It’s another full moon tonight. A blue moon. They don’t happen so often it seems. They aren’t blue. They’re kinda like the moon’s version of a leap year and they’re called blue for … reasons. I’ve only found guesses that are hard to get your imagination behind as to why they’re called blue. Here’s my theory… Sometimes, rarely, the moon appears to be the colour blue. This would have been an observed phenomenon – particles in the atmosphere etc. Blue coloured moons can’t be predicted, but were known to exist rarely and were part of folklore. Early astronomers tried to predict them, believing such things might follow cycles like so much else in nature. They had a couple of false positives on the “third in a cycle” theory. It stuck, despite later turning out not to hold water. Oh yeah – so the third in a cycle theory:
Normally there are three full moons in an astronomical cycle. Tonight’s moon is the third out of a rare four in a single cycle… This third out of four is astronomically called the blue moon – even if its red. Lots of astronomers get angry about how people have simplified this recently by saying blue is when there’s two full moons in a month. I get why they’ve simplified it – I haven’t got the best grasp of these astronomical cycles – they’re obtuse. You’re probably as lost in this as I am. But tonight’s moon is the second in the month AND the third in a cycle so it’s blue no matter how you look at it, even if it’s not actually the colour blue. Blue Moon!
Is it me, or is every bloody moon rare and important these days? Why can’t we just have an ordinary moon from time to time? “What’s this moon? Oh it’s a moon moon”. There’s enough crazy shit going on without it always being super blood blue wolf whatever blinking moon. When I were a lad, moon were made of cheese and that were that. This one’s blue cheese. That’s all.
Apparently tonight we have a blue sturgeon moon in Aquarius. It’ll help us align with the abundant energy of summer, darling. You will make the caviar of good fortune for yourself and those you love. Go fishing. Do stuff. Harness that busy Aquarius energy. Focus your creativity. Grab that fish by the horns. Go make magic. That’ll be £12.50.
Walking down the seafront at Brighton I caught a stain of moonish light trying to show up from behind the clouds. I guess that’s my lot. The clouds are thick. A few fingers of moonlight as I wandered home to play chase the tape measure with an old strange friendly pussy, but that was all I was getting.
The night air is still warm at least. Hell, we might have another good month before the darkness takes us back. It really hasn’t been the most dynamic summer. Nature packed most of the heat into one week and left a lot of the rest of the time to be grey and miserable. I’m hoping for a great September. It better be.
Maybe I should demand a great September of this sturgeon moon. It makes no difference but it’ll make me feel better. And if it’s a good September I’ll swear blind it’s because I asked the moon for it.
We drove up to Ditchling Beacon dreaming of watching the sunset and the moonrise. We ended up freezing our ass off watching a cloud. For a glorious few minutes we caught the sun as it dipped below the canopy.
Then it got cold. We zipped back to Kemp Town just in time to be told that the chip shop had stopped serving. I ate my disappointed curry. Now we are looking after our respective animals again. And as soon as I schedule this blog I’m gonna be carrying a pendulous and disconcertingly fragile co-op bag full of accumulated cat excrescence down three flights of stairs for disposal.
Maybe on the way to the bin I’ll catch this moon.
AlBarclay 