Wow! What an amazing full moon last night and this morning. Did you feel the energy shift? After a day of reading and starting the learning curve climb on YouTube and LinkedIn, I looked up and suddenly realized it was 5 p.m. Hard to believe the day was over but that’s what happens in the flow. Time to go outside before sunset.

I knew this moon and it’s big energy was coming. I’ve been listening to astrology podcasts and astro-numerology forecasts for weeks. But I wasn’t expecting to feel the moon’s pull on a physical level. It felt as if it called me out of my head and drew me with it’s magnetic force right outside. Sure enough, thanks to a crystal clear sky ( after a day of rain), there it was, the glowing orb, as big and bright as any I’ve ever seen.

Countless stories, legends and myths have been written about the moon. A favorite movie immediately comes to mind, Moonstruck, (1987), starring Cher and Nicolas Cage. It’s a wry, comical meditation on the “lunacy” of romance. That Norman Jewison movie is packed with warm and witty insights. The gist of the plot revolves around a widowed Italian -American bookkeeper who gets engaged to a man she doesn’t love only to fall for his hot-tempered younger brother.

Grandmother Moon, in Native American culture, is a living being who rules the night. She also rules female menses on a 28 day cycle. Grandmother Turtle, rules the fertility of earth, and was the most fertile creature the ancients observed. The turtle shell, incredibly enough, WAS the first calendar for these indigenous people because the markings on its back are thirteen concentric circles within the shape of the shell itself. They represent the 13 annual moon cycles. In numerology, 13 is the divine feminine. And that circle gave birth to the what is called the sacred hoop, or medicine wheel.

In Earth Medicine: Ancestral Ways of Harmony for Many Moons, American Indian author Jaimie Sams says Grandmother Moon disappears and returns, showing her full face, thirteen times a year. December 19 is the thirteenth full moon. The moon of transformation. Earth Medicine honors the legends and creeds of the Thirteen Original Clan Mothers. The thirteenth clan mother’s name is Becomes Her Vision. After a year of change and growth it is time to manifest.

And everybody knows at least some of the lore around the moon and its connection to the animal side of humans. Werewolves, witches, vampires and even homicidal psychopaths are all subject to the moon’s mystery and magic. There are probably countless books and movies with variations on this theme.

It is the very error of the moon, she comes more near the earth than she was want, and makes men mad.

William Shakespeare (Othello)

Presently, the general consensus among the scientific community appears to be that there isn’t significant evidence that the moon has any measurable effect on behavior. I’m not so sure about that but it’s not a debate I want to argue. The arts are not in the same domain as logic and it’s probably best to just leave it at that.

For myself, I choose to celebrate the sacred traditions and the intuitive realm. Besides, if the moon effects the tides and our bodies, like the earth, are made of mostly water, why wouldn’t we feel the cyclical rhythms of the cosmos? Happy full moon. May you bring your vision for the future into the present now.