The Harvest Moon rises Thursday, October 1st, and this year, it’s the first Full Moon of Autumn, and the first to appear above the celestial equator. This matters for us in the Northern Hemisphere because it means that from now until Spring, we will experience more moonlight than sunlight.
This year’s Harvest Moon stands exactly opposite where the first Full Moon of the Spring will occur in 2021. That Full Moon, known as the Vernal Full Moon, will be the first to occur below the celestial equator for the year, and is the Moon used to determine the moveable feast days like Easter and the Passover.
So when you see the Harvest Moon Thursday night, about 20 minutes after sunset ~ or even better, the night before, on Wednesday, when the Moon will appear nearly full rising at the exact moment that the Sun is setting, bring along this poem from Dawna Markova. It’s a beautiful way to imagine that, like the Earth, we carry future forces within ourselves through the darker seasons of the year, and while outer nature seems to go dormant now, something rich and necessary is being cultivated within.
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.