Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889–1977) is considered one of the first movie stars ever and made film history with his acting and his works. He is also one of the few artists who managed the transition from silent films to sound films.
Because of using archetypal imagery and symbols in his films, it is natural that the moon could also play a part somewhere. We found four references:
It was about 100 years ago when a special kind of postcard was fashionable in Europe: the moonshine card. This is a kind of postcard with motifs of cities or landscapes that was to convey the effect of a nightly moonshine scenery. It was supposed to be romantic and this obviously appealed to people in those days. There were printed cards as well as photo-postcards that were »dipped into moonlight« in this way.
Today is the last day of 2012 and we asked ourselves when there has been or will be a full moon in the past or the future at the turn of the year. What a fascinating picture, if you are imagining also the full moon next to the firework welcoming the New Year. The spectacle of humans meets the eternal beauty of the universe …
The American astronaut David Scott (* 1932) conducted an interesting experiment on the Moon, toward the end of the Apollo 15 mission in July/August 1971. In front of a running camera, he dropped a hammer (2.9 lb) and a falcon’s feather (0.06 lb), just to prove Galileo Galileis’ (1564–1641) thesis that objects fall to the ground with the same speed, regardless of their mass, provided the air resistance does not slow them down, as it is the case on Earth. On our planet, this experiment could only be demonstrated in a vacuum.
We have already reported about full moon delicacies, which are being produced during the full moon. Especially popular are full moon bread, cheese, sausage, coffee, beer and water. But there are also foods that have been simply connected to the Moon via their shape and therefore carry the moon in their name. For example the mooncake at the Chinese festival or the American »Moon Pie«, a sandwich cookie that has been made since 1917.
In Australia, the “southern land” (lat. terra australis), full moon has been shining for millennia for its natives, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. According to estimates they inhabit this continent since more than 50,000 years, while Europeans only began to settle there 200 to 400 years ago. We would like to make a connection to the full moon, which is very much part of this fascinating culture, who, like many others, had to endure many wrongs during the course of more recent history.
Let’s begin the New Year 2011 with the opening of the full moon blog. A true innovation to the full moon pages.
For everyone, who is not quite sure what a blog is, let’s say it is a kind of an Internet diary. The word »blog« is an abbreviation of »weblog«, which again derives from »web« (for Internet) and »logbook«, a term used in maritime shipping for recording daily events. Interestingly enough, it is mentioned in WIKIPEDIA that logbooks are of great importance in legal cases involving maritime commercial disputes, and therefore mandatory to be kept and not on a voluntary basis. As blogger (name of someone who writes in a blog), we certainly would not keep this rule, but encourage spontaneous participation and think it should be fun, and whenever possible, we will establish a connection to the full moon.
There is a wide spectrum of views and opinions about how the moon may influence human life and it is in the very nature of things, that these opinions lead to discussions. During the course of the years, we got acquainted with many different viewpoints and are trying to give room to these diversities on these pages.
Let’s imagine two people for example, a sceptic, who analyses sensibly and critically, and a mystic who allows his actions to be guided by faith and dedication. Let’s have both people answer the question, whether principally, full moon has an effect on human beings.
As already mentioned in our article about sleepwalking, a connection was made in the past between the moonlight and people, if their conduct was odd, crazy or threatening. One assumed that the moonlight caused this behaviour and spoke of “lunatic”, which derives from the Latin “lunatus” and means more or less “influenced by the moon”. In English, this terminology “lunatic” has been used for many forms of mental illnesses over many centuries. Because many of these disorders could not be explained for a long time (and there are still plenty of questions today), one was in need of a point of reference, a word that would accompany on the path of darkness. The Moon was very convenient.
Google is on everyone’s lips and in our computer oriented world there is probably not a day, where we don’t encounter the name of the US enterprise with its famous search engine in one form or another. We google – this is how the Oxford English Dictionaries have it since 2006.
Google has demonstrated more than once, how to change the world with unconventional ideas. Since 2007, there is a project, which continues this tradition: the »Google Lunar X Prize«.
Although, one could easily presume that full moon influences the reproduction of many creatures, this has really only been proven for some species. One assumes this is the case with wolves, specific insects or crabs and also many humans vow not being able to do anything other than to look for the closeness of the other (or the same) sex at full moon. But absolutely certain are scientist only about one animal species that may not even be considered an animal by many: the corals. Here it has been established that reproduction is dependent on water temperature and moon light.