Once in a blue moon...

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When I was a pre-schooler I often heard the old folks use the phrase “once in a blue moon” ... this phrase filled me with curiosity about this stupendous rare event. Being the literal kid that I was, I would scan the sky night after night looking for a moon that matched my violet blue crayon. No such luck.

It turns out that a “blue-moon” isn’t blue at all but refers to more moons occurring in a given time period than normal. Typically a full moon happens 12 times in a calendar year of 12 months, but because the lunar and calendar years don’t match up exactly, every couple of years there is an extra full moon (7 times in a 19 year cycle there’s a 13th moon in the lunar calendar). The phrase, in folk-lore, referred to seasons (Winter, Spring, etc.) which had more than the typical 3 moons. If a season had an extra moon, the 3rd moon in that season was called a “Blue Moon” and the term became a term for anything that happened rarely or something that was unusual.

In more recent times, “blue moon” has been used to describe any calendar month that has TWO full moons instead of one. (I personally like this newer definition because it’s easier for my brain to figure out. I have enough trouble with leap year!)

The next blue moon happens on August 31st 2012. What will you do with your extra moon? Will you choose to do something rare and unusual? Challenging? Fun? Once in a Blue Moon something wonderful happens.

Good news for that geeky-sky watching pre-schooler; sometimes the moon DOES appear blue in colour. This event, like other “blue moons” is rare and tends to happen when cataclysmic volcanic events happen to scatter smoke and ash into the atmosphere in volcanic eruptions. When the mountain Krakatoa blew up in the Dutch West Indies in 1883, not only did it make the loudest sound in recorded history, it also caused ash to rise up into the atmosphere that scattered red light to such a degree that only the blue wavelengths could pass through making the moon at night look blue for several years!! (And sunrises red) Eruptions on Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 produced a few blue moons too.

Written by Brilliance In Sight http://psychic.bitwine.com/users/60591-brilliance_in_sight