The sky here in Northern California is clear and bright. Tonight, August 31, 2012, I’ll be able to see the blue moon.
When two full moons occur in any calendar month, the second is called a blue moon. The term (in its modern usage) has nothing to do with the moon’s color. A blue moon occurs about once in 2.5 years on average. Basically the term means something that doesn’t happen often, thus the saying, “once in a blue moon.”
We mark blue moons carefully. Newscasters remind us of they are coming. We see pictures of moons, like the one here, on the Internet and in newspapers as journalists and bloggers tell us over and over again how we should look up at the night sky and be aware of this rare event. We know the special night is coming, and we are prepared. We go out in the night and look up and consciously appreciate.
How often in your life does something unusual happen–a blue-moon-like occurrence–and you have a chance to prepare in this way? How often do you get a chance to really be in the moment, conscious, present for rare events?
For me, I’d answer, “Not often.” They usually catch me by surprise. They happen and are over before I realize what happened.
Except forย few events, such as Silver Anniversaries, 50th birthdays, high school graduations, premiers, book releases, etc., I find we don’t treat rare occurrences like blue-moon events at all.ย Sometimes we just let these events go by. We don’t notice the large moon hanging in the sky overhead. We just go to sleep and totally miss the event. Or we notice and say, “Isn’t that a nice moon,” but we don’t realize it’s actually a special moon. Not until the next day when we see the newspaper. Then we think, “Oops.”
Rare events come in all sorts of forms. The importance we place on them comes from the recognition that they are, indeed, rare. Do you recognize the blue moons in your life?
Photo courtesy of NASA.
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