Today is the start of a new moon quarter, the Waxing Cold Moon. This waxing moon quarter is said to be the ideal time to start a new creative project. Is there something you've been meaning to start?
"Cold Moon" is one of the standard names for a moon, but I don't know if other people are calling this particular moon that name. Back around 1990, I read Delores LaChapelle's book, Sacred Land, Sacred Sex: The Rapture of the Deep. She points out that it's absurd to have names for moons standardized over many bioregions. The names need to come from careful observation of the land and its inhabitants. This made sense to me right away. So I began watching. That led me to my own set of names for the moons of the year.
The moon closest to the Autumn Equinox I call the Harvest Moon, like nearly everyone else. (I say "everyone else" but if I lived in the Southern Hemisphere, surely the main harvest time would be different.) After that comes the Long View Moon. Here in the foothills of northeast Georgia (USA) the woods open up completely during this moon. Leaves come down, so the views lengthen enormously. From the cabin here, "the mountain" appears in the west. (Our mountain is Mount Yonah, so named by the Cherokees because it looks like a bear lying down)
Next in my own natural calendar comes this moon, the Cold Moon. Indeed this is the moon when we usually have our first really cold weather. Right now I have extra boxes of supplies that shouldn't freeze, stacked just inside the door of my insulated "clean studio" called The Nest. The rest of the studio is the dirt floored blacksmithing studio, where things are allowed to freeze on cold nights.
Despite my personal calendar, last night we had a surprise scattering of snow. We looked out the window onto the deck and lo and behold, it was white! As always, this was very exciting. Even a little snowfall in Georgia is rare enough to be a thrill.
Sometimes here, the Snow Moon comes and goes without a trace of snow. Still, I keep it on my calendar. Maybe I'll find a more appropriate name someday. I'm still watching the land and my coinhabitants here.
6:46:03 PM 
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