Mr. Moonlight, come again please
Here I am on my knees
Begging if you please
And the night you don’t come my way
I’ll pray and pray more each day
Cos we love you, Mr. Moonlight
— “Mr. Moonlight” — the Beatles
Here I am waiting for Mr. Moon to rise, so I can photograph him for this blog piece! From the recesses of my brain this song surfaced. It’s a simple but beguiling song. Surely the Beatles were inspired by the very same magic of the full moon.
It seems that the August and September full moons vie for the name Corn Moon. August’s is also known as the Sturgeon Moon, so we’ll go with Corn Moon for September. But the ninth month moon is also called the Barley Moon.
South of the equator, it is also called the Worm Moon, Crow Moon, Sap Moon, Lenten Moon, and Chaste Moon.
There are nights when wolves are silent and only the moon howls. — George Carlin
Phil Konstantin has compiled an extensive list of Native American names for moons on his website, www.AmericanIndian.net. Among the names he lists for September’s moon are Corn Maker Moon (Abenaki), Rice Moon (Chippewa, Ojibwe), Yellow Leaf Moon (Assiniboine), Nut Moon (Cherokee), Drying Grass (Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho), Little Chestnut Moon (Creek), and Ice Moon (Haida).
Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night. — Hal Borland*
Scientists tell us that the moon is never 100 percent full when we think it is. Only during a lunar eclipse, when the earth, moon and sun are completely aligned, is the moon truly “full.”
The Corn Moon arrives September 6, 3:03 a.m. Eastern time.
*Hal Borland was one of my favorite journalists. He wrote a weekly editorial in the Sunday New York Times for 35 years, always observations of nature and the seasons. He died in 1978. I have a collection of his writings, published in a book, Borland Country, which are paired with photographs by renowned photographer Walter Chandoha. Chandoha is particularly known for his photographs of cats, which are forever singed in my memory from a National Geographic magazine from the 1960s that I kept for a very long time. He is still alive and working, and still resides on a farm in New Jersey. You might check out the work of both of these craftsmen.
Natural Views 
Sorry to hear about the wildfires, but the red-blood color of the moon is terrific! I love the poetic American Indian names for the moon that you have included here, how evocative they are. Lastly, how interesting that one never actually sees a full moon except during an eclipse.
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Yes, the red suns and moons have been lovely, even if they are evidence of something drastic. The “light” or lack thereof during the day is very eery.
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Deep Orange Moon, Orange Peel Moon, Howling Moon, more names this moon could be called.
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Ha ha ha. Yes, good new names!
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