Once in a Pink Moon?

I'm 58, and until this year, I'd never heard of a pink moon. A blue moon, definitely, but I had never come across this expression even though I often look up lunar information because I love astronomy. The attached article notes that one might think that the pink moon is the kind of thing you'd associate with Barbie. No doubt Barbie and Ken's first kiss took place under one of these [insert snarky emoji here].

Apparently, Native Americans named this moon based on when a certain flower (moss pink or creeping phlox) begins to bloom. Now that takes awareness of the world around you. I can honestly say that I've never pondered the onset of one of the first flowers to bloom in spring and its association to the full moon, and I consider myself pretty aware of the moon and its cycles. I also loved watching the advance of spring flowers while I lived in Washington. All of that seems lost when you live in Florida where there seem to be flowers blooming all year around. While I grew up here, I was away for 25 years, living in other places in the country where there are four actual seasons. Those seasonal changes are very subtle (sometimes nonexistent) in Florida.

While living farther north, I got used to the cyclical movement of seasons. In Washington, it was so distinct and in sync with the calendar, you could almost set your clock by it. Autumnal equinox was accompanied by a swift shift in weather. September 20th might be summer hot, but come the 21st or 22nd, you could be guaranteed cooler temps immediately. Winter solstice similarly brought cold weather with it. March 21st-22nd saw warmer temps, Only the summer solstice didn't guarantee hot weather because it doesn't get hot for very long in Washington, at least not in the Puget Sound region.

I realize that electricity brought huge changes to the average household in the last century, but we have become far too distanced from the environment around us. I admit that it wasn't until in my late twenties, once I moved away from Florida, that I began to pay attention to the moon's cycles and started noticing the subtle and not so subtle changes in the seasons. I think this delay was partly due to the fact that if you live in Florida in the summer, mosquitoes are a big deterrent to spending hours outside at night,  being entranced by the moon and stars. Quite frankly, I have a hard time seeing the stars with all the light pollution coming from Orlando. I didn't even begin really seeing the night sky regularly until I moved to Washington. It was there that I first learned about the periodic meteor showers and began marking my calendar for nights to go outside and watch for the Perseid, Geminid, and Leonid meteor showers, at least.

I used to witness the Perseid showers in August when I lived in North Carolina and often traveled back and forth to Florida to visit my family. I drove at night to avoid the heat, and I was often treated to what I thought were "shooting stars," only to realize later that I had been watching Perseid meteor showers all those years. The level of my ignorance at the time embarrasses me now. I so wish someone would have introduce me to such celestial phenomena earlier on, but live and learn. That's my motto. It's a good day when I learn something new. That's one of the many reasons I love the internet. I not only have access to so much new information on a daily basis, I also have access to you, my readers, to pass on the information I glean and find interesting in the hopes that you'll learn something new too. Each one, teach one. Enjoy the pink moon. Cheers!

https://hellogiggles.com/news/pink-moon-meaning/https://hellogiggles.com/news/pink-moon-meaning/