I know you should not believe everything you read or hear but I did believe the Blue Moon segment courtesy of The World that I heard while behind the wheel this afternoon.
Who would not like the idea of celebrating three things at once, a Blue Moon and the New Year and the start of a New Decade?
I was in the dark as to what a Blue Moon was until today?
So what makes it so?
When there are two full moons in one calendar month, the second of those moons is called a Blue Moon, I learned.
In her program Open Country (BBC UK), Helen Marks found a way to treat this special occasion:
When there are two full moons in one calendar month, the second of those moons is called a Blue Moon. Elspeth Owen, who is in her 70s, has decided to live outside between the first full moon (on the 2nd of December) and the second full moon (on the 31st). She wants to discover something about the dark, about fear and about using her senses differently.For this Open Country special, Helen Mark visits Elspeth, who lives in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester, when the sky is at its darkest - mid-way through her project."
Elspeth Owen called this project In the Dark (illustration below, from her site) and 'invites people on this New Year's Eve to walk in the dark with her, eat, tell stories. She welcomes flasks containing hot or spirited drinks'.
Why should it be considered a special occasion?
The last Blue Moon occurred in 1990 and we will have to wait until 2018 for the next one.
Christine Russell offers some scientific details in Once in a New Year's Eve Blue Moon (The Atlantic, December 31) and notes that this Blue Moon "is expected to be visible to New Year's Eve celebrants across the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America and Africa, according to the AP's Alicia Chang."
Happy Blue Moon!
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