The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress The moon, in many—by no means all—cultures through history has held strong feminine connotations, associated most obviously with fecundity. The word menstruation after all, is derived from the Latin mensis, or “month,” an any of us raised in traditional rural regions will be at least passingly familiar with the idea of “planting by the moon,” a traditional practice in most agrarian parts of the world that followed a lunar month calendar, rather than the solar month1 of modernity. The modern, small-scale, sustainable agriculture derivative of this is seen in modern work in “biodynamic” theories of farming. While the underlying reasons for traditional practices are typically written off as “superstition” and “myth,” modern biodynamics argues that, like the oceans’ tides, the growth of living things are significantly affected by the moon’s gravitational effects on the Earth. Like a fickle woman of fable and literature though, the moon for navigation can be both a useful helpmate, and a harsh, fickle mistress. While the waxing and waning of the moon’s phases is universal to everyone on Earth, just like the sun and the stars, it’s orientation varies, depending on latitude. There are places where it will appear as if the sun is upside down. Most traditional cultures have preferred daylight travel, for obvious reasons of safety and convenience, unless specific needs—such as concealment from hostile neighbors, or when infiltrating to raid a neighbor—mandated nocturnal travel, and in many cases, at least in preindustrial cultures, this often meant limiting those rare excursions to nights when the moon provided enough ambient light to recognize key landmarks. A Crow2 raiding party would find it much easier to find the enemy camp if they were traveling the last few miles in moonlit darkness that allowed them and their horses3, to see what was underfoot.4 For those of us who have traveled a great deal at night, without the use of night vision devices, we quickly learn that the use of that available illumination must be utilized dramatically different than we use sunlight or the artificial illumination provided by NVG. Looking “into” the sun makes seeing things in front of you more difficult, especially in the hours near sunrise or sunset, and any time in the winter, when the sun remains low to the horizon—especially in snow-covered terrain where the glare is intensified by reflection, and even dark-tinted sunglasses may not be enough to overcome the effect. This is balanced though, in tactical and survival situations, by the sometimes pressing need to avoid silhouetting ourselves by having the sun behind us. Under the moon though….. Read the rest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/primi...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
