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 belongs to one of the more strenuous ideals of our times, wanting to be slim and beautiful and fit. A multi-million industry is connected to this image and people like us, can decide as to how much we want to participate in this game. Most of us have already more of it on their minds as they may actually like to. And since the ideal of the slim and slender body doesn’t happen naturally, people have invented the “diet”. However, this word derives from the Greek díaita and relates to the correct organization and way of life in general. So losing weight is not actually the focus after all, but rather a life in balance.
The Bible is undoubtedly one of the most important books in human history – most printed, most translated and worldwide the most widespread. It is the Holy Scripture of Christianity and Judaism (in different forms) and therefore the manifestation of God’s word in two of the major world religions.
The text contains, with its archaic, poetic language, many descriptions of nature and celestial events. So, it is obvious that the Sun, the Moon and the stars are mentioned. But is the full moon also to be found?
Other than the moonstone, there are more minerals with the Moon being part of their name: the moonlight topaz. The topaz is a compound of aluminum, fluorine and silicon and has the hardness value of 8, on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness from 1 (= selenite) to 10 (= diamond). Which means it is a very hard mineral. Topazes exist worldwide, but most findings originate in Brazil. When conditions are favorable for the growth of this mineral, their weight can easily reach up to 220 lb and more. The biggest topaz that was ever found, was 3.3 ft long and weighed 2.5 tons (Mozambique, Africa).
In China, the September full moon is a special day. It is the day of the Moon Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival. This festival is traditionally celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the old Chinese calendar. Because the moon month averages 29.5 days in length, the 15th day is usually a full moon day, however, there are slight shifts in some years. The Moon Festival is one of the most important festivals in China, but is also held in Korea and Vietnam as well as in the respective districts in big cities around the globe.
The Christmas advertising campaigns of the well known English department store John Lewis, have developed into a yearly tradition since their start in 2007 and have become part of pre-Christmas Internet culture. John Lewis has been awarded the “IPA Effectiveness Award” with its 2012 Christmas campaign. This year, the video called “Man On The Moon” was published – parallel to the Christmas full moon on 25th December 2015.
It is fascinating how the French writer Jules Verne (1828–1905) envisaged the journey to the Moon 100 years in advance in his science fiction novels and was able to put it into words. Admittedly, he was quite taken with describing journeys to unimaginable places: from the deep sea (“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”), via the circumnavigation of the Earth (“Around the World in 80 Days”) through to the interior of the Earth (“Journey to the Center of the Earth”). Of course, space had to be part of this and this is how Jules Verne firstly wrote the novel “From the Earth to the Moon” (»De la Terre à la Lune«, 1865) and then later the sequel “Around the Moon” (»Autour de la Lune«, 1870).
The full moon has always been a companion through time, through months, through seasons and the entire year. In the early days even more so, because daily life of people had not been strictly ruled by the clock yet. It was the sun that determined the day and the moon that brightened the night. Nowadays, clock and calendar are our time scales, which is advantageous but also contains a dark side. You unlearn more and more to estimate time periods and to experience them consciously. We have almost forgotten to perceive how different a full moon feels like in December compared to a full moon in July …
Fitting into the Christmas period, we are hanging up a virtual mistletoe and calling upon all lovers out there to kiss each other! The custom has a long tradition in many countries. The symbolism of fertility and vitality play as much a part as the search for the possibility of making the kiss in public socially acceptable. The mistletoe helps to overcome the inhibition, which can stand especially between two people before their first kiss. And incidentally, for every kiss one berry of the bush is plucked – until no berries are left.
The Moon has not always been there. And although, no one has been present to observe its creation, scientists today, largely share the view that our Moon originates from a collision between Earth and another planet 4.5 billion years ago.
Our Earth – that looked completely different to how we know it to be today – had been circling with the planet Theia, which was about the size of our Mars, around the Sun. Some day, these two orbs clashed, produced an inconceivably powerful collision that totally destroyed Theia and catapulted an enormous amount of rocks into the orbit of Earth.
Scorpions have the quality that they are fluorescent and glow when in contact with UV radiation. This becomes clearly visible, when they are directly exposed to UV light. However, the UV components, which are contained in the sunlight and the moonlight, are hardly sufficient to produce this glow to an extent that it is visible to humans. Still, scorpions appear to detect the UV components and hence react to moonlight.