Blue Moon and Other Reminders

Photo used under Creative Commons from Noel Zia Lee

Blue Moon

A full moon will rise at 4:43 pm today. This will be the second full moon of the month, making it a blue moon. Isn’t that cool? A blue moon on New Year’s Eve?

“Once in a blue moon,” people say. It could only happen that one time – a time like no other. It seems a good portend for the New Year. Even if it’s the universe’s way of predicting an unprecedented year, I take it as a hopeful sign.

I like reading the “Weather Notes” in the paper and the “Weatherguide” facts. Back when I was writing mysteries I kept my Weatherguide calendars that I got each year from the Freshwater Society. I figured I could be accurate about the weather, use it as a backdrop to the story.

Remember the movie “Doc Hollywood”? There’s a scene where the young doctor played by Michael J. Fox has gone off to Hollywood and he’s so bored and lonesome, he calls back to the little town of Grady to listen to the weather report. Maybe there’s such a thing as a dial-up weather report but I get the same feeling from the notes and facts in the paper. I feel comforted by them.

Listen to this one about yesterday:

“Twin Cities: Cloudy with flurries or light snow. Winds south-southeast, 8 to 10 mph.

We now have 8 hours and 50 minutes of daylight.

The sun rises today at 7:50. It will rise at the same time through Jan. 4 and then begin rising earlier.

White-tailed deer bucks begin to shed their antlers at this time of the year. Rodents such as porcupines, meadow voles and deer mice gnaw on the fallen antlers to get essential minerals in their diets.”

Isn’t there a tone to it?

Other Reminders

The tone of words, the combination of cloud and snow, wind and daylight and antlers that fall from one nourishing another, gives me a feeling of continuity and the purpose in all living things. It reminds me that nature has a voice that soothes, and that human beings can too. It reminds me that weather is not all about the drive to work, and that sometimes weather reports include blue moons and small miracles.