The Rhyming Full Moon of June

The June 2023 Full Moon, popularly called the Strawberry Moon, will be on tonight, June 3 at 11:42 PM EDT or June 4 at 3:42 AM UTC. Okay, it will look very full even on the 3rd no matter what time zone you’re in. This third Full Moon of spring occurs about two weeks before the Summer Solstice. It is the Full Moon in Sagittarius.

“June” and “Moon” is a simple rhyme and there is no lack of poems about the Moon, and poems in which the Moon makes an appearance in its full or other phases. In an essay on “Poetry and the Moon” by Mary Ruefle, she says:

I am convinced that the first lyric poem was written at night, and that the moon was witness to the event and that the event was witness to the moon. For me, the moon has always been the very embodiment of lyric poetry. In the West, lyric poetry begins with a woman on an island in the seventh or sixth century BC, and I say now: lyric poetry begins with a woman on an island on a moonlit night, when the moon is nearing full or just the other side of it, or on the dot… Let’s call her Sappho. One can hardly say these little songs have survived—for we have only fragments—but even this seems fitting, for what is the moment but a fragment of greater time?

Tonight I’ve watched
the moon and then
the Pleiades
go down

The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am

in bed alone

Sappho sees the Moon and the Pleiades which is a group of more than 800 stars located about 410 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. But they would have been known for far fewer stars that can be seen by the naked eye which we call the “Seven Sisters” (and the less poetic Messier 45). The name comes from a Greek legend. The Pleiades are the seven daughters of the Titan god Atlas and the ocean nymph Pleione. During an ancient war, Atlas rebelled against Zeus, the king of the gods, who sentenced his foe to forever hold up the heavens on his shoulders. The sisters were so sad that Zeus allowed them a place in the sky in order to be close to their father.

There is a section of the poem “To the Moon” by Percy Bysshe Shelley that is often shown as its own short poem.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy

Shelley asks the Moon why it is pale and answers for the satellite.

Emily Dickinson has several lunar poems. In this one, he sees a Full Moon (maybe not exactly full since it looks that way for several days) that had looked different just a few nights ago. When do you think the Moon has phase with a “Chin of Gold”?

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago—
And now she turns Her perfect Face
Upon the World below—

If we keep reading Emily’s poem, we start to wonder if she is really writing about the Moon at all.

Her Forehead is of Amplest Blonde—
Her Cheek—a Beryl hewn—
Her Eye unto the Summer Dew
The likest I have known—

Her Lips of Amber never part—
But what must be the smile
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her Silver Will …

Carl Sandburg’s “Moonset” is an odd one and not what I would think is typical for him.

Leaves of poplars pick Japanese prints against the west
Moon sand on the canal doubles the changing pictures.
The moon’s good-by ends pictures.
The west is empty. All else is empty. No moon-talk at all now.
Only dark listening to dark.

It’s not very surprising that Sylvia Plath sees the Moon a bit differently in “The Moon And The Yew Tree.”

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness –

And to end my Moon gazing, a haiku.

The moon glows the same:
it is the drifting cloud forms
make it seem to change.
_ Basho

The Birth Moon

Murphy’s Law of Full Moons is that when there is a Full Moon there will be clouds over my head.

Look towards the southeast on Tuesday to watch the Full Moon rise above the horizon. This Full Moon will reach peak illumination at 7:52 A.M. Eastern Time. It will appear large and, yes, this is a “supermoon” – a term I find rather overrated. The Moon will be at one of its closest points to Earth all year so it will appear somewhat larger. Most people won’t notice the difference but just in case you want to compare its closest point will be at 7:21 p.m. Eastern Time.

Strawberry Moon is the most common name for the June Full Moon. It’s a bit unusual that the name was used by colonists and also by tribes such as the Algonquin, Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota. Mid-June is a time for ripening ”June-bearing” strawberries (there are others that produce in other months. The Haida used the broader name Berries Ripen Moon which probably covers other types of berries too.

I have also written in the past about this as the Mead Moon and Honey Moon. The name “Honey Moon” suggests a connection to marriage “honeymoons” and there are traditionally a lot of weddings in June. But the term honeymoon comes from the idea that “the first month of marriage is the sweetest” and just combines honey (sweet) and moon (a calendar month). Then again, the month of June is named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage.

The Tlingit people have used the name Birth Moon which refers to this being a time when some animals are born in their part of the Pacific Northwest. Geography certainly plays a role in Full Moon names. The Cree called this the Egg Laying Moon and Hatching Moon which also refers to a time of animal births.

An Upside-Down June Full Moon

Tonight our Moon is full. It will have a partial eclipse visible in some parts of the world, but not here in the U.S.  From out there in space, I don’t know if you would notice that this is an upside-down world.

There are those that believe that our world is truly upside-down. There are fictional versions of that world, as in the series Stranger Things where the Upside Down is an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human world.

The June Full Moon is most often called the Rose or Strawberry Moon. I have written about it as the Moon of Mead or Honey and about Moonshadows & Moonflowers and even as the Moon of Horses.

But in this upside-down world of 2020, maybe I should be thinking of this as if I was in the Southern Hemisphere instead of here in the north.  As a child, I imagined people down there were upside-down compared to us on the top half of the planet. June is autumn there and that still seems upside-down and that means this can be the Oak Moon, Cold Moon or the Long Night’s Moon.

Right now, we have no idea what autumn will be like in the north. Will students go back to classes? Will the COVID virus come back again? Will things return to some version of normal?

By the light of the silvery moon
I want to spoon
To my honey, I’ll croon
love’s tune
Honey moon,
keep a-shinin’ in June
Your silvery beams will bring love’s dreams
We’ll be cuddlin’ soon
By the silvery moon

That old-fashioned escapist lunar lyric is from “By The Light of the Silvery Moon,” written by Gus Edwards, with lyrics by Edward Madden for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1909. It has been recorded by many artists. A film of the same title was released in 1953, starring Doris Day. Moon, June, spoon, croon, soon is a musical lesson in bad rhyme. Or perhaps it’s just what we need right now – something light and hopeful.

Moon of Horses

A coin from Armorica, Gaul showing stylized head and a horse (Jersey moon head style, circa 100-50BC) via Wikimedia

Before the sun rises tomorrow morning, the Moon will become full (4:31 AM EDT). You probably won’t notice it until tomorrow night, and you might consider the Moon to look full tonight.

The June Full Moon is commonly known as the Strawberry Moon, because this is the peak of the short picking season for that berry. Well, maybe it is the peak where you live. It is not a Strawberry Moon everywhere. That was the name used by just about every Algonquin tribe. Europeans called this the Rose Moon, and roses are more likely to be blooming in Paradelle than I am to be picking strawberries.

Another old European name for this full Moon is the Mead Moon or the Honey Moon. Mead is a drink created by fermenting honey mixed with water, sometimes with fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The tradition of calling the first month of marriage the “honeymoon” dates back to at least the 1500’s. It may be connected to this Full Moon, either because of the custom of marrying in June or because the “Honey Moon” is the “sweetest” Moon of the year.

As spring ends and summer begins, the daily periods of sunlight lengthen to their longest on the solstice, then begin to shorten again.

Among the Cherokee people, this was known as the Green Corn Moon. It is early for even green corn in my area. There are three federally recognized Cherokee tribes today: the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (UKB) in Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Nation (CN) in Oklahoma. The Cherokee Nation has more than 300,000 tribal members, making it the largest of the 567 federally recognized tribes in the United States.

The Dakotah Sioux were safely more generic with the name Moon When June Berries Are Ripe.

This was also known as the Dyan Moon (today as the Dyad Moon) in medieval England. Dyad is an archaic word meaning pair. It was thought that at this time of the year, the effects of the Sun and Moon are equal.

There are many cultural legends that connect the Sun and Moon as husband and wife, maid and suitor, brother and sister.

This is the Moon of Horses to ancient and latter-day Celts and Druids.  The Celts called this Equos, “horse-time, which is from the middle of June to the middle of July.

The calendar known as the “Coligny calendar” is one that was made in Roman Gaul in the 2nd century. It also has a Equos. It has an interesting five-year cycle of a lunisolar calendar with intercalary months. Intercalary means that a leap day, week, or month is inserted into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases. It reminds me more of the Maya calendar than the ones that are most widely used today.

Are the Celts also the Gauls?  Caesar wrote that the Gauls called themselves Celtae. Gaul was a geographic area (modern France and northern Italy) and “Gauls” were the people who lived there according to the Romans. Linguistically, the people who lived in Gaul were Celts, and this was the main distinction made by the early historians.

I could not find an explanation of why the Celts and Druids called this horse-time or what meaning the Moon of Horses had to them. But this Full Moon of very early summer definitely ushers in the season which officially begins later this week.

The Smallest Full Moon of Moonshadows and Moonflowers

The Moon turns precisely full on June 9, 2017 at 13:10 Universal Time. This the farthest full moon  and so the smallest full moon of the year. I see it described by some unofficial terms such as micro-moon or mini-moon.

This June full moon occurs less than one day after reaching lunar apogee, the moon’s farthest point in its monthly orbit. The near alignment of full moon and lunar apogee team up to give us the farthest and smallest full moon of the year.

What do we mean by a “Moon shadow?”  I think a moon shadow is technically an Earth shadow. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth lines up directly between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun’s rays and casting a shadow on the Moon. As the Moon moves deeper and deeper into the Earth’s shadow, the Moon changes color before your very eyes, turning from gray to an orange or deep shade of red.

I’m not sure I really gave any thought to the term until I heard Cat Stevens’ song “Moonshadow”  back in 1971. When he sings “I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moon shadow, moonshadow. Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow,” I assume it is a shadow cast by a person or object from moonlight.

Ipomoea alba

A plant classified as Ipomoea alba, is also called the tropical white morning-glory, moon flower or moon vine. It is interesting because it is a night-blooming plant. It is native to tropical and subtropical regions of the New World, from northern Argentina north to Mexico and Florida. This is the flower that is shown in the Japanese screen with this post. It certainly would be of interest to cats and humans as it hangs down like a small moon itself in the night.

There is also another plant that is a moon flower. The night-blooming cereus is the common name referring to a large number of flowering cacti that bloom at night. The flowers are short-lived, and some of these species, such as Selenicereus grandiflorus, intriguingly bloom only once a year, for a single night. I would love to see one of these bloom on the night of a Full Moon!

Night-blooming cereus

Other names for the June Full Moon include the Mead Moon (Medieval), Rose Moon (more common in Europe) and Thunder Moon. The most common name I see used for the June Full Moon is Strawberry Moon. As far as I can find, that name was used by every Algonquin tribe. The relatively short season for harvesting strawberries in June was a good nature sign for this Full Moon.

The Moon becomes full at the same instant worldwide, but we are more locked into clock times.  In Paradelle, it occurs at 9:10 a.m. EDT, but in North America (except for a bit of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands) we won’t be able to see the moon then because it will still be below the horizon.

I will see the Moon at its fullest just before moonset (around sunrise) today. As always, it looked pretty full to the eye last night and again tomorrow.

That bright “star” near tonight’s moon isn’t a star. It is Saturn.

Our Summer Full Moon on Friday the 13th

Most commonly, the June Full Moon is known as the Strawberry Moon, so named for that ripening fruit. In Europe, where strawberries are not a native fruit, this moon was often called the Rose Moon.

American colonists connected it to plants they cultivated – the first crop of strawberries and the first rose blooms.

This year, the next full moon is on Friday the 13th.  The last full moon the Friday the 13th was in October 2000 and the next one won’t be until August 2049.

Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. In Spanish-speaking countries, instead of Friday, Tuesday the 13th (martes trece) is considered a day of bad luck. The Greeks also consider Tuesday (and especially the 13th) an unlucky day.

There are several possible origin stories for the superstition, but none is definitive. This is not an ancient superstition and seems to have started only a century ago.

For witches and Pagans, this can be a magical date. There are thirteen lunar cycles each year and 13 is the traditional number of witches in a coven.

The ancient Egyptians had a good association with 13 which was connected to immortality. They believed there were twelve steps on the ladder to eternal life and knowledge. The 13th step was the one that led from death into everlasting life.

Upper-class Romans and Norse Vikings required thirteen guests to be present at weddings for good luck.

This Full Moon can occur before or after the summer solstice but it is always the one that begins summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

Native Americans often called this full moon the Green Corn Moon because it was the time of the first signs of the “corn in tassel.” It meant the start of preparations for the upcoming festivals in the growing season.