Moon When All is Gathered In

Early this month I harvested my last Cherokee Trail of Tears beans just before the rains came. I cut down the fennel and put the rest of those seeds in the compost because they had been exposed to too much moisture already. The time of harvesting marigold seeds had passed because it's just too darned wet. There were some chocolate cosmos and tall coneflowers blooming along with the smaller tagetes, but now even they are sodden and bedraggled. I'm kicking myself because I did not harvest our hops before they rusted, but I do like the look of them climbing on the rails of our front stairs. I hope the bees are warm and dry inside their hive square dancing and playing canasta, or whatever they do to amuse themselves over the long winter months.

Vancouver has had light frosts since mid October, and at least one hard frost in November, but mostly we just have the weather that feels colder than it really is because it is so wet. And have I mentioned the wind? Yes, there is that too, blowing the scraps of wet oak leaves into your face and causing the rain to seep into every pore of your exposed flesh. The wind shakes the rain from trees full of fat robins feasting on bright red berries, so that the water drops right down the back of your neck and you curse yourself for buying this jacket on sale because it did not have a hood.


The Algonquin call the November Moon the Full Beaver Moon, either because they trapped the animals for winter furs or because the beavers were getting ready to hibernate. Most of the Native North American names for this month's moon acknowledge the frost and the beginning of winter. It's poignant to see that for the Mowhawk nation it was a Time of Much Poverty, but for the Potawatomi it was literally the month of their Thanksgiving turkey feast. In times past, rivers froze, hides were scraped, and the snow began to fall. The Wishram Moon name could very well describe the Vancouver moon in November: Snowy Mountains Morning Moon. And so all has been gathered in and winter is on its way to Vancouver. Sigh. My friend reminds me that every day now is one day closer to spring.


Algonquin: Full Beaver Moon
Anishnaabe: Freezing Moon
Abenaki: Freezing River Maker Moon
Assiniboine: Frost Moon
Cherokee: Trading Moon
Eastern Comanche: Heading to Winter Moon, Thanking Moon
Cree: The Moon the Rivers Begin to Freeze
Creek: Moon When the Water is Black with Leaves
Haidi: Snow Moon
Hopi: Month of Fledgling Hawk
Kiowa: Geese-Going Moon
Lakota: Moon when Winter Begins
Mohawk: Time of Much Poverty
Potawatomi: Month of the Turkey & Feast
Shawnee: Long Moon
Sioux: Moon of the Falling Leaves
Tewa Pueblo: Moon When All is Gathered In
Tlingit: Scraping Moon
Winnebago; Little Bear's Moon
Wishram: Snowy Mountains in the Morning Moon
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Wait Until I Come

It's October and we are well into the nippy fall weather under a plump harvest moon. This morning I harvested more of my yellow pear tomatoes and the pinkish ones with low acidity which Jean thinks are an Amish variety. My sunflowers have been decimated by a squirrel. My son and I watched it sitting on the high fence chowing down on the seeds and she was so fat it looked liked she had swallowed a small bowling ball. She knocked down some of my taller Earthwalker plants so I cut off the heads and saved them for teaching projects. I'm leaving the remaining beans to get nice and plump for drying and seed-saving. I also cut down some of the fennel umbrels that have matured to dry in the back porch. Our beehives which split in a swarm earlier in the year have now been combined and today they were very active in the mid-morning sun. There are Jerusalem artichokes blooming in our neighbourhood and a few fall flowers here and there, but we are feeding the bees sugar water as well (as a last resort) because they need more stored food for the winter.

Yesterday I went to UBC Farm for the market and to gather more seeds. One of the ag profs was lecturing near the flower patch so I got to hear a few of his anecdotes, which was fun. He was good at answering the student's questions with something like "Well that depends on which context you're working in, and what your purpose is..." He talked about seed-saving as something you do by marking each plant carefully and noting which seeds were gathered from specific plants, or gather open-pollenated seeds willy-nilly as I was. The field pumpkins were as orange as orange can be, and I bought some chai-spice honey from Jane's Bees, which I'm really excited about. I also bought some Mayan beans to make pots of steaming Halloween chilli.

I suppose we will have frost by the end of the month and the wild geese and ducks will have flown over my mom and dad's house in Saskatchewan to warmer climes. (If they haven't been shot down by hunters in camo for Thanksgiving Day tables.) It's interesting that the Mohawk, which is a woodland culture, refer to this as the Poverty Moon when the agricultural first nations moon names refer to putting the harvest away in caches, storing it for the winter. I'm a bit baffled by the Assiniboine terms: Joins Both Sides Moon and Striped Gopher Looks Back Moon. The terms of October seem cloaked in a deep mystery, holding the earth's secrets a little bit closer as darkness falls on the land. Perhaps the most haunting is the Kiowa October moon: Wait Until I Come, suggesting a reunion after a long hunting or fishing trip. I am comforted by the Dakota tasks of October under a moon when quilling and beading is done. I look forward to hibernating and drawing and stitching my way through this winter with mugs of hot chai. In Medieval English, this is the month of The Blood Moon, when the spirit world draws itself close to ours and whispers to our semi-conscious minds as we struggle to wake ourselves in the dark mornings. How will you prepare your body for winter?


Northern Arapaho, Abenaki (northeast, Maine): Leaf Falling Moon

Anishnaabe, Algonquin (Northeast to the Great Lakes): white frost on the grass and the ground

Apache (southern plains): time when the corn is taken in

Assiniboine (northern plains): Joins Both Sides Moon or Striped Gopher looks Back Moon

Cherokee (East Coast, Carolinas): Harvest Moon

Cheyenne (Great Plains): Moon when the Water Begins to Freeze on the Edge of the Streams

Cree (Northern Plains, Canada): The Moon the Birds Fly South

Dakota (Plains): Moon When Quilling and Beading is Done

Haidi (Alaska): Bears hibernate

Hopi (Southwest, Arizona): Month of Long Hair and Month of Harvesting

Kalapuya (Pacific Northwest, Oregon): Atchalankuaik - start getting sagittair roots

Kiowa: Early October--Ten Colds Moon; Late October: Wait Until I Come

Mohawk (Eastern Woodlands): Poverty

Ponca (Southern Plains): Moon when they store food in Caches

Potawatomi (Great Lakes): Month of the First Frost

Shawnee (Midwest, Ohio, Pennsylvania): Wilted Moon

Sioux (Great Plains, Dakotas, Nebraska): Changing Seasons


I am indebted to this web site from the Western Washington University Planetarium for helping me with placing the tribes referred to here.

ETA: This resource was actually created  by Phil Konstantin who allowed the Plantarium to use it with his permission: http://americanindian.net/moons.html

Corn is in the Silk Moon

It's the month of ripe plums (Shawnee), black cherries (Assiniboine) and black berries (Wishram) staining our fingers and lips. The silk tassels on top of the corn husk are turning brown (Ponca), signalling the corn is ripe for the picking (Algonquin). While this year's geese are beginning their first migration (Cree), summer is coming to a close (Kalapuya.) The Hopi consiser this month of abundant harvest the Month of Joyful, or Month of Life at it's Height. It's the month where we all reap what we have sown, humbled by the luck of the forces of nature that helped or hindered your work along the way. For some, it is a joyful month, for others who have had a cold dry summer, it is one of the most bitter.

Under a Ripe Honey Moon

We're almost into August now and well over the halfway point in our western calendar. Here in Vancouver we had a slow start to our growing season, but then with our unusual string of sunny days we've got a bit ahead of ourselves. Some things, like the ash berries on my friend's tree are ripening ahead of schedule. The raspberries are almost finished now and the blackberries are becoming dark and juicy. Ripening is a big theme this month in traditional moon names. The Apache, Mohawk and Passamaquoddy call July the Ripe or Ripening Moon, the Algonquin call it the Ripe Squash Moon, and the Cherokee call it The Ripe Corn Moon. The Cherokee, Abernaki, and Algonquin acknowledge the ripening hay. Ducks are moulting (Cree),the deer are dropping their horns (Kiowa), and thunder and lightning storms ignite forest fires that create the Smoky Moon of the Maidu. The Ponca and Dakota tribes call July the Middle Summer Moon.

As we head into August, summer already feels past its prime. I notice that my task of gathering seeds is going to begin earlier than usual this year, so I'd better get my kit organized. We've been suffering a heat wave that is making most people uncomfortable and somewhat debilitated. When I put on my bee suit and check the bees, the sweat runs don my cheeks like tears and I feel like my feet will melt right into my boots. The honeybees in my back yard have been having little after-dinner snooze parties at the opening of the hive. Drones seem to gather at the left side of the opening and workers in the middle and the right side. Some are guard bees, making sure the hunger-crazed wasps don't enter the hive to rob it. Others I am guessing are worker bees who just need to let their antennae droop for awhile as they escape the heat of the hive.

The bees are still bringing in silver grey pollen I noticed a couple of weeks back. Could this be from the Linden trees now blooming further down the hill from us at Quebec and 21st? There is also neon yellow pollen from the sunflowers in our yard. The hive is also slowly filling up with ripening honey. According to the fantastic beekeeper/blogger Richard Underhill, the bees blow bubbles into the honey to cure it. What fun! I have not been smoking the bees in this hot, dry weather, so what would appear to be gorging behaviour is actually curing behaviour. Please check out Richard Underhill's blog, it's a fantastic glimpse into beekeeping in Arkansas. I wonder how the beekeepers down there cope with working all day in the heat?

Mead Moon

It's June and masses of roses appear suddenly, as if in a fairy tale. Sunflowers and corn grow quickly in the cool evening air. Suddenly it's too hot for comfort during the day and I worry about bringing fish home from the store in case it spoils while I wait for my son in the playground. Suddenly it's too hot to plant those cool weather greens and I'm out in the back yard with my watering can every evening. Bees of all shapes and sizes are foraging through palettes of pollen--the dark black mascara of poppies, the rusty hue of lupin dust to the light bright spores from California lilacs. A tiny bee I cannot name lands on my beige shorts. She is up to her armpits in neon yellow pollen. A honey bee carries a dead worker from inside the hive up over the rocks and well away from the front of the hive while the queen lays over 1, 500 eggs a day. The new comb begins to fill with light-colored honey.

June sits easily in our bones. It's the restless days of school almost over and the fat strawberry horizon of summer sunsets. It's piano recitals and dusty sports days. June berries, green corn, lazy days of cold suppers and a glass of mead in the back yard. Wish you were here. Happy birthday sis!










Algonquin: When they Hill Indian Corn, Honey Moon, Hot Moon, Strawberry Moon, Rose Moon
Abernaki: Hoer moon
Choctaw: Windy Moon
Omaha: Buffalo moon
Assiniboine: Full Leaf Moon
Taos: Corn Tassel Moon
Northern Arapaho: When the hot weather begins
Cree: The month leaves come out
Kalapuya: Camas Ripe
Lakota: Moon when the June berries are good.
Tlingit: Birth moon
Sioux: Green grass Moon
Mohawk: Ripening Moon
Potawatomi: Turtle Moon
Lakota: Making Fat Moon
Wishram: Fish Spoils Moon
Anishnaabe: Strawberry Moon:
Cherokee: Green Corn Moon, Flower Moon
Full Janic: Mead Moon
Chinese: Lotus Moon
Celtic: Horses’ Moon

Blossom Moon

May Moon Names

Eastern Cherokee moon: Planting Moon
(the strict translation is "the putting it in a hole moon")

Abenaki: Field Maker Moon

Algonquin: When Women Weed Corn

Winnibego: Hoeing Corn Moon

Anishnaabe (Chippewa, Ojibwe): Blossom Moon

Apache: Season When the Leaves are Green

Northern Arapaho: When the Ponies Shed their Shaggy Hair

Assiniboine: Idle Moon

Hopi: Month of Waiting

Cree: Frog Month

Kalapuya: Camas Blooming Time

Haidi: Food-Gathering Moon

Creek: Mulberry Moon

Potawatomi and Shawnee: Strawberry Moon

Kiowa: Geese go North

Osage: Moon when the Little Flowers Die

The moon names are thanks to americanindian.net.

The full moon fell on Mother's Day this year, which seems particularly apt as mothers all over Vancouver surely dug their hands in the soil this past weekend. The Native American names for the full moon in May cover the range of agricultural and gatherer activities from planting, weeding, and hoeing to waiting and harvesting. The camas are strawberries are blooming here in the north and further south the strawberries and mulberries are ready to eat.

What is blossoming in Vancouver? Today I was heartened to see the queen bumble bees' first children foraging in these rhododendrons in the rain. My neighbour's dogwood blossoms were very interesting to the mason bees yesterday. My lilacs, azaleas, bleeding hearts, and forget-me-nots are blooming. In fact our whole block is heady with the muggy scent of lilac oils and cherry blossoms. The little flowers of the few rosemary plants that survived are blooming, along with lion's bane, anemones, tulips, and scads of fruit trees. There's a lot of pollen and nectar out there now and I fee a huge sense of relief for those foraging bees. Now we need some warm, sunny days for them to get out and about.

Meanwhile, somewhere in North America the ponies are shedding their hair and the geese are heading north. Somewhere the "little flowers" are dying and the new frogs are finding their legs. I am planting, weeding, worrying, trying to believe that my thumb is green and my magic beans will grow. Mothers and gardens: their histories are intertwined as bean vines and sunflower stalks. I have to trust that the sunflowers I planted will take root, tap the fresh May rain out of the rich soil and reach up to the light. The same goes for our son, metaphorically speaking. He's going through a growth spurt right now too.

I think it will be a good year for beespeaking. Now if only I could learn to talk to slugs. I'd send them over to the vacant lot down the street!

Pink Moon

Yesterday was the April full moon, known by early American settlers as the Full Pink Moon because of the masses of wild pink phlox blossoms blooming low to the ground at this time of the year. Vancouver is pink too, with cherry and plum blossoms, the smaller magnolias, the red-flowering currants, camellias, and even some of the hyacinths creating a spectrum of all shades of petal pink.

The Anishnaabe call the April moon the Broken Snowshoe Moon. I can only speculate that this was the time of year that you had to watch for rocks poking through the snow that might break your snowshoes after a long winter of use. The Northern Arapaho call it Ice Breaking in the River and the Central Shoshoni named it Melting Moon. Many people refer to April's full moon as the Budding Moon, or refer to the migration and breeding of geese depending how far north or south the tribe lived. The Cheyenne call it The Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs. Some coastal tribes call it the Full Fish Moon because the shad are spawning at this time. I love it when the names become very specifically related to tasks in the cultural/seasonal rounds. The Kalapuya call it the Time for Pounding Camas, and the Lakota called it The Moon When the Wife had to Crack Bones for Marrow Fat. The Winnibego are in a warm enough climate that they can call it The Planting Corn Moon. It's fascinating to see a phenological calendar of spring emerge from these poetic names.

What were you doing on the Pink Moon? Were you wandering the streets of Vancouver buying Easter treats and inhaling the sweet fragrance of plum blossoms?

P.S.
Happy Birthday to N!

Wind Moon

I spent the weekend in Victoria, hoping to unwind and enjoy some cherry blossoms and warm breezes. I got a big surprise in the form of Arctic winds and snow falling in the plum blossoms. The metaphor became a reality.

The weather was doing flip flops with the wind playing raucous tag with the muscle-bound clouds.


I returned home to two inches of snow on the ground. The crocuses and irises look a bit shocked today after the sun melted the snowcover.


The Lakota call the March moon the Moon of the Sore Eyes. It must be a time when there is increased daylight, but snow remaining on the ground-- a vulnerable time to risk sunburning your eyes. I explained to my students that when the one time I visited Greece the sun reflected off those beautiful white ruins and burned my eyes horribly. There's got to be the genesis of a myth in there somewhere.

The Eastern Cherokee (and the Celtic people) call the March moon the Wind Moon because it strips away all the dead leaves from the tree branches in preparation for new growth. One last ritual to prepare us for the sacred rebirth of spring.

Currently: -1 Degree Celsius

The Pull of the Moon

The moon woke me up today. It must be full. Sometimes it's like the moon comes right into your room and flicks on the hormones. Humans see a man in the moon. Does that mean bees see a bee in the moon? Not that they are nocturnal creatures, but they do spend a great deal of their time in the dark. They are affected by the moon as much as any creature is, which is to say in a mysterious way that we probably know nothing about. The lunar calendar acknowledges the development of the seasons in a more direct way than the Gregorian calendar, which is based on that old drama queen, the sun. Ancient civilizations and indigenous people used round calendars to mark time, acknowledging its cyclical nature. Many people had names for the moon in each month that describes a phenological marker.

Here is a list of names for the February Moon from some native American tribes from AmericanIndian.net:

Algonquin: Ice River is Gone Moon
Abenaki: Makes Branches Fall In Pieces Moon
Northern Arapaho: Frost Sparkling in the Sun Moon
Assiniboine: Long Dry Moon
Cheroke: Bony Moon (lack of food means people make bone soup)
Eastern Comanche: Sleet Moon
Cree: Eagle Moon
Haidi: Goose Moon
Hopi: Month of Purification and Renewal
Inuit: Avunnivik
Kalapuya: Atchiulartadsh--Out of Food
Kiowa: Little Bud Moon
Lakota: Moon when the trees crack because of the cold.
Mohawk: Enniska-- Lateness Moon
Muscokee/Creek: Wind Month
Omaha: Moon When Geese Come Home
Passamaquoddy: When the Spruce Tips Fall
Pima: The Gray Month (when trees are bare and vegetation is scarce)
Potawatomi: Rabbit Conception Month
Shawnee: Crow Moon
Central Shoshoni: Coyote Moon
Sioux: Racoon Moon/ Moon of the Dark Red Calves
Tewa Pueblo: Moon of the Cedar Dust Wind
Tlingit: Black Bear Moon
Winnebago: Fish Running Moon
Wishram: Shoulder to Shoulder Around the Fire Moon
Yuchi: Wind Moon
Zuni: No Snow in Trails Moon

As you can see, these names are poetic and poignant. We have lost so much of this sensitivity to the seasons and the natural world that comes from truly living off the land. It must has been a hard life, especially in months like February in some of the colder parts on North America. The people would have really depended on each other in February, standing shoulder to shoulder around the fire, eating bone soup, giving each other the strength and courage to go on.

One of my favorite all time haiku books is Haiku Anthologie Canadienne: Canadian Anthology edited by Dorothy Howard and André Duhaime. It contains poems by a variety of Canadian artists in French, English, and sometimes Japanese too. It contains a lovely moon poem by Irene G. McGuire:

power failure moon rise

panne d'electricité lever de lune

Here, the loss of electricity suddenly draws the writer's eye to the natural source of light, bringing her close to nature and the beauty of a winter moon. Take time to go out and look at the moon tonight.

3 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudy, Pressure: 101.44 kPa