Did you know you have only ever seen one side of the moon? Though it orbits around the earth, the same side faces us the whole time. It technically does rotate on its twenty-seven-day journey around our planet, but because it is tidally locked to earth, it manages to keep its rear away from us at all times. Scientists call this synchronous rotation. Like a servant before a king, the moon never turns its back on us.
What is called “the far side of the moon” or “the dark side of the moon” is always hidden. Humans laid eyes on it for the first time during Apollo 8. This side of the moon is pocked by craters far more extreme than those on the side we see in the sky every night. One reason for this is obvious: as long as it has hung in the sky, the side pointing away from earth gets the brunt of any asteroids coming our way, like a bodyguard taking a bullet for the one under their protection. The earth returns the favor, acting as a shield for much of the space debris coming from our direction that would slam into the moon.
The moon is one-fourth the size of the earth but is big for a moon. Its mysterious backside has mountain ranges taller than the Himalayas. There are craters. Lots of craters. There are craters within craters within craters. Some are only an inch, and some go down a mile. There are craters so big the Grand Canyon could fit inside. One known crater is eighty-five miles wide and almost thirty thousand feet deep.
I find it extremely symbolic that the moon keeps the most damaged (and interesting) side out of sight like so many of us.
Mark Twain once said, “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
The irony, of course, is that even though the dark side is where damage has happened, it is also where the highest heights are located. Highlands rise higher above the surface there than on the near side. And craters plunge low. Craters, after all, are just mountains in reverse.
The pockmarks and wounds you carry around inside and show to no one are not only where the most damage has happened; they are where your greatest potential strengths lie. As they say, the cracks are what let the light in.
