Hunters Moon

image by joiseyshowaa

Farmers Almanac shared the October

... full Moon is often referred to as the Full Hunter’s Moon, Blood Moon, or Sanguine Moon. Many moons ago, Native Americans named this bright moon for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer are fattened, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. [more...]

Roland Leach lectured about Mary Oliver's work. In ‘Hunter’s Moon - Eating the Bear’ [from Twelve Moons : Poems by Mary Oliver] "the Indians eat the meat of another creature but are shown to respect all life as sacred. Moreover, the death is not an end but the bear now becomes part of a greater cycle where it is a source of energy that infuses other life.... The Indian persona speaks respectfully and with awe of the relationship that now exists exists between himself and the dead bear"[more..]

Hunters Moon -- Eating the Bear, begins with a greeting:

Good friend,
it is a long afternoon.
The shadows of the pines are blue on the field
When I find you,
I am going to turn the world inside out.
The rocks around you will melt,
your heart will fall from your body.
And I will step out over the fields.......

and ends with

the pines you can no longer see
will be twisted and small, their shadows
stretching out, still turning around
in the small sinews of my prayers
some invisible dead center.

Read the complete poem on page 50, when you check out Twelve Moons : Poems by Mary Oliver [PS 3565 .L5 T9].

-kss