As I write this on Thursday afternoon, the full moon is only three days away. Somehow I could tell. Two dead giveaways:
1) I start sleeping a little more restlessly, and start waking up around 5 instead of around 6;
2) This forum becomes notably more irritable
90% of the angry, agitated, outraged emails that I get regarding the forum come in the 5 days preceding the full moon. This has been true without fail for the past two years.
Prove me wrong. Show me, one time, that y'all can remain civil, non-bitchy, non-bickering, cool-headed, even as Mother Moon reaches out her tentacles and attempts to draw you into battles involving--oh, I don't know. Pederast priests and those who excoriate them; the sexual orientation of female harmonica goddesses; advanced Rotweiler-siccing and IDF methods of fracturing limbs.
Maybe I'm making it all up. Prove me wrong. Prove that the full moon has no effect on blues harmonica players.
Maybe you're onto something. My wife's a nurse and swears that full moon shifts are frought with difficult patients and overall bizarre occurrences. May also be material for a new blues song?
Actually, I haven't slept well for two or three nights, but, although I've slept badly all my life, I've never kept records or noticed a pattern.
You wake up at 5 instead of 6? Are you sure that isn't due to daylight saving (lol)? If I woke up at 5 instead of 6 I'd think myself lucky - I usually wake up at 3 instead of 8! ---------- Andrew, gentleman of leisure, noodler extraordinaire.
Last Edited by on Nov 18, 2010 2:36 PM
When I was born, I was 2 weeks overdue. My Mississippi grandma said I was waiting for the full moon. My mother went into an empty maternity ward on July 1st, 1985. I was born July 3rd, 1985. When she left, the maternity ward was full.
It was a full moon on July 2nd, 1985.
I'm on board with Adam, I've been restless and staying up late this whole week.
Oh, yeah, Adam. You are absolutely correct. Mother nature's messin' with us. I think changes in atmospheric pressure (high to low/low to high) messes with some of us also. Melatonin at bedtime helps with the full moon effect.
Funny how it affects things but it's a fact. It screws up fishing too. I don't know how many times the weather has been so right to go offshore, we get up at 3:00am and make the hour and twenty minute run to the coast, work our ass off to find bait, make the 20+ mile run out into the gulf to our sweet spot only to find that the fish couldn't care less about eating. The full moon is nice for a night drive with the top down, that's about it.
A couple of full moons ago was on our Tuesday jam night. All three of the regular female jammers showed up and took turns ripping the stage up. The boys were just along to keep time. It was wild.
i'm gonna edit before i even begin hacking on this full moon thread!! dont wanna be a statistic. and, from adam's post, i think he'd like to get that extra hour.
The full moon effect is an urban myth. Psychiatric referrals do not increase, school discipline does not decline. Some studies have even shown the contrary - referrals decline and behaviour improves! The vast majority of studies (and there have been a lot) have shown no significant change at all.
In my years of teaching, I did notice windy days having an effect on the kids, but never the lunar cycle.
I think we let ourselves see what we want to see.
If you don't believe me, then Google "Emergency Psychiatric Referrals Lunar Cycle".
*EDIT* although AFAIK none of the studies asked if the particpants were harp players - maybe there are additional factors to take into account
Owooooooooooooooo!
Last Edited by on Nov 18, 2010 6:12 PM
The moon definitely has an effect here. Our band at the moment sounds like shit more often than not, but you can pretty well bet on it sounding pretty hot just before the full moon.
Better book our gigs accordingly! ---------- Lucky Lester
The moon has effects on ocean tides (actually, there wouldn't be no tides if there was no moon), it affects the growth of plants, how could the moon NOT affect us ?
The late Uncle John Turner, Johnny Winter's drummer on the early stuff, was known for saying that an Austin band should structure its booking around three core gigs every month: the twice-a-month paydays for state employees, and the night of the full moon. He claimed the bars invariably did more business those three nights, so you might as well try to make it look like your band caused it. I've never seen statistical confirmation of the full moon part, though.
I'm speaking empirically, not trafficking in myth. I'm careful about how I phrase things. I didn't say that the full moon CAUSED any of this stuff. I've simply noticed particular patterns in my own life.
Anybody who has read Thomas Kuhn's THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS knows that paradigms shift. Science is a process, not a set of incontrovertible propositions.
I've read the websites that pop up when you google "full moon effect" and the like, so I'm aware that people who describe themselves as serious scientists think I'm being silly. But I also know that the best minds in medicine, in the year 1900, thought that long distance running was terribly ill-advised for women: their wombs would fall out. And of course Nordic peoples were genetically superior and that helped explain why they dominated brownskinned peoples in track and field and distance running. 90 years later, African-sourced athletes are winning on the track and in the marathon, and women are duking it out with the Tarahumara in the Leadville 100 mile trail race. (And yes, Krupika and Karnazes are doing OK in the very long races, but those are not Nordic names.)
Science evolves. Once it begins to look seriously at blues harmonica players, all kinds of new knowledge will fall from the trees.
[revised to read: Well, I guess I did suggest that MOTHER moon reached out her tentacles. I guess that's not really an empirical proposi............aytaohjahoae0th5y0ag-E5AHBRVNwahhh...............................................................................ABORTABORTABORTABORTA
Last Edited by on Nov 19, 2010 5:15 AM
As my mum always says (often, though not always, accompanied by a wagging finger): "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!"
My better half works in a school for kids with special needs, she swears blind that you can tell when the full moon comes round.
Did anyone notice my second smiley face had a Hohner in his mouth? :)
On unusual phenomenon that might have scientific explanations-
I've heard that violent assaults in homes go up in the Spring- supposedly because people leave doors and windows open so it's easier for assailants to get in.
More daylight and school being out, I've heard, also spike rates- It seems to me it's much easier to get in trouble after dark if there is a full moon. Moonlight could also throw off sleep schedules, which can lead to all sorts of crankiness.
You can be diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder if you don't get enough sun. Symptoms include depression.
A recent study suggests babies born at certain times of the year (the cold months) are more likely to develop schizophrenia later in life. Scientists theorize that early childhood diseases may trigger dormant genes. Being born in those winter months makes you more likely to be exposed.
The rate of diagnosed Autism is skyrocketing. Vaccines? Sugar? Other environmental causes? Or is it the increased funding schools get for special needs children and an increased awareness of the signs?
Every couple years some news station will trot out a story about how more children are born on Tuesdays than any other day of the week. They will say it's mysterious and no one knows why. By 'no one knows why' they mean they didn't bother investigating. It turns out in the modern world, between C sections and labor inducing drugs, a lot of pregnancies are scheduled for Tuesday. You'll be out by the weekend, which may or may not be a boon for the golfing industry, depending on how sub-par your doctor is.
Last night my 2 1/2 yr old kept waking up crying until we let him sleep in our bed (never happens). He clung to us the whole night (not like him).
This morning he told his daycare lady there was a ghost in his room last night watching him try and sleep. Kinda weird since he has no clue what a "ghost" is other than a fun Halloween decoration/costume. In fact, he loved Halloween and thought ghosts were something fun - not the spirit of a dead person or something scary.
Bluemoose, for gender neutrality, let's ask that question like this- if a sub-par harmonica player goes jammin will they either get themselves or someone else pregnant. In either case the chances are inversely related to the price of beer. The lower the price of the beer the higher the likelihood that a sub-par harmonica player will be involved in the kind of post-show activity that might result in pregnancy. Since Tuesdays are usually slow nights at clubs the overall chances might be slightly lower than the chances on say, a full moon on a Friday.
Before you get all Wicca a'la Buddha. You might consider that at 2 1/2 your son is developing an imagination which is separate from concrete reality . (think, when a child hides his face he thinks you can't see him because his eyes are covered, and as he gets older realizes that you can see him because you live in a different reality than he does i.e. YOUR eyes are not covered). This is the stage of life when a child gets his first experience that the world is not based on Ego (his point of view). to make matters simple, your son is moving away from his 5 senses and beginning to conceptualize. In other words, developing an imagination.
You might Be surprised how much your son does know about what a ghost is or supposed to be. I would suggest before burning herbs in your house, you ask your son (in a very casual and relaxed manner) what he thinks a ghost is, how he learned about ghosts (if he didn't know what a ghost was in the first place then how did he know that he saw one, and then describe it as a ghost? i.e. you show a child the letter "A' for the first time you child will not say "Hey! that is the letter A it makes the sound ahh or ayy". In other words to know he was visited by a ghost he would have to know what a ghost was in the first place.
I'm not saying he didn't see a ghost. I wasn't there and didn't see what he saw. But as a teacher of young children, I am often surprised by what children pick up from their environment. Especially from T.V. and worse commercials. Kids are sponges, they are supposed to be, that is how they learn.
So ask your son about what he thinks a ghost is, and about his experience. Keep in mind his imagination is developing and even adults get freaked out by that dark shadow in the corner, that when the lights are turned on, turns out to be laundry piled on a chair.
When I was about 3, I had a lucid dream that my bed floated to the ceiling where the man in the ceiling spoke to me. It is one of my earliest memories.
The 'man in the ceiling' was a plaster ceiling rose from an old gas lamp fitting. The experience terrified me - the ceiling rose had big elongated eye shaped holes - and I had to sleep in my mum's bed for nearly a week. (Bet my dad loved that!)
Even now, I can't sleep comfortably in that room at my parent's house.
So many things are happening in a child's developing consciousness at that age.
I have a son who is four. Last week he had his first nightmare and he, like your son, spent the following day clinging to his mum and sleeping in our bed. talking to him helped no end.
Mike - you sound like a great and understanding dad.
Don't validate his fears. Help him distinguish fact from fiction.
Save the sage for cooking (it's great for roasting pumpkin with olive oil, a crushed dried chilli, black pepper and a little sea salt)
Last Edited by on Nov 19, 2010 4:52 PM
Mankinds ability to comprehend the vast realms of consciousness, as well as other worldly Beings, whether visiting, or already here, is the tip of the iceberg. We are not alone... The line between being so heavenly minded you're no earthly good, comes into play, too.
Sometimes the line between fiction and non fiction can be blurred. Stay focused and find ways to reason with the unreasonable. Or step out of the way. There may be some other motive, than the one you imagine.
