We’re familiar with names for months but not the full Moon names. Wolf, snow, worm, pink, strawberry, buck, sturgeon, corn, hunter, beaver, and cold. It used to be a calendar method for phases of the year. May, which I missed, is the flower Moon. The time when flowers, particularly wildflowers, are bursting into bloom.
My flower feeling is earlier with the new arrival of spring and snowdrops, violets, primrose, cowslip. But it’s correctly observed for May when nature has fully awoken. Still fresh, not the sun fed flourish of summer, but wild flowers are everywhere.
Did the change from one calendar method to another correspond to separation from nature? I’m not sure, and the Moon as such does not represent nature, but there’s probably a connection. Less Moon, more incandescent light. Curtains and television, not that silvery glow with a mysterious feeling of other.
Some months ago, leaving a supermarket, I had to restrain myself from stopping in the middle of the road and gazing at an astounding moon. When I reached the pavement I did gaze, then with some quick research found it was recognised as exceptionally large. It certainly was. That’s why I paused for a second, then recovered, in the middle of the road.