photo courtesy of Schyler at en.wikipedia
When was the
last time you were outside at night, looking up at the sky and contemplating
the moon? I might glimpse the moon over a crowded horizon while driving at
night, or notice a huge orange moon occasionally in the fall. But I am not
regularly in tune with the moon. I didn’t even know that the moon has many
names until I recently came across mention of the hunger moon in Dorian Winslow’s “The
Curious Gardener” newsletter. The hunger
moon is February’s full moon, so named by farmers and native peoples for the
late winter month when food stores are emptying and gardens and outdoor sources
are still frozen and unyielding. April’s moon is the egg moon, because hens
start laying more eggs with the lengthening days of spring, unlike their winter
egg yields which are lower because of less available daylight.
Even though
I am a gardener and love to grow things, I don’t have a lot of interaction with
the moon like farmers in ages past. They
knew more about nature and her whims and the signs in the sky because they were
more dependent on them. They also didn’t have the modern distractions that make
our lives busy and keep us away from nature. No TVs, no cell phones, no
computers, no automobiles, no modern appliances like refrigerators and air
conditioning. They had to be in tune with nature and work within the framework
of the seasons.
They loved
their moons and gave them descriptive names with echoes of longing and hope,
names like November’s snow moon, October’s blood moon (for the month when
fattened animals were slaughtered before the coming winter), and January’s wolf
moon, both for the fierce cold biting at their collars and the howling hungry
wolves. I love that July’s moon was the wort moon (wort was what they called
herbs), because herbs were harvested and dried for kitchen herbs and the
medicinal herbal preparations they made in the fall.
This year’s egg
moon, the April full moon, is Friday, April 6, with other lovely full moons
appearing in the first week of the month until August, when the full moons
start appearing around the last day of the month. This Friday night I plan to go outside and
spend some time looking at the egg moon, wondering at its mysteries, powers and
influence on our outer natural world and our inner emotional world. The moon
draws sap in the trees and eggs from the chickens, pushes and pulls the waves
in the oceans and seas, and stirs living things from their winter rest. That’s some powerful force of nature, baby! It
makes me want to be more in tune with the
moon!
What kind of moon stirs you at the height of winter's cold or during spring's fresh breezes? A full moon? The skinny sliver of a moon? A bright moon in a clear night sky? The moon veiled with clouds? What's your favorite kind of moon?
Another urban aquaponics operation, Sweet Water Organics, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was operational in 2010 with the same type of business. They raise yellow perch, tilapia, and blue gill fish, vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and squash, plus mushrooms and greens such as lettuces, basil, watercress, swiss chard, and sprouts. 
