Harvest Moon

65f this morning, overcast but occasional sun.

Tonight,  as I am sure you have heard, is the harvest moon, a traditional time of celebration around the world. Our harvest is almost complete,  just pears and lots of peppers to gather, with squash, broccoli, a few tomatoes, and cucumbers still faithfully rounding out our dinners. 

I thought I would share photos of the moon I have taken over the years today.

New moon, winter 2013.

Moon over Galway Bay, Ireland, 2015.

The Harvest Moon

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1807 –1882

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

Of Nature have their image in the mind,

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

Only the empty nests are left behind,

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Solar eclipse, 2017.

Under the Harvest Moon 

by Carl Sandburg

Under the harvest moon,

When the soft silver

Drips shimmering

Over the garden nights,

Death, the gray mocker,

Comes and whispers to you

As a beautiful friend

Who remembers.

Under the summer roses

When the flagrant crimson

Lurks in the dusk

Of the wild red leaves,

Love, with little hands,

Comes and touches you

With a thousand memories,

And asks you

Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

New moon, a rare shot I somehow managed with my old Lumix camera, about 2012 I think.

Moon over Joe's Run, 2007 or 2008. This became a painting after an artist contacted me and asked to use it. 

Spooky moon, 2018.

Harvest Moon - The Mockingbird Sings in the Night

by Mary Oliver

No sky could hold
so much light -
and here comes the brimming,
the flooding and streaming
out of the clouds
and into the leaves,
glazing the creeks,
the smallest ditches!
And so many stars!
The sky seems stretched
like an old black cloth;
behind it, all
the celestial fire
we ever dreamed of!
And the moon steps lower,
quietly changing
her luminous masks, brushing
everything as she passes
with her slow hands
and soft lips -
clusters of dark grapes,
apples swinging like lost planets,
melons cool and heavy as bodies -
and the mockingbird wakes
in his hidden castle;
out of the silver tangle
of thorns and leaves
he flutters and tumbles,
spilling long
ribbons of music
over forest and river,
copse and cloud -
all heaven and all earth -
wherever the white moon
fancies her small wild prince -
field after field after field.

Moon and Jupiter, not sure what year.

The last eclipse, when was that? 2021?

Full moon, Ireland, October 2016.

Unknown year on this one.

Taken on the Scenic Highway, Pocahontas county, WV, on my birthday in 2019.

Some Harvest Moon superstitions for you, from the website In Pure Spirit:

• An old Chinese superstition suggests that your ears may fall off if you point to the moon.
• It’s dangerous to sleep with the moon shining on your face.
• Seeing a new moon for the first time on a Monday is lucky.
• Go outside with an empty purse or wallet, under a full moon, say “full up” nine times, and within a few days, you will come into money.
• A red moon is the sign of war
• If the first time you see a new moon in a month is by looking over your right shoulder, it is lucky
• If you rub an injury on a horse with silver during the light of a full moon, then it will recover

Taken on our ridge, unknown year.

Coming down the hill to our driveway, unknown year.

Early spring, but what year? No idea. Taken from our deck.

On our ridge, unknown year.

On Joe's Run, unknown year.

Really should date my photos, shouldn't I?

On the Scenic Highway, Pocahontas county, my birthday 2019.

Closing finally with Neil Young's iconic song, Harvest Moon, the unplugged version.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.