Category: Time of the Season

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”

 Henry David Thoreau

“If you’re not barefoot, then you’re overdressed.” —Unknown

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. -George Santayana

I feel lucky to be a Marylander. We’re fortunate to see the seasons bleed into one another while our landscape gradually shifts around us. As swift and grand an entrance Autumn makes, coaxing the annual crowds of “leaf peepers”, we double take as she coyly dissipates after a mere few weeks. As if she stole the stars above, she marks our rural roads with glints of crystalized trails, an invisible map only managed by the richness of the moon. The days grow longer, the fissures of ice have no choice but to surrender into puddles of mud. Spring saunters in, teasing us with bouts of warmth scattered among the loitering winter days. A familiar seasonal tale, that we all know too well. Our eyes flutter open to a sight for sore eyes. Trees grow obese with succulent emerald leaves that burst from countless buds. Tasseled sleeves fashion the arms of elder pines, bowing down as they touch the earth. Families of serpentine ivy crash and collide, choking neighboring geriatric trunks, suffocating any traces of dun and scorched flora; their chaotic embrace which leaves only the sweetest viridescent shades of summer behind.

The tonic twilight yawns, casting droplets of dew that radiate like a myriad of radiant sapphires. Breaches in the clouds spill an invincible iridescence that clarifies and nurses the sear-spotted grounds, healing wounds from the retired scorched days of Summer . She eventually succumbs, melting into the invincible glow of a horizon renewed. As nature things, we inherently form cocoons around these algid days, wrapping the season around us like a childhood blanket. Triggered, we lounge and mask in the familiar warmth of nostalgia, soaking up the season’s diffusing aura like a trite kitchen sponge. She retreats from the sky a wee bit earlier and rises now a wee bit later with every passing morning. Roused with the change, she wakes to the irenic songs and heavyhearted hymns that drown out thwarted apologies: whispers of seasonal remorse echoing an unquenchable thirst for the familiarity, forever pining for that forgotten sense; some though… are fortunate to taste that sweet sense of nostalgia with a ride down rural roads. She stretches and spreads her tepid rays that zigzag and seep into the cracks of black-out curtains.  She casts warm, threadbare-like shapes that creep up bedroom walls, beckoning us to rise and shine.

Canopies of archaic trees oscillate and kiss the ancient sky. Below, cliques of bare naked limbs gyrate to the requiem of nature. The sincerity of light stalks the woods edge, precipitating a reflection of hyacinth hues. With arms wide open, we welcome the season change as the zephyr’s notes embrace us like an old friend. The migrating winds shift and collide, electrifying the mellisonant air, stimulating the deep, weary cells that lie dormant within us. The atmosphere’s modifying presence summons an abstruse awakening that cloaks the sapphire stained sky which cradles the full Harvest Moon. It’s always the time of the season.🎴

The full Moon that happens nearest to the fall equinox (September 22 or 23) always takes on the name “Harvest Moon.” Unlike other full Moons, this full Moon rises at nearly the same time—around sunset—for several evenings in a row, giving farmers several extra evenings of moonlight and allowing them to finish their harvests before the frosts of fall arrive

While September’s full Moon is usually known as the Harvest Moon, if October’s full Moon happens to occur closer to the equinox than September’s, it takes on the name “Harvest Moon” instead. In this case, September’s full Moon is referred to as the Corn Moon.

the many faces of the harvest moon☾

This time of year—late summer into early fall—corresponds with the time of harvesting corn in much of the northern United States. For this reason, a number of Native American peoples traditionally used some variation of the name “Corn Moon” to refer to the Moon of either August or September. Examples include Corn Maker Moon (Western Abenaki) and Corn Harvest Moon (Dakota). 

• Autumn Moon (Cree)
• Falling Leaves Moon (Ojibwe)
• Leaves Turning Moon (Anishinaabe)
• Moon of Brown Leaves (Lakota)
• Yellow Leaf Moon (Assiniboine)

The behavior of animals is also a common theme, with Child Moon (Tlingit) referring to the time when young animals are weaned, and Mating Moon and Rutting Moon (both Cree) describing the time of year when certain animals, like moose, elk, and deer, are looking to mate.

 “All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.”

L.M. Montgomery

the next full moon