Blue Moon, or Risqué Moon?

Breaking News! 

This just in to Dancing Trail News Center:  Here is the latest on the REAL Blue Moon story!  The magazine, Sky & Telescope, has just had their, probably, first ever exposé in the May issue of 1999.  

It turns out that the Real Blue Moon may not necessarily be the second full moon when two full moons occur in one month!  Now, what follows in this bulletin contains graphic material and may not be suitable for all ages –  please use suitable discretion: It turns out,  according to Sky and Telescope, that the length of time from full moon to full moon is 29.5 days, and since the solar year has 365.25 days, then each year contains enough days for 12 full moons plus 11 days left over, so therefore 7 years out of every 19 there will actually be 13 full moons.  Also the Astronomical Calendar  Year, called a “tropical year”, does not run from January 1 to December 31, but from “Yule” ( December 21, or winter solstice) to “Yule”; this places three full moons in each season except for those 7/19 years (told you it would get graphic) which will contain one season which will have four full moons.   Therein lies the scientific part of the problem; the REAL problem, however is religious, and that mix-match goes something like this:   The Roman Catholic Church has decided that Easter is apparently more important than the sun, and therefore the vernal equinox will always fall on March 21, regardless of whether the sun actually crosses the equator on that day or not (people more familiar with the Roman Catholic Church than I am usually close their eyes and nod their head when we get to this part), and also that Easter MUST fall within one week after the Paschal Moon which, they say, is that first full moon after March 21.   So, ALL the moons of the year are determined by the “tropical” year (yule-yule rule) EXCEPT for the two near Easter, the Paschal Moon (the first full moon of spring) and the one before it, called (by the Church) the Lenten Moon, (and which therefore must be the last full moon of winter). These are determined by ecclesiastical, not not tropical or astronomical rules.  And, in order to keep the other main moons still corresponding to the activity suitable to them (harvest, mid-summer, long-night) whenever a season, as measured from Yule to  Yule has four full moons in it, the THIRD (not the fourth) full moon is designated as the Blue Moon.  So, now you know.  

The Jewish faith handle this problem by adding to seven out of every nineteen years, basically a “blue month”, which they call Adar.  The Islamic faith, not being especially concerned with Passover,  Easter or Christmas, ignores the whole thing, letting their calendar years rotate backwards so any given month begins 11 days earlier each year.  So, if you want to refer to a really, really, really long time, you might try the term “Islamic Blue Moon”!  

Sky & Telescope apologies for their “error”, committed 53 years ago in the March, 1946 issue, and suggests that both methods be retained, since “theirs” is certainly much simpler!  How does all this affect our current Blue Moon status? Hmmm.   That would mean no Blue Moons at all in 1999!  Next one would be February 19, 2000.  February, of course is the only month which could NEVER have a Blue Moon under the second full moon in a month rule, but under the four in a season rule, one out of every four blue moons MUST occur in February!  The others will have to be in May, August, & November.  

The official Dancing Trail policy toward this new development will be to try to celebrate all Blue Moons, whether “tropical”, "astronomical" or “ecclesiastical”. And perhaps we might call the now unauthorized, two in a month occurrence a Risqué Moon, and the new, but really older, four in a season occurrence an Out-of-the-Blue Moon.

© John Womack, 1999.  All rights reserved

Leonid Meteor Shower, 1998

On the morning of November 17, 1998, between 1:30 a.m. and 2:15 a.m., I saw about one meteor each minute falling between periods of deep fog which drifted up the mountain.  The first meteor appeared as a great light falling from east to west.  I was reminded of a freight train that had lost its tracks and was plunging down on top of its rails into a deep canyon leaving a fantastic display of sparks,  followed by a pathway of smoke.  Then it was gone.  I waited for the awesome sound I knew would come, hands ready to clap over my ears.  But there was no sound.   A couple of Roman-candle-type fizzles followed, then a great flash lit up the eastern sky.  And another “freight train” fell into that same abyss, piercing its own halo as it arrived into our planet’s embrace, leaving its own blazing trail of sparks bouncing up and down in the turbulence of its ride to oblivion.  Silence again.  As the great rocky road of dust faded into the night sky the oaks around our house also faded into the newly arrived fog, and the lights from our carport glowed a pale yellow.

I thought back to how the great naturalist, Marie Mellinger, had pointed out at the Hambidge Center in Dillard, Georgia, last month, that Fungi was a separate kingdom, separate from plants and animals and minerals.  She told us how Fungi had joined with Algae to form Lichen, and somewhere in that trio is a mysterious combination of things we can refer to as “Life”. Algae seems native to our planet, but not Fungi. So where did Fungi come from?  Some say it may have ridden one of these great “freight trains” into the atmosphere of our planet, then, liberated from its vehicle of entry, was free to float into our own “sourdough-starter-mix”, perhaps mixing with Algae; who knows?  I had read separately that some eleven tons of meteor dust enter the Earth’s atmosphere every day.  So what is eleven tons a day times eight billion years?  Well, if you could multiply all that out you’d lose yourself in the answer.

Meanwhile, the fog drifts briefly and another meteor falls into our sky - I am reminded of a home run, hit late in a game, by the opposing team - it seems to rise at first, and rise way up and then hang for a moment before it slowly descends and vanishes - all in total silence.

Pigeon Pass Road

Went up the Reche Canyon Road to San Bernardino today and came back down on Pigeon Pass Road.  Trip over wasn’t too bad except for the constant threat of rain and the cold temperatures.  Found that I started leaving con-trails – I, not the bike – at about the 1,000 foot level. 

So it was a damp but not wet trip, almost nice in some ways, and traffic was light on Reche Canyon.  But Pigeon Pass Road was something else.   The access road, coming down Mt. Vernon Ave was closed because the new California Aqueduct was being dug right through there.   Several blind detours were needed and tried, lots of mess, mud, bricks and a good bit of confusion.

Finally got on Pigeon Pass and it was not bad.  Not at first.  But after I passed the High Grove Dump area, it turned to dirt and then went straight up.  Took one hour to cover the next three miles – most of that pushing the bike, not because it wouldn’t climb the road but because I couldn’t pedal it.   Whenever my pulse reaches 180 beats a minute I start slacking off.  It’s actually easier to ride the bike up, but the pedal schedule must be met, whereas pushing is a form of constantly falling down and constantly being supported by the bike, and that lets you choose your own pace.  Kind of. 

No one was around.  I was totally alone.  In a world that belonged only to me.  I was back in the saddle again, cruising along with a nice breeze, winding back across the canyon I had just traveled on the other side.  Beautiful. Wonderful. That was when I heard the first rifle shot. Someone was shooting back on the part of the road I had just covered about 20 minutes ago. The second and third rifle shots seemed louder than the first one.  The fourth shot was accompanied by a whistle sound as was the fifth one.  The sixth one hit the bank to my right and the seventh hit the road behind me.  Someone was shooting at me!  California! That figures!  There was a large boulder just off the road to my right and I got behind that.  A couple more shots were fired, and the bullets whistled in and impacted around the boulder.  

I noticed that Pigeon Pass  appeared to reach a leveling off part and made a turn to the right, through what looked like some tree protection.  I decided to make a run for it and did.  No more shots were fired.  I stopped at the second hairpin bend back to the right and made a photo of my bike under a tree.  

On the way down I hit speeds of 27 mph, like downhill skiing.  Then got another flat tire.  Had to fix it to get home.  Finally back at the BOQ.  

Trip today garnered 84 bike miles on a windy day that blew the clouds away, and the sun beamed down like the fabled days of old.  Here in sunny, southern California, Monday, May 31, 1971.  A day on Pigeon Pass Road.