Special Edition: Blue Moon & Red Planet

Dear Family, Friends, & Colleagues:

This weekend, two amazing celestial events will be taking place. On Saturday evening, the 21^st, we will have a Full Blue Moon! This particular Full Moon is a Blue Moon because it’s the third Full Moon (of four) in a given season of the year (in this case, spring) – a phenomenon that happens only once every 2-1/2 years or so (hence the expression, “Once in a Blue Moon”). The Moon won’t actually appear blue in the sky – but that’s OK – it will still be bright and beautiful, like every other Full Moon that I’ve ever seen.

Here are a few of my favorite poems about the Moon to get you ready for this “once in a Blue Moon” event!

“Faeries”

By Evaleen Stein
 

Grandfather says that sometimes,
When stars are twinkling and
A New Moon shines, there come times
When folks see faery-land!

So when there’s next a New Moon,
I mean to watch all night!
Grandfather says a Blue Moon
Is best for faery light,

And in a peach-bloom, maybe,
If I look I shall see
A little faery baby
No bigger than a bee!

“The Moon Was but a Chin of Gold”

By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

The Moon was but a chin of gold

A night or two ago,

And now she turns her perfect face

Upon the world below.  

Her forehead is of amplest blond;

Her cheek like beryl stone;

Her eye unto the summer dew

The likest I have known.

 

Her lips of amber never part;

But what must be the smile

Upon her friend she could bestow

Were such her silver will!

And what a privilege to be

But the remotest star!

For certainly her way might pass

Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,

The Universe her shoe,

The stars the trinkets at her belt,

Her dimities of blue.

On Sunday evening, the 22^nd, the Red Planet, Mars, will be at opposition – exactly opposite the Sun in our sky. That means it will rise at sunset and set and sunrise – it will be out all night, at its biggest and brightest in recent years, and it will be near the Moon, too! Here are a couple of poems about Mars and the characteristics ascribed to it in ancient mythology.

2 Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

A PSALM OF LIFE

(WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST)

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real !   Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !

Trust no Future, however pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God overhead !

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

THE LIGHT OF STARS

(A SECOND PSALM OF LIFE)

The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above
A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoever thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

And of course, to reach Mars within the next couple of decades, we’ll need courage, determination, and PEACE so that the nations of the world can cooperate on this grand adventure! :)

Until next time –

Rob