Count Your Moons

The new year makes us think about matters of time. One is the number of full Moons or lunations -- the period from one new Moon to the next -- that occur in a long human lifetime. The approximate number is 1,000, which is a generous amount, but not unlimited, especially when you consider how many cloudy nights and times of illness or preoccupation there are in our lives.

We have a limited number of lunations, a measured amount of Moons in our lives. Starting tonight, use them wisely. Use them well.

--Fred Schaaf, in January 2017 Sky & Telescope magazine (p. 45) in "Wonders of the Year-Start Sky"

My Umbriel

Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,

As ever sullied the fair face of light,

Down to the central earth, his proper scene,

Repair’d, to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.

from The Rape of the Lock, by Alexander Pope, 1712