All motion curves toward loss; in that curve, meaning.
The lingering maiden moon, harbors no wish for miracles, no faith in angels to anoint its slow awakening into fullness. It glides along a script written in invisible ink, long before memory—a prophecy of light, silence, and obedience. The Santa Ana winds surge without care or conscience, without repentance. What they touch, they scatter, leave beauty and ruin intertwined. White light bends toward red as it curves past a massive star, drawn by the gravity it cannot escape—like a soul bleeding under the weight of what the universe demands of it.
“Why,” “what,” and “how” offer no guidance on the highway of life; they are echoes—faint cries lost to the wind. We become suspended in our struggle to meet the demand when life opens its palms and asks for everything—our offering, our breath, and beyond. We trade our exhaustion like currency, hoping for a trace of mercy in the bargain, trembling like lanterns in a restless wind at the edge of surrender. Life does not plead—it insists. It takes, and takes again, demanding the marrow of who we are. So we arrive at the altar of burnt offering, fractured but upright, clothed in the dust of our resolve. From what little remains of us, more is asked—more than we ever believed possible. We realize, at last, how small our reach—mere pipsqueaks in altering what time will faithfully unveil through its grand design. And so we wait—not for rescue, but for the quiet beginning of healing, that delicate turning back toward life once more.
Our reaching for a miracle, some tender mercy of respite—how it trembles on the edge of uncertainties! Even as hope survives as the ghost of wonder, the angels—wearied by centuries of listening to our longings—fold their wings in sorrow. Still, we show up, again and again, when the soul can offer only its ache as prayer. We join our ancestors—the moon in her silver patience, the wind in its endless wandering, the light that never forgets to return. We always had, and perhaps always would. What inevitably awaits us is the demand for unconditional acceptance. It carves no painless path, nor does it mend what’s broken—yet it remains, a lullaby to life.
Making of:
The piece explores exhaustion as a spiritual pressure, like gravity on light, rather than just tiredness or defeat.
The moon, Santa Ana winds, and redshifting light were chosen as images of forces that do not negotiate, mirroring how life “asks for everything” without apology.
The structure moves from cosmic inevitability, to the human cost of that demand, to a quieter, unromantic acceptance that stops expecting rescue.
Religious language—“altar of burnt offering,” “angels,” “prayer”—reframes ordinary endurance as a kind of offering rather than a failure to cope.
The closing emphasis on “unconditional acceptance” presents acceptance not as comfort, but as a steady lullaby that allows a small turning back toward life, even when nothing has been fixed