The Blue Moon looms

Dec 31, 2009 Editorial

The world is talking about an event that last occurred some two decades ago. On New Year’s Day twenty years ago, there was what people called a blue moon.
Lovers talk about it, singers croon about it and many a playwright did excellent works with this phenomenon being the central theme. The event was the blue moon, the occurrence of two full moons in one month.
It is not such a rare event, occurring every two or three years. These are some of the natural phenomena that abound in a world where equally there are distressing things. Few people would pay attention to these things, especially Guyanese who care less about the passage of the moon across the night skies.
Indeed, the farmers pay close attention because the success of their crops depends on the moon. The average farmer seems to know instinctively that to plant crops outside the useful cycle is to doom the crop to failure. The full moon is such an excellent guide. It is also the most maligned.
Horror movies feature the full moon prominently. People are often transformed during this event. People become werewolves, or change into some obnoxious shape during the full moon; the superstitious among us would often be heard warning about lying in a position to have the glare of the moon strike the face.
Not so long ago, coastal Guyana abounded with reports of all manner of deformities attributed to the effect of the moon, most of the time a full moon.
The English Language has words that describe horrific and unpleasant things named after the passage of the moon. Lunacy and lunatic are moon-related problems, or so it was thought.
People expected the lunatic to be at his worse during the full moon—the very object that some people would sit and gaze at to the point of seeing all manner of shapes and objects. Some describe the moon as having a face that gazes down on earth and from time immemorial, people saw the face in the moon.
The people who record the passage of the moon across the skies depict the phases of the moon as an object with a face.
In rural Guyana when electricity was something reserved for the towns and the city, people looked forward to the moon for night time pleasure. Children played in the front yards and parents sat and chatted from their stairs, all of them enjoying the moonlight.
Lovers, though, were the people who paid the most attention to the moon. It is for them that the poets and the singers and the playwrights came up with the blue moon.
Coastal Guyana is being buffeted by the advent of the blue moon. Three days ago, the press captured evidence of the Atlantic sending waves crashing over the seawalls. Indeed the people responsible for monitoring the sea and river defences and for drainage have been taking steps for any eventuality.
They have dug moats beyond the sea defences to trap any water that may escape into residential areas and cultivation plots. Two days ago these were almost full to overflowing but the authorities were keeping a close watch on the situation
However, apart from the threat of disaster for the people in low-lying areas, nothing is expected to happen. There would be no strange happenings in the world; children would be born during the blue moon and while some would describe the child as being exceeding lucky and as being a love child, there would be those who would attribute the birth under those conditions that lend themselves to superstition to a variety of ills.
But blue moon is blue moon and each one fascinates the world. This one will set tongues wagging; it will bring out the record books because for one to start the year with a blue moon must be something.
Perhaps people will take a break to gaze upon it and hum the lyrics from the Nat King Cole song “Blue Moon.”

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The Blue Moon looms

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The Blue Moon looms

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