There’s something about the moon that just makes me marvel about it, most especially during full moon and it’s fat and big and round. It looks so amazing.
I wish I had a better camera for this to capture a lovely night sky especially capture a full moon in it’s glory. We are lucky that our house faces the east, where the sun and moon rise. We have a staircase to our rooftop and from the living area when the doors are open you can see the moon peeking.
Here’s some of the shots I took a couple of moons ago:
Chinese Moon Festival
This year it was celebrated on September 14, 2008. Usually it is celebrated at the full moon on the eight month of the Chinese lunar month or in western tradition the time of the equinox.
On the full moon of the eighth Chinese lunar month, women celebrate the Moon. This is the beginning of the yin part of the year, when the dark takes precedence over the light, and the Moon is the symbol of yin energy, which also includes water, women and night. In the old Chinese agrarian system, autumn and winter were the women’s seasons. There is a Peking proverb that says: “Men do not bow to the moon. Women do not sacrifice to the God of the Kitchen.”
The Moon Goddess, known as Hengo or Chang-o rules the Jade Palace of the Moon. She swallowed the pill of immortality given to her husband, the archer Hou Yi, and then fled to the moon to avoid his wrath. Her husband later became the God of the Sun and now the two meet only once a month during the New Moon. Other creatures that live in the Moon include a rabbit who is always pictured working with a pestle, pounding up the elixir of life, a three-legged toad (sometimes said to be Chang-O) and a cassia tree, which although attacked by a woodcutter, keeps renewing itself. (more of this story here)
Included in the said celebration is the preparation, giving and eating of the Moon Cake which was believed to give good luck.
Blue Moon Myths
Couple years back, probably somewhere in between 2000 and 2002, the coming of a blue moon was widely celebrated here in the Philippines. It was all-over the news and myth circulated that if this moons rays shine on two lovers, they will be together forever.
I was a naive hopeless romantic during those times and yes I was one of those who had a date in a park and danced under the moon beaming on us. Well, maybe the myth was right after all the guy I was with that time was my daughters father. Despite not marrying him, well, we are kinda sorta bonded together for life because we have a child.
Anyways, it was called a Blue Moon by astrologers as they say its a rare astrological event, and this one during that time was the rarest as it is a full moon on the same month.
In connection with this, it was said that there was an event somewhere in 1883 that the moon was once seen blue every time its full. The reason behind it was because of some big volcanic eruption in Indonesia, volcano named Krakatau exploded. The eruption was compared the blast to a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. Fully 600 km away, people heard the noise as loud as a cannon shot. Plumes of ash rose to the very top of Earth’s atmosphere. And the moon turned blue. (More about this story here)
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