NOTES from. the universe // blue moon
Nature is so much bigger than plants, people, or the earth we walk upon. It's also the connections with the sky, the cosmos, and the great unknown. This month we turn with the Blue Moon.
The passage of time between one full moon and another is always 29.5 days (a synodic month), a little longer than its actual orbit around the Earth of 27.3 days (a sidereal month) due to the Earth and our moon also moving around the sun. As the last full moon fell on 1 August, we now find ourselves on the cusp of a relatively unusual phenomenon known as a Blue Moon, generally accepted as the second full moon in a month (as is the case in August this year) but is traditionally the third full moon in an astronomical season containing four full moons. [Summer – between 21 June (midsummer) and 23 September (Autumn Equinox) this year only has three full moons so it’s safe to say that the general definition has gone mainstream.]
How almost 29.5 days has gone by since I stood looking out over the Skyrian sea at the setting of the Sturgeon Moon I have no idea, but 29.5 days it is. Within that time there have been travels through the West Country and stints back home working but now it is almost time to bed into a new season. Dare we make way for autumn? Will there be an Indian summer to follow the very wet one that many folk have experienced in the UK?
The Blue Moon holds none of these answers but it is a moment in the lunar calendar that happens, well once in a Blue Moon, which is typically every 2-3 years. This Blue Moon is also a Supermoon – the third of four this year – and also the biggest full moon of the year. This is due to it being at perigee, or at the point in its orbit when it is closest to Earth. Observe the moon near the horizon, and it will appear bigger still due to a phenomenon known as the moon illusion, especially pronounced when foregrounded by trees or buildings. This is often how dramatic Supermoon images are taken, whereby the surrounding features make it look even bigger than it is.
There’s no such illusions about the force such a moon can exert on the tides, however, with a perigee moon creating the highest of high tides and the lowest of low ones. Officially known as a spring tide – nothing to do with the season but actually an etymological link to a word meaning to spring up – the general advice here would be to stay out of the water when big waves abound.
In terms of gardening, see the Blue Moon as a swan song to summer. A nostalgic nod to the flowers and plants once blooming, now turned to seed and fruit. The Blue Moon isn’t actually blue, in fact this one may very well be extra red just to throw in another oxymoron, but the sloes on the bushes next to ripening blackberries and rosehips are as blue as can be, and set to swell even further. Indeed some refer to this last full moon before September as the Fruit Moon, when everything is heavy with juice and ripe for the picking. I’ve already got my eye on a couple of patches of late summer fruit on Wanstead Flats and am concocting a scheme whereby I plead with neighbours to furnish me with trugfulls of elderberries, plums, apples, and quinces (the very laden bush on Osborne Road, I’m coming for you), from the backyard orchards.
One can’t talk about a blue moon without a nod to the flowers and plants that are named in its honour: the lilac purple, regally-petalled ‘Blue Moon’ rose, one of which resides in our local Forest Gate Community Garden; the luminous blue-purple creeping Phlox divaricata ‘Blue Moon; the purple-spired, compact catmint known as Nepeta nervosa ‘Blue Moon’; and the ultraviolet showstopper Iris siberica ‘Blue Moon’. Once in a blue moon bloomers these are not.