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Now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in the clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
John Milton: Paradise Lost
Happy, happy full moon to all! What a Moon She Be!
(Celtic Ruling Deity - The Sea God Manannan Mac Lir, a master of disguise…)
Most people associate the idea of the blue moon as there being two full moons in one calendar month, the second moon known as the blue moon. However, I discovered earlier today this concept is a modern understanding, and whilst worthy of special recognition, the second calendar moon is not the blue moon our ancestral moon-gazers knew. A blue moon was always the third of four full moons to glow fat in one season. There are typically only three full moons in a season, the period of time between a solstice and an upcoming equinox, or from an equinox to the following solstice. This month's August 19th full moon qualifies as a true blue moon because it's the third of four full moons to grace earth between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. The moon’s phases realign themselves to the solar calendar every 19 years, and today, the 19th of course, is a cyclic marker; in 19 years time, on the 19th august 2024, the moon will be blue again, completing the cycle. This 19-year synchronization between lunar and seasonal cycles, the Metonic cycle, works within the lunar month of an approximate 29.5 days! Within a 19 year cycle, there are only 7 such blue moons, cosmically asserting 12 solar years (mirrored in months) are free of blue moons.
Yet! The more modern understanding of a blue moon also occurs 7 times, though not on the same dates as the other model, thus doubling the concept to 14 blue moon years… only 5 yrs left blue moon free!
Hum…
This august moon is best known as the Sturgeon moon, named by the fishing tribes of Native Americans in honour of the huge fish that were readily caught in the Great Lakes during the month of August. The idea of fish can also be seen in the Celtic lunar calendar, august being the month of the Hazel, a tree believed to be in fellowship with the Rainbow Salmon, the oldest and wisest animal in Druidic faith. Highly flexible, lively and inspirational, the Rainbow Salmon calls for the creative imagination to be brought into the collective. It is said to be the time of social awareness, Hazel folk encouraged to reveal their lively teaching minds, their artistic abundance. Being directed by the ephemeral and flighty Mercury, we are reminded of the transience each months’ energy bestows, reminded to capture the swift and give it wingèd form.
Mercury is, in fact, the messenger Hermes, able to transcend to the upper Heavens, (typically on the bow of the rainbow) and imperatively, can also descend into the depths of Hades’ underworld, returning to our middle earth unscathed. We perceive the interconnectedness between such worlds and albeit elusive and fleeting, communion between the worlds becomes feasible. Archetypes like Hermes call attention to our frigid determinates in western ideology, suggesting such absolutes like heaven and hell are far from separate ‘dead-ends,’ (excuse the pun) offering imaginative tools in which to discover, uncover and fuel our potentialities. These archetypes provide spaces in which we can express our differences creatively; they're the states of knowing and being. We are the centrality, as Hermes’ mystical doctrine shows: we are the middleness of ‘As Above, So Below.’
Of course, back to our ethereal moon, one can perceive perhaps the solar flame of Leo cavorting and reflecting his sumptuous palette through such a moon, his childlike wonderment contagiously warming. And indeed, to many other tribes this moon appears reddish on horizons, blushing her arrival through an almost sultry haze.
If not known as Full Red Moon, then she has certainly identity as the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon. One can only suppose these slight variations occurring because of the solar influences; Leo august moon is most certainly infused with greater red urgency than the Virgo greens. Virgo is the mother-of-earth to all, symbolically mid-term in her carrying of the solar king, (Jesus/Pan) her woman-self the compliment other to the man-self, her Virgo sun-self paradoxically carrying the internal moon-child in the darkened womb in her opposite sign, the watery duality of Pisces, the mark of Jesus. It is fascinating to observe this magnificent moon today reaching its pinnacle in the sign of the water bearer Aquarius yet within two hours of reaching fullness, the moon quickly moves into Pisces in anticipation of the Sun’s transition (dare I say penetration?) into Virgo.
Note the elusive nature of the gender roles? One can almost breath the androgyny within the compliment self of both mother and father… what an incredible piece of space this is… this earth.
Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen
For what listen they?
John Keats: Endymion
On route to school on morning, two of my children and I played a word game which left me feeling both disturbed and guilty of psychological/spiritual neglect! The game was simple; I would provide a word to which the children would give as many meanings/interpretations as they could; the idea is reminiscent of connecting associative meanings in ‘a stream of consciousness,’ an outpouring of ideas. On saying ‘tree,’ both children gave many a fine scientific fact about the noble tree yet failed abysmally to know the tree as having any symbolic value whatsoever. It was at this moment I identified the sterilisation of word, the ‘dumbing down process’ that has become a catechism in the mouths of modern day political radicals. The television was banished, communication and reading naturally taking predominance. Without the use of ‘sense-enabled’ awareness in language, what hope could future children ever have of understanding the deeper meanings found in Keats’ question?
Seeming with bright eyes to listen
For what listen they?
It is the metaphor, the symbol, the mythology of language that provides self and community awareness that provides meaning and understanding whilst promoting psychological intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. As Joseph Campbell says in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, we must ask,
‘how [to] teach again… what has been taught correctly and incorrectly, learned a thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind's prudent folly? That is the hero's ultimate difficult task. How render back into the light-world language the speech-defying pronouncements of the dark?
The moon’s many multicultural faces build a narrative of discovery by associative contrasts or similarities, yet it is fair to note many would find my interest non-sensical, idiotic even. The moon is scientifically earth’s satellite, a ball of grey matter that merely pulls the seas into touch and keeps us grounded. All personifications, symbols or mythologies are therefore rendered fantasies based in the dubious realm of the imagination and do not relate reality. Throughout the history of English literature, narratives consistently re-iterate the same alternatives to the same secular and theological injustices; else they work in a moralistic present, showing mankind’s tragedies from a past perspective as if progress is the reality. Poets like Keats are debased as escapists, or worse still, verging on mental illness.
Somehow, the ‘internal’ experience needs reaffirming. There are indefinable, effable truths within man that can only be illuminated by the process itself, by the affirmations, the rituals of calling them into the light. As Goethe noted, the spiritual, metaphysical wonderment can be found in literature, within the words of experience itself. He affirmed literary ‘symbolism is where the particular represents the more general, not as a dream or a shadow, but as a living momentary revelation of the Inscrutable.’ He continues, ‘allegory changes a phenomenon into a concept, a concept into an image… while symbolism changes the phenomenon into the idea, the idea into the image, in such a way that the idea remains always infinitely active and unapproachable in the image and will remain inexpressible even though it is expressed in all languages.’ Schiller also commented on how a poet employs a ‘symbolic operation’ to change inanimate nature into human nature, suggesting ‘nature should become a symbol of the internal harmony of the mind with itself… by a ‘symbolism, Symbolik, of the imagination.’
The blindfolds of ‘history’ cannot truly black out the imagination. Neither should classic literature/poetry be imprisoned by historicism although universities will try. To view texts historically can be nostalgic but it is all too easy to become enmeshed in the political bitterness of the time at the expense of the timeless text itself. History does not show political progress, just another war with different names to focus on. The real voices are those writing beyond such horrors, voices that offer the metamorphosis that the theological and political powers have systematically worked to hide. Why else are these vitally alive infusions of word magic beheld as ‘high cultural artefacts,’ retained away from popular culture?
I believe mythologies are essential; they have lived and continue to live within the unconscious, both in the personal and cultural psyches. These mythologies direct and motivate our actions. Provoking an underlying myth into conscious awareness is of profound value, and offers new ways of seeing the world and our place within it. It calls for constant adjustment, a fluid movement back and forth between myths personal and cultural, between past and present, often challenging what constitutes the real.
The homelessness of my own psyche relates to the wandering Odysseus, Dante’s exile and feels Keats’ isolated world of the beautiful on earth. The microcosm of the personal myth, when truly worked and revealed, always yields unto the universal macrocosm, reflecting both cultural and global concerns and needs.
Perhaps this is the ultimate fear of Global Government. That we, the little folk, can narrate a far more opulent existence all by ourselves, one that embraces global diversity and celebrates multiculturalism, one that believes and trusts the love humanity is capable of.
Enjoy the Richness of Lunar Light Rays J
Good even, good fair moon, good even to thee;
I prithee, dear moon, now show to me
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
Of the man that true lover of mine shall be.
Walter Scott
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