Since I've moved back to the farm, I've become increasingly aware of the moon. Maybe it's the big windows – in Melbourne, our house had small windows and a large fence, so I didn't often look out into the open night when I woke up at 3am wondering why I'd had such weird dreams or couldn't sleep. On the farm, I sit up in bed and look directly out onto the open front yard, that in turn overlooks the little valley we reside in. If it's a full moon, I can see gum tree and picnic table shadows falling across the lawn like an eerie ghost daytime.
Maybe it's all the wandering around I do – I've tried to reallocate time that was once spent commuting to a steady job, into time spent exercising outside or just rambling around the farm. The clement weather of my new location helps too. Often enough, I'll look up and see the moon day-setting over the mountains, make a note of it's phase and think about whether I've been feeling a consistent kind of way.
And maybe it's the summer heat, spent by the freshwater creek, wondering at the huge ebb and flow of the king tides, even this far up the river, drawn by January's supermoon. Wondering at how something as far away as the moon can make the river run backward, up over the rocks it usually cascades white and wild over, back into the elevation of the hills and mountains it's running from, until all the usual geography of the creek is almost unrecognisable.
So, with all that on my mind, I decided to make a wall poster tracking the major moon events throughout the year. I then wanted to share it with you, which turned out to be a little more difficult than expected, considering the dates and perspectives that differ across the timezones and hemispheres... So, after a lot of research and editing, I've released three variants on the 'Follow the Moon' lunar calendar: Aus/NZ, US/Canada and UK/Spain/France.
Hopefully the moon serves you well this year, or you at least know who to blame when you can't sleep.