Will a Blue Moon Make You Loony?

This Sunday November 21^st there’s a Blue Moon, that’s usually the second full moon in the same calendar month, but according to a rule from the old, no longer published, Maine Farmers' Almanac, (NOT to be confused with The Farmers' Almanac of Lewiston, Maine, which is still in business) a Blue Moon can also occur when there are four moons (instead of the normal three) in one season. There were full moons on September 23, October 22, November 21, and will be one on December 21. That's four in one season. Even though December is the first day of winter, the moon actually turns full at 3:13 a.m., 15 hours and 25 minutes BEFORE winter officially arrives. That makes the third moon the Blue Moon, but I have no idea why they decided that. Why not December’s moon or October’s moon?

DOES THE FULL MOON AFFECT HUMAN BEHAVIOR? If you know someone who works in the medical field or in social services like the police department, ask them. Chances are they’ll say: YES! They’ll say the crime rate increases and hospital emergency rooms fill up on the days of a full moon. If the moon can affect the ocean tides why not influence human emotions in some way physically or psychologically? The human body is 80% water. Besides, that’s where the word lunacy came from.

Arnold Lieber, a psychologist from the University of Miami (my college BTW) did research on the crime rate in Miami-Dade and wrote a bestselling book in 1978, "Lunar Effects: Biological Tides and Human Emotions", and another in 1996 supporting the theory about the influences of the full moon on human behavior. And Ivan Kelly, a psychologist at the University of Saskatchewan, conducted her own study and her findings disagreed with Lieber’s. She felt because of the long standing myth the reports were exaggerated by those involved with the study.

BLUE MOON FACTS:

The average interval between Full Moons is about 29.5 days, whilst the length of an average month is roughly 30.5 days. This makes it very unlikely that any given month will contain two Full Moons, though it does sometimes happen.

On average, there will be 41 months that have two Full Moons in every century, so you could say that once in a Blue Moon actually means once every two-and a half years.

A Blue Moon occurs approximately 7 times in 19 years.

Here’s a link to a Blue Moon calculator. http://www.obliquity.com/cgi-bin/bluemoon.cgi If you want to find out is there was a Blue Moon the year you were born for some reason.

I used it when I wrote my book SEDUCING THE STONES from Ellora’s Cave. There’s a Blue Moon in this story. The hero Rory was cursed by an ancient Sidhe curse for violating their sacred ground. He can only break this curse by an offering and a sexual ritual during a Blue Moon on the Eve of Samhain. I had to calculate how often that occured. It’s about every 80 years. So he had one night every 80 years to break this curse. He’d been trapped for over 300 years. But the ritual was also dangerous because of the location.

What do you think? Does a full moon make you loony? Make others loony?

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I'm counting down to the release of SECRET SOIREE. The release date is this Friday November 26th. There's still time to enter my CONTEST. Enter a comment on any blog post this month and leave your email addy and I'll add you in for the drawing of a FREE download from any of my eBooks. Or send me a separate email to Kathy@kathykulig.com with November contest in subject line.