Moonrise yesterday was stunning. Just after sunset, in the purple glowing twilight, a giant ball appeared caught in my neighbor's tree. The Mister, not normally as excited by the moon as I am, returned from choir practice to tell me to go outside and look at it.
It felt distinctly springy standing there watching the colors of the sky change. Our yard is riddled with croci and little iris reticulata, the daffodils on the north and east sides are blooming (those against the south wall bloomed and faded long ago), the buds on the peach and lilacs are swelling, and the air smelled faintly sweet as the golden currant started to open. Another neighbor's Bradford pear is mostly open and an apricot and a cherry (I think) a block away are blooming in a backyard.
Watching the moon, which felt obviously full, rise, I wondered how it could actually be waning. For I knew that yesterday was the spring equinox (at 4:58 p.m. local time) and I knew that Easter comes the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox (a piece of information I have always enjoyed because it combines solar time [the equinox], lunar time [a full moon], and human calendars [day of the week] in what I now recognize as a pleasant combination of my scientific, pagan, and Christian sensibilities). So if yesterday was the equinox and Easter is not for another full month, then the moon must have been past full (otherwise Easter would be this Sunday).
This morning I looked this up to confirm, and the full moon was at 8:42 p.m. local time just after I was admiring it, almost four hours after the astronomical equinox. I wondered if the disparity was something to do with the full moon being visible in Jerusalem or Rome or somewhere, or the day of the equinox rather than the moment of it. It turns out that by the Georgian calendar, Easter is set as the first Sunday after the full moon after March 21 (representing the equinox) rather than the actual equinox. Fascinating. (To me, anyway, literally).
Big balls in the sky keep surprising me.
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1 comment:
That full moon was beautiful from Colorado, and now i know a lot more about the moon, the equinox and Easter. Pretty fascinating.
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