Lovely morning.This year’s mid-autumn moon was the first full moon in many years. As many of you know, the Mid-Autumn Moon is rarely full. The reason for this is that it falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, so the moon is not always full when the sun is opposite the moon as seen from the earth. I hope you enjoyed seeing the beautiful full moon yesterday. On my way home from work I was also able to see the beautiful moon through the clouds. It was indescribably beautiful and enchanting, and I enjoyed the moonlit night for a while.
I think Japanese people have a romantic image of the moon, with traditional scenes like “Oboro-tsukiyo”, or the rabbit that lives in the moon, “Kaguyahime”. And in English, there are many idioms that use the moon. For example, “over the moon”, “once in a blue moon”, “ask for the moon” are some examples of idioms that use the moon.
The moon has had a great influence on human civilisation in many ways, from the calendar and ancient religions to its key role in the birth of astronomy and science. In Greek mythology there is also the goddess Selene Artemis Hecate and in Roman mythology there is the god Luna Diana. But apparently, the image of the moon differs from culture to culture. In the West, in particular, the moon is associated with a slightly spooky and macabre image. The full moon, for example, is said to make people crazy. There are stories and movies where people turn into werewolves on a full moon night. In a similar vein, the English word lunatic, derived from the moon goddess luna, means madman or insane. The moon lights us up at night, but its shape and size change every day, and when a lunar eclipse is seen, many people are still afraid of the wonder of it.
It is also interesting to know that although many people live on the same planet, the moon we see when we look up at the sky is perceived in different ways by different cultures. And even if the way we feel about the moon differs from country to country and culture to culture, it is clear that the moon has given us a lot of power.
Our life today is only possible because people in the past thought and created various things based on what they thought and observed when they looked up at the moon, which makes me want to thank the moon every time I look up at the sky, and I can’t help but feel grateful to the many people who have lived before us.