Late Sunday afternoon I ran into Austin to visit with a neighbor who is in the hospital. I followed that up with a quick stop by the nursing home to visit another friend who was admitted for rehab purposes. Then it was back to the edge of heaven for what proved to be a very relaxing evening.
Actually, had it not been for a telephone call from our son, we’d probably have missed the lunar eclipse. Actually, that’s not totally true. Our daughter also telephoned with the same information. Actually, I think it is kind of funny that both adult children at times (I started to write “consistently”) think we are clueless. On the other hand, there obviously is some merit to their observation. We would have missed the lunar eclipse had it not been for their phone calls.
Perhaps there is a better way to spend a couple of hours than watching HGTV. It is probably second nature to me, but I have a propensity for getting into hot water. Actually, the hot tub seemed like a perfect perch to watch the moon. I even convinced the General that we’d have a front row seat. Did I mention that the water temperature was 105 and it was my intent to spend the next two hours in the hot tub?
After about twenty minutes, the General said, “I’ve had enough of this. It is too hot! I’m going inside. She didn’t suggest that my idea to spend two hours in hot water was a stupid idea, but when you stop to think of it we’d both probably have looked like a couple of prunes when we got out of the water.
I didn’t follow her into the house immediately. I kept trying to grasp the concept of a red moon. I could remember the lyrics: “Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shining. Shine on the one that’s left me blue…” sung by Patsy Cline. I also thought about Andy Williams singing “Moon River.” What about the expression, “Once in a blue moon” or “It will be a blue moon before I do that again.”
I read somewhere that a truly-blue Moon usually requires a volcanic eruption. “Back in 1883, for example, people saw blue moons almost every night after the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded with the force of a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. Plumes of ash rose to the very top of Earth's atmosphere, and the Moon ... it turned blue!”
“Major forest fires also can cause the moon to appear blue. Again from NASA: “Forest fires can do the same trick. A famous example is the giant muskeg fire of Sept. 1953 in Alberta, Canada. Clouds of smoke containing micron-sized oil droplets produced lavender suns and blue Moons all the way from North America to England. At this time of year, summer wildfires often produce smoke with an abundance of micron-sized particles–just the right size to turn the Moon truly blue”.
Blue moon I can envision. Red moon is a more difficult concept for me to process. There are some Biblical scholars who maintain that the “blood moon” fulfills a Biblical prophecy of forthcoming difficult times. In addition the eclipses in the tetrad coincide with important Jewish festivals.
The eclipses in both April 2014 and 2015 were the same time as Passover. The eclipses in October 2014 and September 2015 occur during the Feast of Tabernacles. Some Biblical scholars took this coincidence as a sign of the end of times.
“Others have dismissed any apocalyptic significance of the tetrad. Data of past eclipses show that at least eight lunar tetrads have coincided with Jewish holidays since the First Century. The Jewish Calendar is a lunar calendar and Passover always occurs around a full Moon. Since a total lunar eclipse can only occur on a full Moon night, it is very likely that an eclipse will take place on or near Passover”.
Actually, the General and I discovered that the view from our air conditioned sun porch was as optimal as watching from the hot tub. It was a relaxing evening. We listened to music by Neil Diamond and wait for the moon to disappear and reappear.
It proved to be a very relaxing evening.
All My Best!
Don