The first full moon in November is traditionally called the Beaver Moon in North America, and marks the season when we might be busy as beavers getting everything shored up against winter.

Lately I’ve been refreshing my memory of the hymn that I memorized soon after my husband’s passing, a version of St. Patrick’s Breastplate from Charles Villiers Stanford. He used two old Irish tunes to compose a majestic setting for Cecil Frances Alexander’s poetry. The YouTube version I learned from is still up: “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”

On the occasion of the full moon I am sharing only the portion of the hymn that draws our spiritual eyes to the natural world.

I bind unto myself today
the virtues of the starlit heaven,
the glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
the whiteness of the moon at even;

the flashing of the lightning free,
the whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
the stable earth, the deep salt sea,
among the old eternal rocks.

Another version of this ancient hymn is “The Deer’s Cry,” and my favorite rendition of that one is sung by Lisa Kelly here: “The Deer’s Cry.”

What could I add to this prayer? The blessing is in the singing of it.