Full Moon: A Name and a Note.

Did you know that the commonest name for the April full moon in the English speaking world is the Pink Moon? Apparently it’s named after the pink flowers of the phlox plant which are supposed to proliferate in April. That’s a surprise to me because I’ve spent around 40% of my life living in the English countryside and I don’t even know what a phlox plant looks like. And there’s nothing pink and proliferating where I live at the moment. White is the commonest colour by a long way, especially the heavy white drapery of the blackthorn tree. So let’s start calling it the Blackthorn Moon, shall we?  Agreed? Good.

I gather it’s also known as the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Fish Moon and the Hare Moon. (The Anglo-Saxons, bless them, called it the Egg Moon, but the Anglo-Saxons always were a bit of a funny lot. Thank heaven for the Irish and Welsh components in my ancestry, I say. I expect the Welsh name for the April full moon is more notable for the proliferation of Ls and Fs than any perceived connection with the phlox plant. And it’s probably completely unpronounceable by anybody who wasn’t born within a 10 acre patch of hallowed ground around the town of Llangollen – and maybe another bit near Llandaff.)

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about the monthly names of full moons. I’m here because tonight’s full moon is looking in at my office window and it struck me that its character varies according to how you see it. If you see it through the branches of a tree which are being set in silhouette, it’s mysterious. That’s how I’m seeing it through my office window at the moment. If you see it high in the sky with dark clouds scudding rapidly across it, it’s sinister. If you see it low in the sky and reflected in the calm surface of a lake, it has a philosophical tone.

At least, that’s how I see it, and it is my blog.