Full moon and other stories

The full moon is always a marvel. I never tire of full moons and have always felt a connection when I see the moon rise above the trees. Growing up in a rural area, watching the full moon with my grandmother was one of the highlights of my childhood. Sitting on the bamboo bench under the old langka tree, we would listen to the sounds of crickets, of jubilant frogs singing a cappella, and a distant call of birds at twilight---a poignant moon rising beyond the cornfield, beyond the bamboo trees. It’s an indelible memory of richness and color and song.

Full moons are traditionally linked to temporal insomnia, insanity, crime, disasters, fertility, vampires, werewolves, and aswangs, among other things. The notion that some people act strangely during a full moon has been around in every culture for ages…they call it the “full moon effect”. In Hitchcock's films, Stephen King's novels, there is always an element of the full moon effect. I can't recall the title of an old film where there was a scene of a widow wailing arias of grief during a full moon. And of course, a dog howling at the full moon sends shivers to my spine.

I remember the huge sineguelas tree in front of my grandmother’s house. Its leafless branches create gnarled shadows during full moon---the setting of my childhood horror fantasies.

The full moon has an enduring place in poetry, music, and mythology...even religion. People are inspired by it and sometimes afraid of it. And you may ask, with all the goings on and distractions of living in the city, why look up? Well, because sometimes we are rewarded with a spectacular natural event like a hauntingly beautiful full moon.