We Fed the Moon Our Prayers

Every year on the seventh night of Ashven, when the monsoon clouds clear and the stars gather like whispered secrets, we lit candles for the moon.

It was a ritual older than our village. Older, even, than the banyan tree by the river, whose roots reached so deep that elders said they drank memories. We weren’t taught the origin—we were simply told: "The moon listens when the world forgets."

My grandmother was the keeper of the ritual. Her hands were the kind that always smelled of sandalwood and ash, her eyes a fading gray that mirrored the full moon in October. Every year, she gathered the children—me, my cousins, the neighbors' little ones—and led us barefoot to the temple hill, our arms cradling beeswax candles and folded scraps of paper.

On those slips of paper were our prayers.

Some simple—

“Let Papa come home safely.”

“Let the crops survive.”

“Let Mina’s cough go away.”

Some secret—

“I’m sorry I broke the cup.”

“I wish she hadn’t left.”

“I hope I’m enough.”

We placed them in little clay bowls, tucked the candles beside them, and set them on the earth beneath the open sky.

The moon always came. Always full, always waiting.

We lit the candles together, a flickering ring of small flames against the vastness of the night. Then we sat in silence, letting the wind carry our breath upward. No chants. No bells. Only our quiet, shared yearning.

And the sky always listened.

The stars blinked gently. The moon brightened just enough, as if nodding. Grandmother said the ritual wasn’t about receiving—it was about remembering. “The sky holds what we cannot,” she whispered one year, her voice thinner than before. “And the moon keeps the promises we’re too afraid to say out loud.”

When she passed the following spring, the hill felt hollow.

No one gathered. The village had grown weary, busy with new problems, new gods, new screens. People forgot.

But I didn’t.

That seventh night, I went alone. A single candle. One folded paper.

"I miss you. I remember."

The moon came.

The sky stayed silent.

And still—I lit the candle.

Years passed. I moved to the city. Concrete swallowed trees, the sky dimmed with lights that never meant anything. The stars became strangers.

But every Ashven, I return.

Now I bring my own children. They ask, “Why do we light the candles?”

I tell them, “To feed the moon our prayers.”

They write theirs in their new, messy handwriting. Some wishes I don’t understand. Some I recognize—echoes of my own from long ago.

And we climb the hill together, now overgrown, the banyan still watching.

We light the candles.

We place the prayers.

We sit in silence.

And the moon still listens.

Because some rituals aren’t about religion or tradition.

Some rituals are about stitching yourself to time. About saying: I was here. I hoped. I remembered.

And maybe—just maybe—

That’s enough.