On Monday night (Australian Eastern Summer Time) the moon will be the closest full moon to Earth since 1948. It is a rare occurrence – we will wait until 2034 for the full moon to be this close to us again.
Earlier this year, in May, we were blessed with the less rare but still special lunar event of a “blue moon”. Astronomically speaking a “blue moon” refers to the presence of a second full moon in a calendar month. Such a moon is usually not “blue” (though prevailing atmospheric conditions can sometimes give it that hue) but as it occurs only once in approximately 2.7 years, it’s not surprising that we use the expression, “once in a blue moon” to refer to something that hardly ever happens.
We invoke our glorious night skies quite often to express something rare or wonderful. We might be “over the moon” when we’re extremely pleased. When we’re really enraptured by something we might say we’re “in seventh heaven” and that expression has its origin in a much earlier conception of cosmology. In medieval times, the (then known) universe was geo-centric . That is, while we now know that our Earth is just one of several planets (eight, actually, since Pluto was “demoted” from planet-status), the people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was the centre of everything and that the visible planets and stars (including the Sun) revolved around it. These concentric zones of revolution were called “spheres” or “heavens” and, in ascending order (moving outwards from the centrally located Earth) the “celestial bodies” were arranged as follows:
- The Moon
- Mercury
- Venus
- The Sun
- Mars
- Jupiter
- Saturn
Beyond these bodies was the Firmament (the area of “fixed stars”) and encircling that was the Primum Mobile (the “prime mover” of the whole operation), and outside all of that was the Empyrean of God.
At death, it was believed that people left Earth and, after negotiating the other encircling elements of Water, Air and Fire, continued ascending through each planetary sphere until they reached the “Seventh Heaven” which was about as close to God’s Heaven, and thus “heavenly bliss”, as could be imagined.
Today, cosmologically speaking, we might have to journey quite a bit further to reach such bliss but it’s always good to “wish upon a star”.
Carmel Bendon 