December Moon

It's been an odd year, ending with an odd month, when the 81-degree afternoon melted into a bitter cold evening, granting us a rare December snowfall. The moon rise this evening was breathtaking, large and full and swollen with the end of the year, the largest moon we will see for at least another year as it draws near the earth in its orbit.

My grandfather called this the Twelfth Moon, his name for the moon at the turn of the year, but other people, other tribes know it as the Cold Moon, the Bitter Moon--the Snow Moon. It is not often we see the Snow Moon here in the south, so I will snuggle beneath a blanket with the cat, basking in the golden glow of this Snow Moon, and know that other people, other tribes, will do the same.