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The Moon

17:21 / 03.06.03

This might have been better off in The Magick, but thought I'd stick it here so the feedback is maybe broader - maybe not as Magick specific. . I'm wondering if people have had any interesting experiences with the Moon, or around the Full Moon etc.
(Actually, the first record I ever bought was "Bark at the Moon" by Ozzy Osbourne but that's best kept quiet)

There's that old story that people in mental hospitals bug out whenever the moon is full, but I've also read that statisical studies have disproved this - can anybody offer any verification either way? I've also met a couple of women whose periods were in synch with the lunar cycle? Anybody else here experienced this?

Lastly, does nayone know of any good books about the Moon? What I'm looking for is a reasonably in-depth discussion which explains the Moon's phases and it's relation to Earth's geography. I totally could go to Waterstones or whatever and look it up but I wanted to ask, You, the People. Cheers.

Dances with Gophers

18:03 / 03.06.03

I know a nurse who dreads working full moon nights because the patients are (more) awkward.
Marine invertebrates, corals, sea urchins etc, tend to breed at full moon.
If the moon has a gravitational effect on water (it's effects on the tides is greater than that of the Sun). I should imagine that us soggy mammals must bee effected Could be more water in the head?

Can't sentance together a string at the moment so this is just off the top of me head. "Bark at the Moon" I got that as well perhaps we should start Ozzy annonymous!

18:28 / 03.06.03

Ah the Moon. One of my favorite celestial objects, actually. When I was younger, say about half my life ago, I used to have a special ring that I put on when I wanted to be "in touch" with the Moon. These are back in the days before I knew much of anything about Lunar Goddesses or whatever. I would "pray" to the moon for small things--the strength and energy to run distances at fast speed, the courage to walk down a dark alley, etc.--kid stuff mostly.

Of course, there's the "man in the moon" and Sugar does a nice little number about him on Copper Blue. Never thought much about it being made of "green cheese" though.

An interesting thing, to me anyway, about the Moon is that it rotates on its axis at just the right speed to keep the same face towards the earth at all times. I find that remarkably odd. Another thing that is neat about the moon is its surface topology. Although the differences are visible with the naked eye a telescope really enhances the stark contrast between all the ridges and craters, and the rather vast lunar "sea" that is more or less smooth and uniform. Theories say that perhaps there was some volcanic activity that occurred on parts of the moon after the days of steady bombardment by space debris--who knows, really.

Dances with Gophers

18:45 / 03.06.03

Just remembered something. Last Tuesday, at the London Earth Mysteries, the speaker pointed out that the moon appears roughly thumb size and also points out that from the Earth the Moon and the Sun appear the same size.
Also the SPI lecture on Saturday was about the Moon landings conspiracy.

I always smile when I see the first sliver of the new moon.

20:35 / 03.06.03

I think a person's astrological make-up probably has a lot to do with how reactive they are to the Moon.. the Moon's ruler by sign is Cancer, so people with the Moon in Cancer or Pisces especially would be more sensitive to changes in the Moon's energy. I know several people whose have the Moon in Cancer and they notice that the different phases affect their moods strongly.. by contrast, I don't feel much fluctuation in my moods due to the Moon, and my Moon is in Capricorn, which classically is a "difficult" sign for the Moon to be in, because the energy of the Moon (flowing, sensitive, intuitive, nurturing) is very different from the energy of Capricorn (rigidity, structure, control, solid, grounding).

Of course, all this could be modified by aspects to the Moon or other things except the sign it's in, but I think it's a pretty good general indicator.

03:48 / 04.06.03

I'm a cancer, and full moons usually mean no sleep and wacky goings on (often accompanied by generous amounts of alcohol or other drugs). I can usually tell when a full moon is happening.

03:55 / 04.06.03

Hey, I too remembered something! Years ago, while still living in my birth town, I was hangin' out after skateboarding with my buddy Lawrence. We were havin' a few beers chillin' on the coach and talkin'. I think we were talking about tides and the moon and then Lawrence said:

"Well no doubt the moon has an effect on us--we're mostly made of water. How could it not?"

Smart fella'.

07:58 / 04.06.03

In Inuit mythology, the Moon is a sooty faced boy chasing a girl with a burning torch through the sky (the Sun his sister), the waning and waxing is explained as him forgetting to eat as he runs, then disappearing for days as he eats, then returning.

The Moon is associated with intuition and the feminine virtues, madness and fertility, silver and hidden knowledge, water and dreams.

The tides don't affect the water in our bodies because there's not enough water in our bodies to affect. The smaller the body of water the less the tidal pull- which is why you don't get tides in ponds etc.

The Chinese plan to have a moonbase by 2012, and there are plans for an astronomical observatory on the dark side to shield it from the electromagnetic chatter from the Earth.

The Moon waxes from right to left in the northern hemisphere but left to right in the southern- i.e. the man in the moon is upside down in the southern hemisphere.

It's about a third the size of the Earth, relatively large for a moon and for a while was believed to have stripped away the excess atmosphere from Earth, preventing it becoming like Venus (thus allowing Life to evolve). However this turned out not to be true.

08:02 / 04.06.03

I have little doubt that your friend Lawrence is a smart fella', but wouldn't the gravitational effect that the moon was exerting on the water in your body be negligible compared with the gravitational effect of, say, the coach?

08:33 / 04.06.03

Here's a web page referencing 'lunar cycle phenomena'. I'm still a little undecided on this one: it seems both intuitive and plausible that the Moon exerts a cyclical effect; the references at the end of the article, however, seem a little shaky. Anyone know of a sufficiently large-scale, multi-centre observation of lunar influence?

13:26 / 04.06.03

I've had a really strange obsession with the moon going on in the last year..

I was reading this list of the different forces/oppositions associated with the sun and the moon, and almost all the ones I like are represented by the moon, so I jokingly decided to worship it.

And I've always enjoyed going for long walks on nights with a full moon and staring at it and stuff, only rather than 'occasionally', I now do that with worrying regularity.

The moon rocks.

I keep meaning to look up the names the American Indians had for the different cycles of the moon - hunting moon, harvest moon, that kinda thing - I remember coming across them once and thinking they were really cool - perhaps unhinged moon-worshipping types could go out of their way to perform appropriate activities at the height of each cycle..

I also remember seeing some kind of dumb feature listing trivia facts about the full moon as part of a weather report on TV once, and one of the facts was "levels of suicide and violent crime often increase by over 10% during a full moon" .. which I thought was pretty bizarre -I mean, is that a fact?? if so, how come I've never heard about it anywhere else? I know the full moon is traditionally associated with horror and craziness, but I never thought it's effect was actually a measurable, recognised phenomemon..

14:13 / 04.06.03

Thanks for all the information, peoples.

Ganesh - I don't know of any wide scale studies that prove this type of phenomona. I did read an article last year sometime devoted to debunking all these phenomona. Said it was all a question of "urban myths" and preconception/supersition influencing our behaviour which didn't stand up to statitical scrutinty. I thought it was in new Scientist, but a mosey onto their website only brings up this:

Animals are twice as likely to bite people during a full moonso who knows?

I would guess that (a lot of) scientific opionion disallows the possibility of this influence, thinking it a wishy washy throwback to witchcraft etc. with no supporting evidence. Kind of why I'm interested in people's opinions/experiences - an informal survey of my own.

I read somewhere about 17-19th Century science treating the weather in the same way ie. as not having an effect on human moods - part of a general scientific disassociation of us from the natural world and it's influences, because of the emergence of a different conception of human individuality and so on. The same book gave some evidence from scientific that had only come about in the 20th Century, that did show these links. The jury's still out of me on this on

It does seem plausible there'd be a link, but a very subtle one, if any, I would've thought.

21:13 / 04.06.03

The Full Moon effect in mental hospitals is obviously unscientific gibberish. Having been the manager of an acute psychiatric admissions ward for ten years, I have to say that nobobdy wanted to be rostered for those shifts and whenever I was duty nurse for the hospital, that would never have happened on the night of a full moon.

Lazlo Woodbine [some call me Laz]

21:47 / 04.06.03

The earth is the only planet with a single sattalite (excuse spelling). Also the only satalile that constantly keeps only one side exposed to its mother body. An author known as Robert Rankin as (Riz should know) believes that the moon was created during the destruction of the 10'th planet of the solar system also creating the asteroid belt, and i believe, (if your look it up) that the lunar orbit in conjunction with Earths' orbit coincides with the shiftings of the 'A' belt.

23:01 / 04.06.03

My wife is typically on her rag during the full moon, making her more than twice as likley to bite me.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

02:36 / 05.06.03

I've never understood this 'The moon causes the tides, the oceans are made of water, so are we, therefore the moon influences us' argument.

I mean, the tides are a result of the Moon's gravitational attraction pulling the fluid oceans towards it. But the Moon exerts a gravitational influence on everything, not just water; it's just that the oceans are made of water and are therefore able to move more easily. I don't think the Moon's gravitational pull on our bodily fluids is great enough to have any significant effect on our behaviour.

Isn't the spine-tingling sight of that great, gleaming orb in the night sky more likely to influence us than any negligible gravitational effect?

Just my thrupenny's worth.

03:22 / 05.06.03

Hmm, since this is about random Moon anecdotes, I'm not going to go out of my way to defend the "moon-water influence" thing. Maybe it's a load a hooey--what do I really know one way or the other. However, I do like it simply because it has a feel to it, if ya' know what I mean. I think that what spangle says about the Moon influencing everything is interesting and perhaps the line of pursuit that would be more worthwhile with regard as to whether or not the Moon really influences our behaviour.

"Isn't the spine-tingling sight of that great, gleaming orb in the night sky...likely to influence us...?"

Oh yeah, baby!