The Barley Moon of August

What one is always looking for on full moon nights in late summer is a perfect golden moon.  After many years of moon gazing, the longing for such things remains in all its intensity - the yearning to be enfolded in something grand and golden and mysterious, to be standing once again in the sheer mind boggling grandeur of the night skies over this remarkable place where we have all been planted this time around.

Whatever happens to this old self and its molecules when I shuffle off the mortal coil this time around, I would like to think that a tiny scrap of the world's grace and grandeur will remain in my thoughts as I go billowing off into the great beyond like a scrap of linen liberated from a clothesline... that and memories of Lady Moon gazing down on the earth, blithe and lambent of countenance.

I've been fortunate enough to see the moon rise in some fabulous places in my time: dangling like a luminous pendant between arctic cliffs, high over western mountains and southern deserts, painting a sparkling road across the great inland sea of Lake Superior, dazzling over my favorite loch in the Lanark Highlands. Some of the loveliest moons (like this one) rise right over my own garden, and I cherish them one and all. French symphony conductor Pierre Boulez once wrote: "just listen with the vastness of the world in mind; you can't fail to get the message."  The moon, the stars and inky night skies have a music that is all their own, and their message to us is powerful "stuff" indeed.

August gifts us with the first definitively golden moon of the year, and her warm light bathes gardens of produce, orchards bowing down with fruit, fields of grain being gathered in and stored for the long nights time. Under the moon's perfect light, geese move back and forth between rivers and fields, deer and wild turkeys graze along farm fences, and coyote clans call across the hills in voices hinting at autumn. "Barley Moon" is the perfect name for this radiant lady shining down on us all - this is the time of the barley harvest.

We also know the August moon as the: Acorns Ripening Moon, Autumn Moon, Berries Dried Moon, Berry Moon, Big Harvest Moon, Big Ripening Moon, Black Cherries Moon, Blackberry Moon, Blackberry Patches Moon, Blueberry Moon, Centáwen Moon, Cherries Turn Black Moon, Claiming Moon, Coho Salmon Return to Earth Moon, Corn Is in the Silk Moon, Corn Cutting Moon, Corn Moon, Crest of Hill Moon, Cutter Moon, Dahlia Moon, Dispute Moon, Dog Days Moon, Drying up Moon, Eighth Moon, Elembivos Moon, End of Fruit Moon, Feather Shedding Moon, Flying Moon, Fruit Moon, Gathering Rice Moon, Geese Shedding Their Feathers Moon, Gladiolus Moon, Grain Moon, Green Corn Moon, Green Moon, Harvest Moon, Hazel Moon, Joyful Moon, Leaves Moon, Lightning Moon, Moon After Lugnasadh, Middle Moon, Moon of First Harvest, Moon of Freshness, Moon of Life at It's Height, Moon When Young Ducks Begin to Fly, Moon When All Things Ripen, Moon When Cherries Turn Black, Moon When Choke Cherries Are Ripe, Moon When Elk Bellow, Moon When the Geese Shed Their Feathers, Moon When Indian Corn's Edible, Much Heat Moon, Much Ripeness Moon, Mulberries Moon, Paper Bark Moon, Pear Blossom Moon, Plum Moon, Red Berries Gathered Moon, Red Moon, Ripe Berries Moon, Ripe Corn Moon, Rising Moon, Starts to Fly Moon, Still Green Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Tall Grass Moon, Thumb Moon, Vegetation Moon, Wode Moon, Wheat Cut Moon, Wild Rice Moon, Women's Moon, Wood Cutter’s Moon or Wort Moon

I am very fond of "Moon of Life at Its Height" and "Much Ripeness Moon"