Mighty orb roused sullen commuters into a state of awe
I SPENT much of Thursday evening spent trapped in an immobile train carriage on the East Coast Main Line.
As is the wont of commuters these days, we all stared sullenly at our smartphones for a time. But as the minutes ticked by eventually people’s eyes began to be drawn to the vast orblike moon shining down above our faulty train.
Thirty minutes in and numerous conversations flickered into life along the carriage – nearly all of the ones I could hear were about the beauty of the night sky. This year’s harvest moon – the name for the first full moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox – was a corker, bathed in rose gold and as luminescent as a John Atkinson Grimshaw painting (that great Victorian chronicler of the moon).
Unsurprisingly, the name derives from the fact farmers used to rely on its light to work late into the night collecting crops ahead of winter.
True enough, when I finally made it home and into bed the moon was so bright it seemed as if the council had erected a brand new street lamp outside our window.
In autumn the moon’s orbital path in comparison to the earth means it rises sooner and brings noticeably more illuminated nights.
At the time of the harvest moon it rises almost as soon as the sun sets, hence the bright orange overtones.
Perhaps our proximity to that rarefied beauty is why my fellow passengers and I became so animated in discussion. For when the moon shines full above our heads, humans react in strange ways. In some hospitals and psychiatric wards it is still an accepted school of thought that full moons lead to busy nights.
It is why, after all, we refer to a state of madness as “lunacy”. And that is an affliction every commuter on a stranded train home will know all too well.