Do you look forward with anticipation as each full moon comes around, is your sleep interrupted or does your mood change? Or are you more casually drawn to the moon’s presence each month, simply catching a glimpse here or there if opportunity presents? I ask all this of course, knowing that here in the UK, the moon is often hidden away due to an almost never-ending blanket of cloud!

If you do find fascination in the moon though you’re certainly not alone, and may charismatically class yourself a selenophile, a name based on a Greek word for moon – Selene. If a selenophile is therefore a person who looks aghast when our nighttime gardens are illuminated by that big old moon, or takes solace from the regularity of its presence, that is me, and it might be you too. Indeed, over the last few nights

you’ll have found me at times stood motionless in my garden or beside the window, staring thoughtfully up at the cold moon: the last full moon of the year and the first moon of winter.

My own fascination with the moon goes way back I have to say, yet for some reason I can’t seem to remember being remotely interested as a child. I don’t recollect any evenings sat in the garden staring upward, as I often do these days from a bench in my own grown-up garden. Neither can I recall my nose pressed against a late-night window staring up in wonder at its brilliance, as I now do some nights whilst wondering why I can’t sleep. In fact, two of the only night sky memories from my early years are a chance sighting of a shooting star during a car journey, said at the time to be a signal that bad news was ahead, plus the annual excitement around this time of year as my brothers and I looked out for the Christmas Star.

Thankfully, I can confirm that in recent times my curiosity in the night sky has matured. Not to say I’ve become an expert, but my interest in the entire sky from daytime cloud formations to its spellbinding nighttime galaxy, and especially the moon itself, can at times be all-consuming. I shouldn’t be surprised I guess having spent most of my gardening life working under and being very much influenced by the open sky. In fact, if I wasn’t drawn to reflect upon our skies and the weather, there would surely be cause for concern.

When I pause to look back at my lunar relationship however, I do remember there being a specific point when its luminous spell is likely to have been cast. I recall being in a large hospital complex, waiting for my first child to show herself to the world. It was an extremely busy side room of a maternity ward and I, or more correctly we, were essentially in a waiting phase, unable to sit things out at home although not quite ready for delivery.

In the early hours of the morning, after periodic medical checks, whilst waiting and fretting on what the next few hours and years would bring, I found myself drawn to a large window. The memory of the scene outside has faded somewhat, but in essence my tired eyes encountered a moonlit rooftop scene, a shining empty road and a cool shadow-filled city landscape. Inside the hospital, just outside the room there was hustle and bustle, and nursing staff were scurrying about here and there, whilst outside in the clear night air, all was serenely calm.

It was a challenging and memorable night for many reasons. Amidst all the confusion however, I remember the moon seeming larger than ever before; it may not have been a full, but it was undoubtedly big and bright. Clearly the moon was intent on leaving an impression that night, but if the visual experience itself wasn’t to be enough, then a casual comment from one of the nurses certainly was: “it’s always busier in here around the full moon”, she said.

Naturally, with the events unfolding in the hospital that night, the competition for my focus was strong. Somehow though, amidst such an emotionally testing time I stored away the nurse’s comment, along with a hauntingly beautiful memory of that moonlit scene. Now, more than two decades on from that moon-induced baby moment, I still regularly pause to reflect on the moon and its influence on the world around me. Whilst I now resist the urge to plunge into a discussion about lunar or moon gardening, which intrigues me but isn’t something I’ve tried yet, I can at least confirm that for me, the moon’s appearance each month does serve a real purpose.

Firstly, feeling largely disconnected from the world I find myself in, the moon’s appearance seems to connect me with society, somehow confirming my place on earth. Each moon, including the presently waning cold moon has commonly used names attached to it, the next one in January being the wolf moon, and in February the snow moon and so on. There’s variation to these names around the world, but each one for me, as for those who named it, identifies the moon as a way marker, a physical thing that represented the passage of time.

The appearance of each moon therefore, named after centuries of observation, will have been used to forecast and prepare for weather and temperatures, ocean tides and so on. For me then, whilst I might not be looking to launch a boat from a moonlit shoreline, I do feel a commonality and connection with imaginary folks carrying on their activities across the globe. Those people, maybe from another time, were people intimately more connected to land and nature, and they not only knew the moon’s cycle but took influence from it.

It may seem like a flight of fancy, but when I find myself staring alone at a moon, this connection I speak of is to those folks, faceless people in very different circumstances who once looked up in awe as I do. During any full moon these days, and whilst my family sit indoors, I know that the ghostly disk reflected in my eyes will also be in the eyes of others: people dining out on the evening experience and querying their own existence too. Standing there, I might hear cars and sirens, televisions, music or dogs barking on the breeze, but emotionally I’ll be connected to others, maybe in the next road, village or county, people also meditating or worshipping, but in each case with a moon in their eyes; surely, I can’t be alone in that?

Secondly, another factor in my moon’s importance is the part it plays in the flow of seasons and its bearing on nature. My own nature connection is ingrained, being someone entirely more suited to being outdoors, and someone who feels things deeply. Turning up, seeing and subjecting myself to the moon’s brilliance, therefore, is for me every bit as rewarding as catching a glimpse of a kingfisher, hearing heavy raindrops arrive to quench a summer drought, or sniffing the sweet scent of spring blossom. The moon above, as some higher power, plays a part in all of this, somehow being connected with all the above, whilst shining down from time to time on us all.

I could easily continue to wax lyrical about the moon and me, about my walks each month in search of its natural light but I shall hold those for now. I will though beyond these words continue to reflect on its influence over our oceans, about how it affects the movement of moisture in plants and the soil itself, as I hope you will too. I may not attempt to understand the moon’s influence over seed sowing or childbirth, but you can be sure that I shall be thankfully looking up at least once a month, thinking about my daughter, and all others past and present ensnared by the light of the moon.

With moonlit regards, thanks for reading. 

Gary Webb