The Waterboys, Gene Kelly & Worm Moon 2022.

Friday night, I was driving home.

First Southbound along the M1 then on to the M18, followed by an A-road.

The moon.

The moon was big.

Massive.

At first I wasn’t sure whether it was just a full-moon,

Or, whether it was something different.

As the road curved, or trees appeared I would lose-sight,

For, it was low at that time,

Maybe seven in the evening.

I wondered whether other motorists were seeing or thinking the same,

‘Wow, what a moon, is it big or just full?’

Impossible to know.

The sky was bright

As happens on a full-moon, for full it was,

Yet, was it bigger than normal?

Closer to the Earth.

You can’t figure these things at 70 miles an hour.

I thought of the moon’s gravitational effect,

Was it pulling the tides, causing them to rise?

I recalled my brother losing his coveted snorkel

In a particularly high

August tide in Newquay.

I thought of the residents of my care home,

Was it disturbing their mental continence?

Would it influence me?

As I reached Maltby,

I saw a man,

Standing by the side of the road with a camera on a tripod.

‘There, I knew it, it must have been a special moon.’ I thought,

Vindicated.

Eventually I arrived home,

The sky was still clear,

Dark and cold.

‘Have you seen the moon? I asked my daughter.

‘I’m inside,’ she guffawed.

‘Look, look at the moon, it’s huge!’

‘It looks normal to me.’

An hour passed.

My partner returned home.

‘The moon! Have you seen the moon?’

‘Yes, it was massive.’

A second vindication,

But not with my fervour.

And that is it,

That is human perception.

Our existence as a self.

As the multitudes,

As the matinee that is our inner-word.

‘I was grounded

While you filled the skies

I was dumbfounded by truth

You cut through the lies

I saw the rain dirty valley

You saw Brigadoon

I saw the crescent

You saw the whole of the moon.’

Exciting moon facts:

Friday’s moon is called a ‘Worm Moon’ in America, as to why, no one knows; perhaps it is the worms emerging from their winter burrows, perhaps it is other grubs appearing.

The worm moon, which is the last moon of winter is also called the Lenten Moon occurring as it does during Lent, before the spring Equinox (although if it happens after the spring Equinox, it is called the Paschal (Passover/Pesach)* Moon)

Some people call Easter a moveable feast as it occurs at a different time each year depending on the lunar calendar.

For more on the Paschal Lamb, see this blog I wrote!

On Friday (18/3/22) the moon was at 100% illumination in the sky. On that day, the moon was 400,000 Km away from me and 150 million Km from the sun. the light was doing strange things that night.

Brigadoon is a mythical village in the Scottish Highlands. It is said to materialise every 100 years; it is also a 1954 movie starring Gene Kelly.