal cycle of death and recovery, they prayed to the moon for their own rebirth. Rebirth. Will I be reborn? … If I were reborn, what would I become? ~ Fuminori Nakamura, The Kingdom

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The Moon is slipping from our grasp at a rate of about 1.5 inches a year. In another two billion years it will have receded so far that it won’t keep us steady and we will have to come up with some other solution, but in the meantime you should think of it as much more than just a pleasant feature in the night sky. ~ Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Throughout these nights of discovery and exploration of the moon one question kept recurring in my mind. Why had I been denied all this until my school years were so nearly spent? Why had it not been made a part of the growing up of every youth? I had been taught the rivers, the seas, the mountains of every continent on earth. I knew the capitals of every state and country in the world. And all this time, right above me, the “geography” of a whole new world had been turning, page by nightly page, and no one had opened up the book for me. This is not a negligence peculiar to those times – it still exists. In later years with other telescopes I was to show the moon to thousands of visitors of all ages and not one knew the name of a single mountain range or crater on the moon. ~ Leslie C. Peltier (1900-1980), Starlight Nights

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See also The light that rules the night

H/T Gerard Vanderleun and American Digest

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Face of Jesus by Richard Hook

Soli Deo Gloria!