One of the most enchanting of nights is that of the blue moon… so began a composition I wrote back in elementary school almost 40 years ago. Somewhere I had read that if you made a wish while gazing at a blue moon it would come true. From a wisher’s perspective, it would be like looking at a night sky full of falling stars.
I was still a child when I saw my first blue moon. It was visibly blue and I made a wish. It was a Friday night and I was in the backyard with my grandparents who were raking and burning grass.
Visibly blue moons are caused by smoke or dust particles in the air, not an entirely uncommon phenomenon in the mining and pulp and paper communities of Northerm Ontario where I grew up. Perhaps just the smoke from the burning grass was the factor that made the moon blue. I didn’t question why it was blue. It simply was. And it was magical. I made my wish… I hadn’t seen some members of my family for some time and I wished for their presence. Less than an hour later, they arrived, totally unexpected by my grandparents. I was awestruck.
The realization of my wish awakened my senses to everything in my surroundings. The colour of the sky, the feel of the evening air and the smell of the burning grass are all ingrained in my memory.
When I was a teenager I tried to draw a blue moon. It’s shown above, as seen in my mind’s eye at the time. I was captivated by their mystery. Unfortunately, I never saw one again. Or at least I didn’t think I had.
Recently I learned that blue moon is the name given to the second full moon that occurs in a calendar month. This event usually only takes place once every three years or so.
This New Year’s Eve we’ll have the first such blue moon since May 31, 2007. The next one won’t occur until August 31, 2012.
The Farmers Almanac has a different formula for calculating the occurence of blue moons, one that involves calling a moon blue if it’s the fourth full moon to occur within a season. For a thorough explanation you can visit Wikipedia’s entry on Blue Moons.
The way I see it, since blue moons only occur once in a blue moon, it’s best to leave calculations to the astronomers and the farmers at the almanac and focus instead on making the most of the wishing aspect of this event.
I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred,
I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
In 2018, amazingly, two blue moons will occur: one in January and one in March. It will definitely be a year for making wishes.
Page updated July 31st 2015.
Text and photographs copyright Amy-Lynn Bell 2015
I also read that we won’t have another blue moon on New Year’s eve until 2028. Here is some more information. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091230-blue-moon-new-years-eve.html
Jessica, that makes it even more special! It already looked stunning late last night and early this morning. The National Geographic article also mentioned that the moon will be at its highest at midnight so everyone should be able to get a good look at it in the sky, wherever they are. Thanks for the added information 🙂
Happy New Year Jessica!
Guess what! On my way home from work I saw that the moon had just risen, it was BIG,slightly orange and mostly screened by whiffs of cloud. It was beautiful…AND it is coming your way, don’t miss him 🙂
Thanks for the heads-up swaps. The sky is clear here today. If it stays that way we’re in for quite a show.
…around 5:30, he will be just above the horizon and really BIG.
Swaps, I tried looking earlier in the evening, but am so surrounded by trees that it was impossible to get a good view of the moon at that time.
Back in the 70s I did a lot of work with felt markers. Bright colours seemed to be a lot more popular then than they are today.
Hey, the painting is really good… thanks for sharing 🙂
Swaps, the painting is pretty old, from about 1974. I don’t do much with dots or spider webs anymore but was very much into that sort of thing at the time. Glad you liked it.
19…74!! I badly want to go back in time and soak up all the colours and sweetness that I missed.
Lovely painting 🙂
That’s an amazing drawing. Drawing? Whatever it is, I like it. I’ve always loved the idea of blue moons, and have often wished I knew less about them, keeping the romatic nature in tact. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
The art work is wonderful, as is the story of feeling that you had conjured up your relatives by wishing on the blue moon. I find your drawing and memory infinitely more charming than statistics on how often a blue moon occurs or wrangles on the exact definition. Thank you!
I, too, like the drawing. I am jealous of all of you who will be able to see the full moon tonight. Our sky is full of “lake effect” and the moon is nowhere to be found.
Sakhi, Yousei, Pamela and Gerry, thank you for your comments. Cloud layers made it difficult to get a clear view of the moon whenever I looked up. Hopefully you all had a good new year, with or without the presence of a blue moon.
I wonder about the differences in lives; for those who never wished upon a blue moon and saw their wish come true. What a different life-story from a person who learned to believe in magic versus another person who never whispered the magic words and saw their grandparents answering the silent plea. This is why we’re willing–errr, are we willing?–to sit under the elder tree at midnight on a midsummer’s solstice. Because we KNOW that wishes do come true.
Kathy, it is odd how some children grow up believing while others don’t. It’s a lot harder to start believing once you’re an adult.
I think I’m game for the elder tree adventure as long as it’s not raining. The full moon doesn’t take place until June 26th so hopefully it will still be bright enough in the woods.
Your artwork! I always wondered where the dewdrops on spiderwebs come from …
Pyrit, I’m not sure where the dewdrops come from… I always thought they were from the mist. There’s so much of it in the air around here.
🙂 But I was inspired to imagine that the dew drops tumble out from your drawing!
🙂 🙂