Moon, rise!

Tomorrow night brings a full moon. Our Minnesota Weatherguide tells us that the Ojibwe call it the Great Spirits moon and the Lakota the "Hard Times" moon. Locally it will rise at 5:09 pm and set at 7:56 am. This year there will be only one full moon per month, every 29.5 days or so. No blue moons in 2021.

January: full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

It has been too long since we have been really aware of the moon's role in life. Back when we lived next to the ocean, we knew the moon phases because the moon strongly affects tidal rise and fall and, in those days, almost all of our fishing was for salt water species which were affected by tidal flows. Here in Minnesota, even Lake Superior is considered "non-tidal," and almost all of our fishing these days is done in rivers and streams.

The moon often is considered to play a major role in romance, and we're less than a month from Valentine's Day. That makes today a good day to dig out our copy of Ellen Moore Anderson's As Long as the Moon Shall Rise: Reflections on the Full Moon and start to reread it. It opens with the following, which seems all too fitting these days:

Let us know peace.

For as long as the moon shall rise,

For as long as the rivers shall flow,

For as long as the sun shall shine,

For as long as the grass shall grow,

Let us know peace. 

 - A Cheyenne Indian prayer for peace

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