December: The Full Cold Moon

It's not surprising that December's full moon is known as the Full Cold Moon. In December here in the northern hemisphere we stand at the bottom of the year's wheel and often the bottom of the thermometer too. It's the perfect moon for seeing a certain flight crew of reindeer making practice runs in preparation for the big night.

Here's a little Almanac wisdom for December.

The Full Corn Moon

The Full Corn Moon or Harvest Moon is aptly named, and if you happen to live in an area where autumn is the time of the harvest you'll understand why. In September the moon hangs fat and low in the sky, lighting the countryside brightly enough that in the days before electric lighting was common it allowed the farmer's work to continue into the evening hours. It's a melancholy moon, kind of a sad farewell to summer's warmth and a harbinger of the frosts and trials to come.

It's probably this inherent sadness that the vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth had in mind when they penned the tune Shine on Harvest Moon for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 and the fact many people even know the name of that song says something about its sentiment. I mean, how many other 1908 show tunes can you name? Ruth Etting, dubbed America’s Sweetheart of Song, performed the tune and via the auspices of YouTube here’s a 1931 recording.

And, in case you think I've veered too far off topic, here's The Old Farmer's Almanac's summation of the meaning of the Full Corn Moon.

Once in a Blue Moon

Today is the day for any unlikely event you care to see come to pass because tonight will be a genuine blue moon. A blue moon is the second full moon occurring in a calendar month, and that’s what you’ll get (weather permitting) tonight. The origin of the term blue moon is a little less clear. According to Wikipedia (oh dispenser of undisputed truth):

“The suggestion has been made that the term "blue moon" for "intercalary month" arose by folk etymology, the "blue" replacing the no-longer-understood belewe "to betray". The original meaning would then have been "betrayer moon", referring to a full moon which would "normally" (in non-intercalating years) be the full moon of spring, while in intercalating year, it was "traitorous" in the sense that people would have had to continue fasting for another month in accordance with the season of Lent.”

This explanation seemed a little contrived for me, though. I mean a lot of the English language can trace its origin back to biblical references, but Lent is a once-a-year thing and to have a moon named after something that's rare at best doesn't sit well with me. Digging into the Old Farmer’s Almanac confirmes the belewe reference, but also gives a second possible origin of the term:

“…in the March 1999 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, author Phillip Hiscock revealed one somewhat confusing origin of this term. It seems that the modern custom of naming the second full Moon of a month "blue," came from an article published in the March 1946 Sky & Telescope magazine. The article was "Once in a Blue Moon," written by James Hugh Pruett. In this article, Pruett interpreted what he read in a publication known as the Maine Farmers' Almanac (no relation to this Farmers' Almanac, published in Lewiston, Maine), and declared that a second full Moon in a calendar month is a "Blue Moon."

However, after reviewing the Maine Farmer's Almanac, Hiscock found that during the editorship of Henry Porter Trefethen (1932 to 1957), the Maine Farmers' Almanac made occasional reference to a Blue Moon, but derived it from a completely different (and rather convoluted) seasonal rule. As simply as can be described, according to Trefethen's almanac, there are normally three full Moons for each season of the year. But when a particular season ends up containing four full Moons, then the third of that season is called a Blue Moon! To make matters more confusing, the beginning of the seasons listed in Trefethen's almanac were fixed. A fictitious or dynamical mean Sun produced four seasons of equal length with dates which differed slightly from more conventional calculations. So, basically the current use of "Blue Moon" to mean the second full Moon in a month can be traced to a 55-year-old mistake in Sky & Telescope magazine.”

Regardless of which origin you believe, the term blue moon has influenced everything from beer to music to literature. It has a kind of poetry, a wistfulness and quiet desperation that nests deep inside so much good literature. A current favorite of mine is the poem The Blue Moon by James Francis Carlin MacDonnell.

The Blue Moon

 

Memory is as blue

As the small flax-flower’s dew,

The twilight’s distant skies

And your far eyes:

Blue as the meadows seen

In reality as green;

Blue as the broad moon-light

That is really white. 

Memory is as blue

As the world that relates to you,

From the heavens over all,

To your blue shawl:

Blue as the roads that may

Once more be dusty grey,

For one whose sight of mind

Is color-blind. 

Memory as blue

As the winds that sally through

The dark blue shadows, deep

In your blue sleep:

Blue as your lips, to be

That red reality,

Which I shall meet when the light

Of the moon is white.

So, get out there under that old blue moon with the one you love and make the most of this August night!

The Full Sturgeon Moon

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is a little spare on their information about August’s full moon. They're also apparently having problems with YouTube and linking to videos so you'll have to click on the link above to actually view the video. Their website goes a little further; adding the fact some tribes called the August full moon the Full Red Moon due to the fact that as it rises, it takes on a reddish hue due to the summer’s haze. Other names included the Green Corn Moon and Grain Moon.

Dog Days of Summer

Welcome to August and the Dog Days of Summer. Does that phrase bring to mind a panting pooch? Well, here's an Old Farmer's Almanac piece on the true origin of the phrase.

Full Worm Moon

March brings with it a moon of many names, including one of the strangest on the calendar. March is the month of the Full Worm Moon, so named for the fact that earthworms reappear as the ground begins to thaw and the returning robins that feed on them are a herald of spring. Northern Native American tribes called March’s full moon the Full Crow Moon, seeing the cawing of the crows as a sign of winter’s end or sometimes the Full Crust Moon for the crusting-over of the snow that occurs from thawing and re-freezing. It is also sometimes called the Full Sap Moon for the rising sap in maple trees or the Lenten Moon. Regardless of its name, March’s full moon is often considered the last full moon of winter and a welcome sign of spring’s arrival.

 

The Full Snow Moon

Tonight the Full Snow Moon fills the night sky.  It gets its name from the heavy snows that often blanket the landscape in February. The native peoples of America also called February’s full moon the Hunger Moon due to the fact that the deep snow and inclement weather made hunting and foraging more difficult.

 

For me a February full moon speaks of longing. It’s a ghost of the moons of spring and summer, wan riding in the deep sky of winter. It can hear spring’s approach but foretells only cold suffering for another month. Only lovers can keep one another warm in desolate February.

February

by Margret Atwood

 

Winter. Time to eat fat

And watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,

A black fur sausage with yellow

Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries

To get onto my head. It’s his

Way of telling whether or not I’m dead.

He’ll think of something. He settles

On my chest, breathing his breath

Of burped-up meat and musty sofas,

purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,

not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,

declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,

which are what will finish us off

in the long run. Some cat owners around here

should snip a few testicles. If we wise

hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,

or eat our young, like sharks.

But it’s love that does us in. Over and over

again, he shoots, he scores! and famine

crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing

eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits

thirty below, and pollution pours

out of our chimneys to keep us warm.

February, month of despair,

With a skewered heart in the center.

I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries

with a splash of vinegar.

Cat, enough of your greedy whining

and your small pink bumhole.

Off my face! You’re the life principle,

more or less, so get going

on a little optimism around here.

Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.

The Wolf Moon

I remember January’s full moon from my childhood. My parents owned a cabin in southern Indiana back in the days when it was actually common to have an inch or more of snow on the ground through that cold month. This cabin had no heat and no indoor plumbing, which meant the inevitable trip to the outhouse before turning in for the night. I can remember the moon rising over the ridgeline, shining coldly through the bare trees. She wore a crown, a bluish-white moonbow that marked her standing as the cold and mysterious queen of the night, and her hard light cowed the billions of stars that populated the heavens.

January is the time of the Wolf Moon and if you’re in the right place, and you go out to look at the moon tonight, you might just hear a wolf howling up to the queen of the night sky. Here’s a little info about the Wolf Moon from Old Farmer’s Almanac.