"Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly."
-- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
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| Waxing "gibbous" moon 4-12-14 |
"And the sun and moon
Sometimes argue over
Who will tuck me in at night."
-- Hafez, "I Hold the Lion's Paw"
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Welcome to the "One Good Thing Lunar Minute."
If you looked up at the sky and away from your iPhone last night, you couldn't miss this beautiful, luminous, waxing gibbous moon hanging out over everything.
Why, you may wonder, is it called a "waxing gibbous" moon?
Well, I'm no Siri, but Imma 'bout to tell ya.
Gibbous comes from the Latin word gibbus, which means humped, or hunched, as well as the Italian word gobba, for humpback. And the term "waxing" comes from an Olde English word that means "becoming" or "growing."
While I can sort of see where the early astronomers were coming from, I think whoever called it gibbous must have been a dude. Because to me, the moon at this point is all woman and looks less like a humpback than it does a big, round, distended, pregnant belly.
And in case you didn't know, the female reproductive cycles respond very closely to the lunar cycle. More babies are born during the full moon than during any other moon phase. Plus, pregnant bellies are nice and round. Hunchbacks are all lumpy.
See where I'm coming from?
The Latin word for pregnant is "gravid." So with that in mind, I'd like to start a campaign to re-name this lunar phase the "waxing gravid moon."
Anybody with me?
Come on, guys. We can do it. Didn't anybody read Frindle for fuck's sake?
Well, by any name, this moon was absolutely lovely. I'd say she had a certain glow about her.
You know who else glows? Pregnant women.
Ever heard anybody describe a hunchback as "glowing?" Victor Hugo didn't call Quasimodo "glowing." He called his deformed bell-ringer "hideous" and a "creation of the devil."
I think I've made my case.
