The Harvest Moon goes dark tomorrow at 2:49pm here. The Hunter’s Moon is new on Wednesday. However, there is an annular solar eclipse with tomorrow’s dark moon, so I thought I would get the new moon post done early.
Not that the eclipse is all that exciting. The moon is too close to earth right now to block the sun completely even when directly in between our planet and our star. So at totality the eclipse is a ring of sun around the black disc of the moon. This makes for stunning photography, but none of the chilling darkness of a full eclipse. This eclipse is also on a path that meanders from the equatorial Pacific to the southernmost tip of South America, with very little but water under totality. Hawaii will be able to see a partial annular eclipse, which is probably something like thin cloud cover in a cloudless sky. However, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is in the path of totality. I figure an eclipse over all those statues would be a fantastic image to capture. Would someone be so kind?
This is an odd year for moons. After last year, with all the lunations at the furthest end of their possible cycle, this year the dark moon falls about in the middle of its period, which means it comes near the beginning of the secular calendar month. So for most of the year, we’ve had calendar months that were close approximations to actual months, that is, the actual period of our moon’s orbit. The lunar year will finish when tomorrow’s moon, the Hunter’s Moon, goes dark on November 1st, which means the next lunar year will start very near its earliest point in the secular calendar. So… since we ended late last year and will begin early on the upcoming annual cycle, we’ve had only twelve named moons this round. To keep the Harvest Moon full nearest the equinox, the Nutting Moon was dropped this year. Ordinarily when that happens, the Falling Leaves Moon follows the Harvest Moon, but following that schedule this year would eliminate the Hunter’s Moon. So I decided to drop the Falling Leaves Moon instead. It is not as traditional as the Hunter’s Moon; and, though I did not know this at the beginning of the year when I was drawing up the moon calendar, this is not a particularly spectacular Falling Leaves year. So I guess the year wanted to go straight from Harvest into Hunter.
And then into Winter Sleep. (Or maybe that’s just me… I’m so very tired after this summer…)
The Hunter’s Moon gets its name, not from hunting season, but from a more metaphorical hunter. This is a singular and specific appellation — the Hunter’s Moon, not a Hunter’s Moon nor the Hunters’ Moon (which I think is bad grammar, but I’m always a little unclear on plural possessives…). In any case, this is The Hunter’s Moon, and the hunter in question is not a stalking human.
This moon was not named for humans hunting animals. Our ancestors named it for the Wild Hunt, a metaphysical culling that paralleled the culling of domestic herds and flocks, an annual autumn task that traditionally sees peak activity around Martinmas — 11 November. Or at least, that is the festival day that, among other things, honors the animals that are killed to become food and to ensure that there is sufficient stored fodder to feed the breeding stock in the dormant months. There is much blood flowing around this time of year, and this reminds us of our own mortality, the day when our bodies will die and become food for other beings.
The Wild Hunt is an anthropomorphism of endings and death. These stories merge the wild weather at the end of autumn, the death and dormancy of plant and animal life, and the increase in human mortality as the weather turns cold into tales of both horror and comfort. The Hunt is the gathering of souls, all the souls that have died in the last year. The Hunters do not often deal out death but serve, instead, as psychopomps, shepherding the newly dead into the afterlife. There are stories of ferries in the fog and hell hounds in the heavens. There are dark huntsmen, cloaked gods in broad-brimmed hats, and stern old crones, all of whom have scary sides. But when analyzed in bulk, most of the tales reveal kindness and compassion and a great love of the hapless newly dead. Yes, you may have to pay the ferryman, but he is almost always a gentle being under a gruff exterior. Perhaps this is how humans want to be seen themselves.
The Hunters are, however, universally upholders of the law, keepers of the ways and means. They do not abide rule breaking, though they seem amenable to bending quite a bit, if by doing so they can calm fears and salve the pain. As rule keepers, they do not look kindly on those who flaunt wrong-doing, and sometimes the wrong seems rather arbitrary to modern sensibilities. If you don’t have your spinning done by Midwinter, you risk cold and chaos dealt out by Perchta in the coming months. If you don’t get your harvest in before All Souls’ Day, you will go hungry because the pooka spits on the brambles, fields and orchards on Hallowe’en. If you are abroad in the dark when the Cailleach is about her business, you may well find yourself on the paths of the dead.
If these punishments seem harsh relative to the infractions, remember that these stories come from the days of consequences — days that we are experiencing again — when to not complete life-supporting tasks when they need to be completed — like producing sufficient warm cloth for winter, putting by food in the pantry before the frost, making your way home before the trackless dark and howling storms of late autumn nights claim the paths and highways — you risk losing your life. And you risk the lives of those who are bound up with your life. These stories are guides to practical living as well as reassurance that death is not exclusively to be feared. You may find yourself accidentally in the land of the dead, but if it’s not your time, that is, if you’ve followed the rules, you stand a pretty fair chance of being returned to your bed by the Hunters.
This year, the Hunter’s Moon does not include Martinmas. It does not even stretch to incorporate All Hallow’s and El Día de los Muertos. It goes dark at 8:47am on November 1st. Of course, that means the moon will be the barest sliver preceding the rising sun on October 31st. There won’t be a moon in the sky on Hallowe’en. The skies will be dark. Perhaps it will be a good night for star-gazing. Venus will be very bright (magnitude -4.0) as an early evening star. In my part of the world, the sun sets around 5:30pm on the 31st. Venus follows the sun at about 6:15pm. So our sister planet will grace the southwestern horizon while the littlest trick-or-treaters are wandering about.
But that is the end of the Hunter’s Moon. This lunation begins with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. As we’ve seen, there are indications that the Goths and perhaps other ancient Germanic peoples also began their year at the close of the growing season. Further, in as much as they tracked solar years, several Northeast Indigenous American peoples seem to have begun counting moons in the fall. And the Attic lunisolar calendar, the time followed by Athens and what we think of when we say “Greek time”, also began at this time of the year, with a harvest festival honoring Demeter, the Eleusinian Mysteries. And of course, the Celtic-ish calendar that influenced modern paganism begins its annual cycle with Samhaine, the end of summer and the beginning of the dark half of the year. This is the holiday we now celebrate as All Hallow’s Eve, Hallowe’en.
The waxing half of this lunation is full of holidays and observances, from the Feast of St Francis to Indigenous Peoples’ Day to the holiest of holy days in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. And, dear to my heart, National Farmer’s Day is observed on October 12th. Seems an excellent excuse to go visit an orchard or pumpkin patch. The Hunter’s Moon will be full on October 17th, the feast of St Ignatius and the first full day of Sukkoth. After that, in my house, it’s all Hallowe’en, all the time, right through November 2nd.
The Hunter’s Moon is a time to embrace rest. There is not much left to do in the garden. We go to work in the dark and come home as the sun is setting. And in my part of the world, there may be snow. New England sees white Hallowe’ens quite regularly. In any case, it’s not warm out there. It’s time to shut up the storm windows and heavy curtains, sit in the comfy chair with a cup of hot tea, and dream. It’s time to think about where you are heading and where you have come from, to let the imagination wander without the limits of practical application. Now is not the time for doing. Now is the time for wonder, for reconciliation, for letting go, and for just being present. Pick up those knitting needles or the whittling knife or the hand loom. Tinker with an old toaster. Write goofy ghost stories and love letters to the past. Or the future. And throw all the clocks out the window.
Well, maybe not, though you can live like you have. Live on your own time. Because this is your onliest own time.
And if you hear the sound of howling dogs in the lowering grey skies, best get yourself behind closed doors… because there are Hunters about, you know…
©Elizabeth Anker 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 
Thank you for this delightfully interesting read. I have always enjoyed Arthur Rackham’s illustrations.
LikeLiked by 1 person