Thursday, September 23, 2010

Corn Moon


I know a lot of people are calling this the Super Harvest Moon, but it's traditionally the Corn Moon in September.

This full moon coincided with the autumn equinox, with the moon rising as the sun set - thus the "super" part. I'm not sure who coined that term. It smacks a bit of "super-size-me," and I kind of doubt the Native Americans of North America, who coined the full-moon names had the concept of "super," but I could be wrong.

"Ho, Little Elk, did the Great Spirit reward your hunting?"

"Yes, Red Eagle, the Great Spirit sent me a Super-buck deer. We shall eat well tonight."

See what I mean?

At any rate, this photo of the corn moon is not from last night, but from the night before. We were reliably forecast for rain to come in yesterday, to the tune of 80%. The forecasting types could apparently see this one coming from a long ways off - a long chain of heavy-bellied clouds working like a conveyor belt to bring gulf moisture up to us.

So I took the photo the night before, just in case. Which was a good thing because we had pouring rain all afternoon and night. We never saw the sun, much less the set and the moonrise.

Which was perfectly fine because we hadn't had any moisture for weeks and weeks. Everything had become dusty, cracking dry.

The calendar shows the full moon on one day, but really it's full for about three days. Depending on how far off of full, you might see it slightly gibbous, with a slight shaving off of one side. It's not always easy to pinpoint, that exact moment of perfect fullness, when the waxing stops and the waning starts. We're back to my pendulum now.

I take comfort in that concept, that nothing in nature is ever a fixed point. Instead, our universe is a dynamic system, in constant change.

What appears to be still is simply a snapshot.

6 comments:

  1. Saw the moon rise last night during my daily walk. Gorgeously fat and full. A poetic moon.

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  2. Love your photos. You have such a good eye for composition. (Ha! Maybe because you're a writer. Get it--composition? Okay, lame.)

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  3. Someone else - on the west coast - said it was a magic moon. Sorry I missed it, but the rain was so wonderful...

    And ha, Linda! (and thank you!) I'm still laughing about you being such an old cougar that you're a saber-tooth tiger.

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  4. I had to actually make sure my curtains were closed tight in my room so the moon wouldn't shine through my window and keep me up. Of cousre, the cat doesn't give a damn and had to poke her head behind the curtain which meant I got moonlight in my eyes anyway. *sigh*

    It was super-gorgeous though and that's a super-wonderful picture.

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  5. We had a gorgeous moon ourselves last night and spent some serious time just gazing at it. I love spending time on the water when the moon is full because you can see everything, even though the shadows fall differently.

    My favorite time of the month!

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