As is my custom, I went out on Wednesday night to take some pics of April’s Full Moon. There was quite a bit of cloud cover hanging over the marsh, so I wasn’t overly hopeful that I would be able to see it. Luckily, there were sketchy patches where Luna could punch through. The wispy and patchy clouds offered some great photo ops. Very moody images. There was a cool, but pleasant, breeze blowing off the dark expanse of mud and marsh grass. It was really nice. Soothing. Standing under the tall pine trees by the wide swath of seeding cattails that run along the marshes edge, I heard a rustling sound in the thick growth at the base of the cattails. It was most likely an opossum, or a raccoon. It’s quite dark over there, so I walked away, making some noise as I went to keep the critter(s) at a distance. I would later discover that I was being watched over from on high…
When I uploaded the shots to my computer, I noticed something interesting. The Moon finally appeared in her bright and full glory in one of the larger spaces in the clouds. The space was sort of almond shaped, and the Moon looked like the pupil of an eye peering down at me and the marsh. Tres cool.
This particular Moon is known as the “Pink Moon”. It is named for the wild ground Phlox, or herb moss pink, that is one of the earliest flowers to grow for the arrival of Spring. I noticed a number of posts on Facebook where it was being referred to as a “Blood Moon”. The Moon is said to turn a blood red color during a lunar eclipse, and with April’s Full Moon we did also have an Eclipse. Typically, it is October’s Moon that is the Blood Moon. So…what’s the deal?
The recent “label change” (for some) has biblical roots. The science sites I consulted don’t know specifically, but suspect it is based on a book by John Hagee, called “Four Blood Moons: Something Is About To Change”. It has to do with the end of days, or something to that effect. Actually, this Lunar Eclipse was the first of four consecutive Eclipses that are being called a “tetrad” (definition: a group or set of four). This tetrad consists of four Lunar Eclipses that will take place in 2014, and 2015, each one with six months separating them with no partial Eclipses between. The next “tetrad” won’t happen until 2032, and 2033.
Well, for me it was the Pink Moon. I’ll leave the Blood Moon to October where it belongs.
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