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The Super Moon As Seen Through The Eyes Of An Aussie. Science Fiction Reality.

blog post #43 by Science Fiction Author Clara Bush

I received more Super Moon photos over the weekend. The cool thing about these, at least for an American, they were photographed from the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

Creator—a born and raised Aussie—Scott Daley is not only a photography enthusiast but a postgraduate student in Physiotherapy from the Uni of Sydney. (Uni is Aussie for university.) He says his dream is:

“To live in Melbourne with my fiancé Christen and be a physiotherapist for a sporting team, in particular a Rugby league or AFL team, as well as have my own business.”



As the Aussies say—according to the  slang book my awesome Australian cousin Anthony sent me—Hooley Dooley! Your photos are choice! Good onya! They’ll go off like a frog in a sock! (Hope I didn’t bugger that up too much.)
In good old Texan—Dad gum it! Your photos made me happier’n than a hound dog with a dead skunk. Thankya! They’r beauts. I’m fixin’ to take a nutter look see.

Why There Are Moon Facts Here

I had planned for today’s blog to be a review of the new BBCA series Intruders. It aired over the weekend and is based on the novel The Intruders by Michael Marshall Smith. 
http://www.michaelmarshallsmith.com Lots of cool stuff on his website. 
I have not, however, read Smith’s book. I did watch the season premiere. And in one word, CREEPY. Mainly, because it deals with a topic that has intrigued me for over twenty years. And because screen writer and executive producer, Glenn Morgan of X-Flies, manifests a creepy presentation. But before I comment more, I want to read the book and find out if it’s about what I think it’s about. If you watched the premiere, what do you think it’s about?

Moon Facts

1. When kids are rowdy and misbehaving badly at school, teachers and principals remark: It’s a full moon tonight.
2. In pre-Christain poetry and mythology—Greek, Roman, Hindu, African, Celtic, Scandinavian, Phoenician—the moon was known as The Triple Moon Goddess—a woman and a universal symbol for these cultures. 
3. The Moon Goddess is the goddess of the subconscious, of poetic inspiration, and of magic.
4. The Bristish poet Robert Graves (1895-1985) credits the White Goddess with what he called, muse poetry, which is different than what he labels Apollonian poetry. Muse poetry is associated with the White Goddess (or The Triple Moon Goddess) of primitive lunar beliefs and inspiration. Apollonian poetry is an attempt to banish lunar superstitions and allow science, intellect, and reason to prevail.  In his book, Graves suggests that pure poetry is  linked with the ancient cult-ritual of his proposed White Goddess.
All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean –
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.
—Robert Graves, The White Goddess

5. The January full moon is called the wolf moon by the Algonquian people because of the hungry wolves that howl at night.
6. Ancient Chinese believed that there were twelve different moons as there were twelve months in year.

7. The idea that the moon has a permanent dark side was immortalized by the progressive rock group Pink Floyd. But actually there is no permanent dark side to the moon. In fact, the side of the moon that is perpetually turned away from Earth is no more dark than the side we see. It is fully illuminated by the sun just as often (lunar daytime), and is in shade just as often (lunar night), as is the familiar Man in the Moon face we see. http://earthsky.org/space/five-myths-about-the-moon

8. When did she become a he? Dante’s Inferno is one instance. Christian lore, using the book of Numbers XV.32-36,  claims he was a man caught gathering sticks on the sabbath and that God sentenced to death by stoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Moon .

9. The Man in the Moon is struck by a spacecraft in the 1902 fantasy film Le Voyage dans la Lune. This frame from the film is an example of a conventionalized image bearing no relation to actual lunar features.Screenshot from Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Moon#mediaviewer/File:Le_Voyage_dans_la_lune.jpg

10. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, wrote in the fifth century B.C. that “one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the moon.” http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-unusual-myths-and-theories-about-the-moon

11. In our not so distant past, it was believed that sleeping with the full moon shinning down on you caused lunacy.

Word Origin and History For Lunacy 
1540s, “condition of being a lunatic,” formed in English from lunatic (q.v.).Originally in ref. to intermittent periods of insanity, such as were believed to be triggered by the moon’s cycle. The O.E. equivalent wasmonaðseocnes “month-sickness.”
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
12. My favorite.
Even the man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
And the Moon is pure and bright…

Famous lines spoken by Actress Maria Ouspenskaya’s  in the 1941 movie,  The Wolf Man.







 Lon Chaney—my first hero.

Scott and Tony, 

Thank You For The Pixs 

They are Amazing


Looking back at Tony’s (blog post # 40) and Scott’s photos of the Super Moon 2014,  she really does look like The White Goddess.  She even dances on the water. 

***

The Science Fiction Reality blog is a little science, a little fiction, a little about writing, and a lot of real.


Clara Bush
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