Did you see the “Super Worm Equinox Moon” last night? I saw a moon. It was a nice moon. Big, bright, beautiful in a moonly sort of way. Didn’t see no worms though. I don’t want to get into a “remember when” thing here but…remember when the moon was just the moon. Sometimes it was full. Sometimes you looked up. Sometimes you didn’t. Sometimes you went ahh. The moon was just “The Moon.”

Songs were written about it, couples shared their first kiss under it, now and then a couple got engaged under it, probably some couples got pregnant under it, ghost stories were told in its light, and Halloweens were scarier when it was full that night. For over 4-1/2 billion years it has hung in the sky, orbiting the earth, reflecting sunlight at night so we don’t curse the darkness. And still today we look to it, we wish on it, we wonder how high it is, how far it is, how big it is. And still today we take it for granted.

The moon keeps our days at what we call days. Without the moon’s gravity pulling at the earth and slowing its rotation, a day would be about 6 hours. And you already think there aren’t enough hours in one! The moon power our tides so we don’t become a stagnant pool, keeps the earth’s rotational tilt so we don’t fall over, and keeps the planet spinning smoothly rather than wobbling its way through space.

With all the moon does for us does it not deserve some respect from us? Instead we treat it like an attraction at a carnival.

STEP RIGHT UP,
YES STEP RIGHT UP
AND SEE THE AMAZING,
THE STUPENDOUS,
THE UNBELIEVABLE,
THE ONE, THE ONLY,
THE SUPER WORM EQUINOX MOON!

Only twenty-five cents per person
have your tickets ready
please hold your own tickets
no readmissions
no exchanges
no refunds
this is a limited time offer.

They say, and I suppose they ought to know, this is the last supermoon for 2019. Apparently we’ve had our fill of micromoons for 2019 also. (Oh yes, that’s a thing too.) That means we can all go back to our porches and patios in the evening and listen to the crickets chirp and stare into the sky and not have to worry about whether we might feel foolish tomorrow at work (or worse on Facebook) when we say something like “Wasn’t the moon pretty last night?” and hear in reply “Pretty! Why that was best darned whiskey pourer blood pressure red possum longitudinal moon ever last night!”

Oh, and happy first full day of spring.