The only thing we generally see different from night to night when we look to the moon is its own shadow progressing across its face.

That familiar pock marked disk of craters and ridges never changes. As for the ‘dark side of the moon’, it is the Moon’s dark side day of our tidal side’s night.

So what have tides to do with the dark side of the moon? Gravitational times long ago locked the Moon and Earth into an embrace of unrequited affection with the moon forever staring at its hot and cold, day and night neighbor.

Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Unrequited Affection’, 1/160 f/9 ISO100 600mm