The Moon Masquerades as a Sunset
Ding! I heard my cell phone alert that a text had arrived – I looked at the clock and said to myself, “who is texting me at this hour?” It was Susan, inviting me to meet up at the Fishing Pier in Ocean Grove with a few other “moonies” to see the day old full moon rising. In all my years of moon watching and moon loving, I don’t ever remember watching the moon rise from the horizon of the Atlantic ocean. It was a sight to behold. I arrived just in time to see a small slice of orange peeking above the distant black horizon. Slowly, oh so very slowly, the orange slice grew larger until you could see the top quarter of the orange globe. Well first of all, I never expected it to be orange! The only other orange/red moon I ever saw was in South Africa was glorious and high up in the night sky. So here we are; an assortment of Ocean Grove residents gathered on the boardwalk oohing and ahhing over this ball of fire, this moon which was the color of a sunset was emerging before our eyes. The well prepared people had cameras, tripods and lens – I FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA!!! I must remember to have camera and Flip with me at all times. I know I’ve said that before, I’m a slow learner. I tried to take some feeble shots with my cell phone see below:
and by this point the moon had clearly rose and as it inched up in the sky, its brilliant hue began to fade and eventually was all white. So I borrowed the shot of the rising orange moon because I wanted you to get an idea of the magnificence of this natural phenomena.
This moon known to the early American colonists as the Planter’s Moon is aptly named since most New Englanders and Middle Atlantic residents know it’s not a good idea to plant anything much before the end of this month because Mother Nature every now and then throws us a couple of freezing days and we are once again wondering if Spring will ever really be here.
In Chinese astrology, this moon is known as the Peony Moon and from that I gather they are living in a more temperate zone because my peonies just have buds now and probably won’t bloom until mid May or later.
I’m partial to the lore of Native Americans and in their culture this moon was known as the Flower Moon. Could this be because they lived where the Dogwood trees bloomed, the Sweet Cherry trees bloomed and if you look in my lawn you can see that April is the month the dandelions begin to bloom too. I know that Daffodils, Tulips, Iris and a few other perennials bloom so sweetly, reminding us that summer is just around the corner BUT do I think the Indians were planting bulbs from Holland the previous Fall? NO I don’t!ll
We were a fairly well-behaved group, moon admirers and thank goodnes, no Lunatics were in evidence. You really have to look over your shoulder to make sure there aren’t any lunatics near by.
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
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