October's Full Hunter's Moon

At this time of the year, Lady Moon is often veiled in drifting clouds for several nights in a row, and last night was no exception.  The moon you are seeing here is actually the moon setting, and not as she was rising last evening. That she seems spooky is not surprising, given that Samhain (or Halloween) is only a few days away.  The other thing is that this month's moon always seems brighter.  In reality she is no brighter than the other moons in a calender year but she seems so because of the position of the ecliptic in the sky in late autumn.  Late autumn, already?

For the ancient Celts, the last day of October signified summer's end and the onset of long nights and deep cold.  As Himself, Spencer and I shivered in the garden last evening and hoped to see the full moon (an exercise in  futility), there were no two ways about it - summer has crept away, and  autumn is well and truly in residence. Oh, there are splendid sunny days now and then, but nights are chilly, and the wind has icy fingers after dark. As often as not, falling leaves and bare branches form the architectural backdrop for the moon in her rising and falling.

A lover of moon lore, I find it intriguing that Lady Moon is such a prominent motif in Halloween stories and decorations, and I'm ever on the lookout for new appearances.  Witches on broomsticks, bats, dancing skeletons, jack-o'-lanterns, ghosts, spectral owls and crooked trees - they make their appearances silhouetted against ghostly full moons and deep darkness.  Lady Moon will be waxing and just past her first quarter when Halloween arrives - she will be a week beyond the fruitful darkness in which she rested briefly before journeying back to fullness in the great cauldron of night.

We also know this moon as the: Acorns Cached Moon, Banksia Moon, Bare Branches Moon, Big Chestnut Moon, Big Wind Moon, Blackberry Moon, Blood Moon, Chrysanthemum Moon, Corn Ripening Moon, Drying Grass Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Frosty Moon, Hallows Moon, Ivy Moon, Joins Both Sides Moon, Kantlos Moon, Kindly Moon, Leaf Falling Moon, Leaf Dance Moon, Leaves Change Color Moon, Maple Moon, Michaelmas Daisy Moon, Middle-finger Moon, Migration Moon, Moon When Birds Fly South, Moon of Poverty, Moon When Geese Leave, Moon of Changing Seasons, Moon of Harvesting, Moon When Deer Rut, Moon of Acorn Gathering, Moon When Corn Is Taken In, Moon of Falling Leaves, Moon That Turns the Leaves White, Moon of First Frost, Moon When They Store Food in Caches, Moon of Long Hair, Moon When Quilling and Beading Are Done, Moon When the Water Begins to Freeze on the Edge of Streams, Nut Moon, Pekelanew Moon, Raking Moon, Samhain Moon, Shedding Moon, Small Trees Freeze Moon , Song Moon, Striped Gopher Looks Back Moon, Strong Moon, Ten Colds Moon, Travel in Canoes Moon, Trees Felled by Fire at Butt Moon, Trout Moon, Turkey Moon, Vintage Moon, White Frost on Grass & Ground Moon, Wild Turkeys Moon, Wilted Moon, Wine Moon, Winter Coming Moon.