Friday, August 31, 2012

Blue moon tonight... or is it?


I wrote a little bit about this before as part of a larger topic (which could stand a bit of touching up!), but figured it's an appropriate topic to re-visit tonight.

These days when one says blue moon, most people think of the second full moon in a month that contains two. This concept is actually based on a misunderstanding, however, which originated with the Sky and Telescope magazine. Originally a blue moon referred to the third full moon in a season which contained four full moons - most seasons only have three. That's the basic idea of it, and if you're interested in learning a bit more on the topic, and how the definition shifted in recent times, here's an article which explains it in more detail.

Now nothing against the monthly method - definitions change all the time, after all - but at this point in my practice I prefer to go with the seasonal method, so tonight is not a blue moon for me. (Tonight I'm celebrating the grain moon.) A blue moon isn't all that different from most other moons for me, anyway... they're neat because they don't come around often, but that's about the extent of it. I know some like to use it for long term goal planning, or other such things, but eh... works for some, but just doesn't work for me. Maybe someday it will take a more special place in the cycle, but for now...? Well, for now I have tonight's celebration to deal with, so off to prepare for that!

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad that I posted the blue moon as a topic on Pagan Blog Prompts - I have learned a lot about it through everyone's responses!

    Thanks for sharing with us at PBP!
    ~Sunfire

    ReplyDelete