The Shoulder to Shoulder Around the Fire Full Moon

snow moon

February is the snowiest month of the year in many parts of North America. February 9 is the Full Moon date for 2020. The Snow Moon is the most common name for the second Full Moon of winter.

The Moon enters its full phase early on Sunday morning (2:34 a.m. EST) but last night it would look full and tonight it will be 99% percent illuminated on the East Coast.

This is also considered to be a “supermoon” which is an unofficial name used to describe a larger appearing New Moon or a Full Moon. The appearance of a larger than usual Moon is when either phase occurs at roughly the same time the Moon is nearest Earth in its monthly orbit. That nearest occurrence is properly called perigee.

The Wishram people are Northwest Coast Indians who lived along the north bank of the Columbia River. They named this the Shoulder to Shoulder Around the Fire Moon, and I can easily imagine February as a time to huddle around the fire.

The Cherokee people called it the Bone Moon because animal bones were sometimes their only source of nutrition in the dead of winter.

Some other names for this month’s Full Moon that I have written about include Ice Moon, Hunger Moon, Old Moon,(which can also be in January), Grandfather Moon, and Storm Moon.

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Ken

A lifelong educator on and off the Internet. Random by design and predictably irrational. It's turtles all the way down. Dolce far niente.

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