To: K-list
Recieved: 1999/01/31 10:05
Subject: [K-list] Blue Moon
From: Raymond J Wand
On 1999/01/31 10:05, Raymond J Wand posted thus to the K-list:
Hi Valerie,
Sorry that this link has been removed, one of the problems of the internet.
It was there when I sent my earlier email.
I get told off for posting actual articles :)
Luckily, I did post I all to another person privately soo ......
Don't use this link - Reference Only!
http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/A2601918.html
Forget the eclipse. This year will see one of the truly rare astronomical
events: a double helping of blue moons.
Though most people use the phrase to mean "very rarely", astronomers have a
simpler way of identifying a blue moon: it happens when there are two full
moons in a single month.
January 1999 fits the bill - its first full moon was on 2 January, and the
second will be next Sunday, just squeezing in before the end of the month.
More remarkably, we will have to wait only until March for the next blue
moon to arrive. "It's very unusual for this to happen," explained Simon
Mitton of the Royal Astronomical Society. "It can only occur when one of the
two blue moons is in January." Such a double helping will not happen again
until 2018.
The reason is that the moon's own month is 29.5 days long. Usually, that
only allows for a single full moon in each calendar month. But if there is a
blue moon on the last day in January, then February - being only 28 days
long most years - will miss out. That in turn means that March will also
have two full moons.
But the most perplexing thing about a "blue moon" is where the expression
comes from. There are many competing possibilities. The "two moons in a
month" explanation became accepted because the board game Trivial Pursuit
began using it in 1986, according to Philip Hiscock, a folklore specialist
hired by Sky & Telescope magazine to investigate. Trivial Pursuit got it
from a 1985 children's almanac; but the almanac's authors couldn't recall
where they got it.
Among other possible origins turned up by Mr Hiscock are the 16th-century
phrase "he would argue that the moon is blue" - to mean arguing that black
is white. Yet another is that it is a corruption of the French "la double
lune". Or a derivation from songs addressed by the lovelorn (blue) to the
moon. Or even the Blue Moon cocktail, made of curacao, gin and a twist of
lemon.
A rival explanation is that very occasionally, volcanic eruptions or strange
weather threw dust into the atmosphere - making the moon look blue.
There is a stronger case, however, for the little-known Maine Farmers'
Almanac, the source of two possible derivations. One is that when there were
two full moons in a calendar month, the Almanac printed the first in red,
and the second in blue.
The more baroque explanation is that in the past the various full moons of
the year were named according to the order in which they occurred - provided
there was only one per month. The names were Moon after Yule, Wolf Moon,
Lenten Moon, Egg Moon, Milk Moon, Flower Moon, Hay Moon, Grain Moon, Fruit
Moon, Harvest Moon, Hunters' Moon and Moon Before Yule.
The trouble was that about once every three years, there would be a 13th
moon - the Blue Moon - which would upset schedules for church services and
celebrations.
For astronomers, though, blue moons are non-events. "It's a completely
artificial phenomenon, caused by our months being split into 30, 31 and 28
days," said Dr Mitton. In fact, they occur only with the Gregorian calendar:
the Islamic and Hebrew calendars, which run on alternating months of 30 and
29 days, rule out such repeats altogether.
That was the text in the page ........................
I hope that you find it interesting.
Love and Light,
Raymond
DISCLAIMER!
Home | Archive Index | Search the archives | Subscribe
K. List FAQ | Kundalini FAQs | Signs and Symptoms | Awakening Experiences | K. list Polls | Member Essays | Meditations | List Topics | Art Gallery | Cybrary | Sitemap | Email the moderators.
symbol.