Bad Moon Rising* . . . or
A wonderful Blue Moon on the rise.
When I left for work this morning in the predawn hours before first light there was a waxing almost full moon smiling at me, a midst the two December moons.
Once in a Blue Moon . . . is a common way of saying not very often, but what exactly is a Blue Moon?
According to the popular definition, it is the second Full Moon to occur in a single calendar month.
It is a lunar event that happens ‘once in a blue moon’.
This phenomenon has nothing to do with color, everything to do with time.
The average interval between Full Moons is about 29.5 days, whilst the length of an average month is roughly 30.5 days. This makes it very unlikely that any given month will contain two Full Moons, though it does sometimes happen.
On average, there will be 41 months that have two Full Moons in every century, so you could say that once in a Blue Moon actually means once every two-and-a-half years.
While a blue moon consistently gives poets fodder and feeds the imagination of stargazers, its presence is a scientific marker for a rotating earth that by its own clock ignores the Julian calendar.
And only once in every 20 years, the blue moon appears on New Year’s Eve, as it will this year.
The moon is out of phase with the days . . . for it to make its complete cycle it’s about 28 days. It doesn’t coincide with our month, and that’s why it is out of sync with our Julian calendar. I awake to a moon hanging lazily in the western sky slowly falling towards the icy waters of Cook Inlet and the glow upon the thin clouds reminding me of those Halloween moons . . . half expecting to see a witch flying past or Santa’s sleigh & reindeer making their way north after a long run around the world bringing smiles to those little wondrous faces on Christmas morning.
It will be hours after I arrive at my office when I look up and out the window that it is dawn’s first light outside. I look out over the Chugach Mountains and see the faint glow of light outlining the ridges of the mountaintops. It is gray at first as the light shines though the thin cloud reaching across the sky above Anchorage
Within the next few minutes there is a glorious change taking place before me as the gray changes to a purple and on to orange. The intensity grows with each minute as the small orange orb grows across the whole skyscape.
The heavens are on fire with a beauty only those fortunate to witness its majesty and as quickly it changed to another morning sky.
I worked all day and as I left work around four in the afternoon and it was already dark enough to use headlights on vehicles. I walked out to my rig for the drive home and I noticed the moon had risen already and was climbing into the sky over the mountains I can see from my office window. Our second full moon of the month is building. It was high in the sky through the snow encrusted trees well before dark tonight.
The magical light of the second full moon this month welcomes the New Year of 2010! Hopefully for everyone it will be the start to a wonderful and magical time that carries longer than the first few hours.
I wish for you great things in 2010 so get out there and make each day and night one to remember.
Ice
Comments