BLUE MOON ~ 7/31/2015

Next Blue Moon is July 31

The moon was full on July 2, and it’ll be full again on July 31. The second of two full moons in a calendar month is often called a Blue Moon.


Most Blue Moons are not blue in color. This photo was created using special filters. Image via EarthSky Facebook friend Jv Noriega.
In recent years, people have been using the name Blue Moon for the second of two full moons in a single calendar month. An older definition of Blue Moon is that it’s the third of four full moons in a single season. Someday, you might see an actual blue-colored moon. The term once in a blue moon used to mean something rare. Now that the rules for naming Blue Moons include several different possibilities, Blue Moons are pretty common! Follow the links below to learn more about Blue Moons:
Can a moon be blue in color?
The next Blue Moon is July 31, 2015.
Blue Moon as third full moon of four in a season.
Which Blue Moon definition is better?
Can there be two Blue Moons in a single calendar year?
Is it possible to have only two full moons in a single season?

Desert Blue Moon from our friend Priya Kumar in Oman. August, 2012. Thank you, Priya!
Can a moon be blue in color? There’s one kind of blue moon that is still rare. It’s very rare that you would see a blue-colored moon, although unusual sky conditions – certain-sized particles of dust or smoke – can create them.
Blue-colored moons aren’t predictable. So don’t be misled by the photo above. The sorts of moons people commonly call Blue Moons aren’t usually blue.
For more about truly blue-colored moons, click here.
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The next Blue Moon is July 31, 2015. In recent decades, many people have begun using the name Blue Moon to describe the second full moon of a calendar month. There was a full moon on July 2, 2015. There’s another full moon on July 31. So the July 31 full moon will be called a Blue Moon, according to this definition.
The time between one full moon and the next is close to the length of a calendar month. So the only time one month can have two full moons is when the first full moon happens in the first few days of the month. This happens every 2-3 years, so these sorts of Blue Moons come about that often.
When was the last Blue Moon, according to the monthly definition? It happened on August 31, 2012.
Read more about the July 31, 2015 Blue Moon

Another beautiful image by our friend Jv Noriega – the moon among fast-moving clouds. Will the next Blue Moon be blue in color like this? No. This image was made using blue filters, too. Thank you, Jv!
The idea of a Blue Moon as the second full moon in a month stemmed from the March 1946 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, which contained an article called “Once in a Blue Moon” by James Hugh Pruett. Pruett was referring to the 1937 Maine Farmer’s Almanac, but he inadvertently simplified the definition. He wrote:

Seven times in 19 years there were — and still are — 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon.

Had James Hugh Pruett looked at the actual date of the 1937 Blue Moon, he would have found that it had occurred on August 21, 1937. Also, there were only 12 full moons in 1937. You need 13 full moons in one calendar year to have two full moons in one calendar month. However, that fortuitous oversight gave birth to a new and perfectly understandable definition for Blue Moon.
EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd happened upon a copy of this old 1946 issue of Sky and Telescope in the stacks of the Peridier Library at the University of Texas Astronomy Department in the late 1970s. Afterward, she began using the term Blue Moon to describe the second full moon in a calendar month on the radio. Later, this definition of Blue Moon was also popularized by a book for children by Margot McLoon-Basta and Alice Sigel, called “Kids’ World Almanac of Records and Facts,” published in New York by World Almanac Publications, in 1985. The second-full-moon-in-a-month definition was also used in the board game Trivial Pursuit.
Today, it has become part of folklore.

What most call a Blue Moon isn't blue in color. It's only Blue in name. This great moon photo from EarthSky Facebook friend Rebecca Lacey in Cambridge, Idaho.
Blue Moon as third full moon of four in a season. The Maine Farmer’s Almanac defined a Blue Moon as an extra full moon that occurred in a season. One season – winter, spring, fall, summer – typically has three full moons. If a season has four full moons, then the third full moon may be called a Blue Moon.
There was a Blue Moon by this definition happened on November 21, 2010. Another occurred on August 20-21, 2013. And the next one will occur on May 21, 2016.
Which Blue Moon definition is better? In recent years, a controversy has raged – mainly among purists – about which Blue Moon definition is better. The idea of a Blue Moon as the third of four in a season may be older than the idea of a Blue Moon as the second full moon in a month. Is it better? Is one definition right and the other wrong?
Opinions vary, but, remember, this is folklore. So we, the folk, get to decide. In the 21st century, both sorts of full moons have been called Blue.
As the folklorist Phillip Hiscock wrote in his comprehensive article Folklore of the Blue Moon:

Old folklore it is not, but real folklore it is.

Can there be two Blue Moons in a single calendar year? Yes. It last happened in 1999. There were two full moons in January and two full moons in March and no full moon in February. So both January and March had Blue Moons.
The next year of double monthly blue moons is coming up in January and March, 2018 – and then, after that, in January and March, 2037.
Very rarely, a monthly Blue Moon (second of two full moons in one calendar month) and a seasonal Blue Moon (third of four full moons in one season) can occur in the same calendar year. But for this to happen, you need 13 full moons in one calendar year AND 13 full moons in between successive December solstices. This will next happen in the year 2048, when a monthly Blue Moon falls on January 31, and a seasonal Blue Moon on August 23.
Bottom line: A blue-colored moon is rare. But folklore has defined two different kinds of Blue Moons, and moons that are Blue by name have become pretty common. A Blue Moon can be the second full moon in a month. We’ll have that sort of Blue Moon on July 31, 2015. Or it can be the third of four full moons in a season.


Thanks to: http://earthsky.org

Aquarius Blue Moon Invites You To Seek True Freedom
Written by Bekah Finch Turner July 29, 2015 in Astrology & Numerology, Reality's Edge with 0 Comments

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Aquarius Full (Blue) Moon ~ Friday, July 31 @ 3:45 am PDT
Most people relate Aquarius to freedom, but what does that really mean? Freedom is a funny and fickle thing. Like most concepts or ideals, it is also incredibly vast in translation and probably every person you would ask to define it would say slightly different or very different, things. I know that I used to think it meant I had the ability to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted! Turns out, that kind of freedom, what I now call material freedom, was a lot of work… if I wanted the freedom to eat whatever I wanted, then I had to be able to buy it and also exercise later. If I wanted to go wherever I wanted, then I needed transportation and funding. With each “freedom” I desired, came a responsibility to sustain that choice. And sometimes, the work did not weigh equal to the reward.
In most spiritual traditions, such as yoga, Hinduism, Jainism or Buddhism, freedom and liberation are goals that mean one has attained either oneness with God, thereby dissolving all ego and attachment; or one has freed themselves from the cycles of karma and is now liberated from that construct. Ultimately, it is about the soul and releasing the suffering that comes with a life of duality and desire. Rather than having “more” on a physical level, one seeks to have less to then have “more” in the spiritual. There is still responsibility in this choice, and renunciation or holding out for a spiritual goal is rather challenging work!
It is interesting to meditate on this pulsation of freedom/liberation, and it is this very dance that I am trying to stay focused on as the blue moon, or the second full moon of July, waxes to her climax.
Adding to the uniqueness of this lunation is the newly retrograde movement of Venus, who has begun her descent through the underworld, something she only does every year-and-a-half, so also, uncommon like the double full moon. In this journey, she leaves her role as evening star and is reborn as the morning star.
Much myth relates to her transformation and I have read beautiful comparisons to the journeys of Persephone and Innana, both of which involve earth goddesses who surrender all to enter the lower realms. Through sacred events and intervention, they are allowed the rare privilege of coming back to earth, reborn and more powerful than before. The core of this power relates to surrender, and Innana journeys through seven gates of hell on the way down and up, leaving a particular power behind each step.
Again, my mind turns to spiritual liberation. The goddesses gain true power when they lose all that they thought they knew and who they thought they were. Even as they re-gain their physical stature, they are no longer defined by the material realm.
Aquarius approves of this kind of bid for freedom. Ruled by Uranus, called the “great liberator,” and symbolic of lightning, it frees us from ego and old constructs in the blink of an eye. Aquarius is fixed air, the high mind and universal consciousness. She seeks to go beyond the daily drama of Gemini or the harmonious alignment of Libra and goes straight for true enlightenment. Whatever that means.
My trouble with Aquarius is that I can get so caught up in the existentialism of it all… freedom and liberation.. materialism and spirituality… renunciation and restoration. But the bidding of Venus to descend, tells me I am best not left in my head on this full moon. No, the best place to find the freedom I seek is within.

There is a mystery to Venus and to Aquarius. Something so old and ancient and part of a consciousness we humans have somehow disconnected from. Perhaps, this weekend, under the light of the beautiful blue moon, with the energetic pull down into the lower worlds, we can drop into some form of the truth.
As they say, the truth will set you free.
So, ask. Ask your heart, the moon, the stars, the trees and the sea. Ask the animals that peek out under the luminous lunar gaze. Ask your guides and guardians. Ask your inner eye. Ask where you are not in your truth and where you are not free. What are you afraid to surrender on your journey through the night? What do you cling to and does it serve you? What would life look like if you were really and truly free?
This is a perfect moment to seek. July opened with a full moon and it closes with one. In between we experienced American Independence day and a plethora of events, in skies and on earth, that made us wonder what freedom means to us…people gained rights. Others lost them. Inequality was spotlighted as still a very real and present thing. The world undulates with scientific marvels and basic tragedies. We are at the climax of a pivotal year, sitting right at the top, under the rare blue moon. What do you have to lose? What can you gain by letting go?
I pray for the highest vibrations through this cycle. I pray that we seek freedom from the bondage that disconnects us as united beings on this precious planet. I pray for liberation from addiction, attachment and suffering and the strength to be of service to truth, peace, and my fellow beings. I pray for the children and the old ones. I pray for all to rise up and recognize what it can mean to be free. I pray for the safe return of the Goddess from her descent and that as she emerges, we can recognize her in all things.
Many blue moon blessings,
Bekah


Thanks to: http://consciouslifenews.com

Dear Friends,

The second full moon of the month is Friday July 31 at 4:42 AM Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).

 
Celebrate something new and do something awesome!
It is always easy to dwell on the difficulty, the intensity, what is not working, the frustration, the confusion, the impatience of not quite getting that which you can sense just beyond your reach. This is a time when things are still not yet clear, can be somewhat confusing, and when it is helpful to keep a “don’t know mind” and to continue to push forward into unknown territory with trust and humor.
This full moon is eccentric enough that it will support whatever stretch outside the box you are willing to go for. Set some lofty intentions for bigger dreams and honor this new territory with doing something you have never done before. Laugh, dance, sing and be grateful for your life!
Blessings,
Lena
 

ASTROLOGICAL NOTES:

Written by Patricia Liles.  Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com
Aquarius Full Moon
Sun in Leo 8º ~ Moon in Aquarius 8º
Friday, July 31, 4:42 AM Mountain Time
(July 31, 10:42 AM Greenwich Mean Time)
Welcome Radiant Leo! Welcome element of Fire! Leo rules the heart, our Coeur-age, the dynamic expression of our essence to be shared and appreciated by others.  Leo gets its radiance from its ruler, the Sun that sits at the center stage of our solar system, and like the Sun, Leo gives its gifts of light, warmth and energy magnanimously.  Leo’s fire element is not mental, physical or emotional; rather fire is inspirational, masculine, enthusiastic, dynamic, generous.  Leo calls your individuality to the forefront; the great I AM.  There is only one powerful king, Sun, Self.  Does Leo bring an element of dictatorial stubbornness to his clan? Heck ya, a fixed, power sign, Leo’s method is to consolidate power and also to share it generously and honorably aligned with heart.
At the same time, Aquarius is Leo’s balancing force ~ where the individual gives way to the collective, the local to the global, the risk taker to the rebel.  At Aquarius Full Moon, our genius, inventive, humanitarian self steps forward.  Aquarius is such an unusual, eccentric, intuitive force influenced by its ruling planet, Uranus.
Uranus was the planet discovered about the time of the French and American revolutions (think rebellion, social justice).  It upset the traditional structure of the solar system by adding a side-spinning planet that lay beyond Saturn.  Functioning ancient astrological systems to this day do not utilize or consider the “modern” planets that orbit beyond Saturn (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto).  As the fixed, power air sign, Aquarius/Uranus brings a relationship to all mental (air) functions that are beyond the norm – innovation, unconventional approaches, an instantaneous clarity about how things coalesce and function, brilliant crystalline intelligence from the distant stars.
Aquarius/Uranus is related to the myth of Prometheus who in social rebellion brought the gift of ‘fire’, ‘the spark of enlightenment’, from the gods to serve humanity and paid a dear price for his largesse.  His punishment by Zeus – to be chained to a rock and have his liver pecked out every day to be regenerated at night.  From this fate comes Aquarius’ relationship to isolation, loneliness and mental detachment from emotions, ‘the outsider’ represented by ‘the exiled one’ as well as ‘the humanitarian’.  Despite a rocky start, Aquarius Full Moon connects us to a deep desire for friendship, an objective assessment of our authentic selves, a standard of equality at all levels, great insight and future-minded decision making ability.  Aquarius is the ‘progressive one’ shattering old structures, shaking your tree to aid you in evolving and moving forward, making conceptual leaps through science, technology or the quantum fields.
We’re preparing this month for the solar and lunar eclipse pair in September:
September 13 partial solar eclipse in Virgo 20º
September 29 total lunar eclipse in Aries 4º
Preparation means experiencing two planetary retrogrades in this past week and Saturn going direct on August 1.   When planets ‘station’ (stop)and change direction, their energies greatly intensify.  Venus having just entered Virgo on Monday, July 18 began almost immediately retrograding on July 25, and she again reentered Leo on July 29th until October 8 unable to resist an extended time in this regal sign of Leo.  Venus retrograde until September 6 allows us to go within and deeply consider all those Venus ruled areas of our lives ~ our financial affairs (money and resources), what we value and want to focus our time and money and love on, our relationships and how they are reflecting the balance of who we are at this time, and also how are we bringing beauty and pleasure into our lives for renewal.  Lovely Venus/Aphrodite will again conjunct bold, expansive Jupiter in Leo on August 4 with Mercury nearby.  For the second time in a month, we are beckoned by these two diamonds in the sky to open our hearts and invite in the truth that love is all there is.  This is a powerful antidote to the chaos that other influences are bringing to bear.
Uranus turned retrograde last Sunday until December 25.  You are offered a window to look inside at what needs a big change up, what we can loosen our tight grip on to invite in the new.  If you don’t assess and invite in change, Uranus is known for sending a shock wave through your life aimed at stagnant energy.
Saturn, on the other hand, is heading outward having been in inner mode since March.  Here is where your focus, discipline and stamina will serve you with dividends.  Get a project going.  Strengthen your boundaries, limit distractions, dial in where you want to end up.
Jupiter changes sign for the next year on August 11 entering earthy, practical Virgo.  Now the areas of health, work, service will be enhanced with Jupiter’s growth-inducing presence for one year.  Our abilities to analyze, refine, integrate will get a boost and help with our Saturn building projects.  What we are choosing to create now begins to function holistically under Virgo’s gifts – more than the sum of its parts.  Jupiter in Virgo will help bring the grandiose ideas of Leo into a down to earth physical form.
Aquarius Full Moon energy is collective energy.  What do you want your contribution to be to the whole? Where we focus our intentions is where we will see growth.  Sure, there is incredible and daunting resistance to change.  Aquarius reminds us change and evolution is valuable and inevitable.
08/14 Leo New Moon 21º 8:54 AM Mountain Time
08/23 Sun enters Virgo 4:37 AM Mountain Time
08/29 Pisces Full Moon 6º 12:36 PM Mountain Time
Written by Patricia Liles.  Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com


Thanks to VK at: https://oneworldmetamorphosis.wordpress.com
and: http://thepowerpath.com