The "Moon of Earth Awakening" is a time of sylvan alchemy, of woodland streams running free and fields awakening to springtime. What are my own markers for this season? I think of black bears awakening from their hibernation, of Saw-Whet Owls (known in the Lanark Highlands as "sugar birds") singing in the forest, of sap being gathered and brewed into maple syrup in great cauldrons and vats in the woods, of geese and ducks returning north, of the Great Horned Owls who are nurturing their young in an old oak tree on our Two Hundred Acre Wood in Lanark. At dawn and dusk the skies are filled with geese traveling between fields and the river, and the same fields are graced by deer foraging for the first tender green shoots of the season.Last evening the sky was full of dense dark stormy clouds, a natural following given the day's rains and grayscale persona, and I did not expect to see Lady Moon at all. I was delighted when I went out to the garden a few minutes before midnight and found the full moon in her pearly roundness beaming down at me from a lofty perch high above the old maple tree.
The season of long white nights has ended, for when the Vernal Equinox (Ostara) arrived on March 21, night and day were the same length. and we were all poised in a delicate balance which only graces the natural world twice in each calendar year. March's litany of full moon names comprise a cantrip replete with burgeoning springtime, melting snow, high winds, birds returning, new life and green things emerging from the earth.
We also know this moon as:
Alder Moon, Awakening Moon, Big Winds Moon, Blossoming Moon, Bud Moon, Catching Fish Moon, Chaste Moon, Cold's End Moon, Crow Moon, Crust on Snow Moon, Daffodil Moon, Death Moon, Deer Moon, Eagle Moon, Flower Shower Moon, Flowers Moon, Goose Moon, Green Moon, Growth Begins Moon, Hertha's Moon, Hyacinth Moon, Kono Moon, Lenten Moon, Little Bears Moon, Little Spring Moon, Longer Days Moon, Maple Sugar Moon, Moon of Opening Hands, Moon of the Crane, Moon of the Whispering Wind, Moon of Winds, Moon When Buffalo Cows Drop Their Calves, Moon When the Leaves Break Forth, Moon When the Geese Return, Moose Hunting Moon, Plow Moon, Princess Flower Moon, Purple Glory Tree Moon, Rebirth Moon, Renewal Moon, Sap Moon, Seed Moon, Sleepy Moon, Snow Melting Moon, Snowshoe Breaking Moon, Spring Moon, Storm Moon, Sucker Fishing Moon, Sugar Making Moon, Third Moon, Tibouchina Moon, Trail Sit Along Moon, Tree Peony Moon, Violet Moon, Water Stands in the Ponds Moon, Wind Strong Moon, Windy Moon, Worm Moon
3 comments:
"Moon Of Opening Hands" resonates with me the most this morning. Keeping my own hands open to new possibilities, to re-birth and gentle awakenings is something I'm embracing after this long, cold, gray Winter of my discontent.
Your woodlands come out from winter hibernation and the call of awakening is significant.
So much is tied to the Spring thaw. I loved hearing of your season markers.
How on earth do you get your photos of the moon to turn out so detailed? My moons get blurred.
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