A headline in my daily Space.com news feed caught my attention today. It reads thusly, ‘The full moon may influence sleep and menstrual cycles, scientists say.’
OK, they’re not actually sleeping, but this is too good an image from Clip Art to pass up
Fancy that! Looks like what people have been saying about their sleep patterns and women have been saying about their menstrual cycles, for eons, can now be added to the roster of SCIENCE FACT
I could go about the irony of ‘science’ ignoring ‘folklore’ to the detriment of those same folk, until ‘science’ gets off it’s monolithical arse and admits it might’ve got it wrong, but those of you who know me know that I would never gloat like that! Suffice to say I had a good chortle.
(in all honesty it’s not all ‘science’ practitioners, and since a good many scientists have moved on from that delightfully Victorian/patriarchal-centric view of the world, ‘science’ has the process of reforming itself well in hand)
The interesting thing the article revealed, which in itself is another ‘duh’ moment, is that the effects of ‘moon-sleeping, and moon-menstruating’ (I just invented those terms) wane with the introduction of, and prolonged exposure to, artificial light.
I’m not knocking artificial light though. If it wasn’t for artificial light my writing binges would not go well, and I’d be one very cranky writer let me tell you!
This isn’t me being cranky about not being able to write, this is me being cranky about not being able to write and not having had my first cup of tea in the morning
Widdershins Worlds 
The moon was absolutely massive. This morning it woke me like a searchlight, a lighthouse beaming into my face. It always amazes me. Nice to know science is catching up but duh 🙄 indeed
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This is the first full moon I’ve been able to track in quite a while, non-stop rain and overcast skies will do that.
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Oh yuck – coming from a drought riddled upbringing rain makes me nervous after awhile (24 hours max) and gloomy weather affects my inner sunshine, at least you got to see the moon.
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HA! No shit Sherlock!
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Bwhahahahahahah!!! That’s about what I said too 😀 with a massive eye-roll thrown in for good measure. 😀
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Love it… so true about ‘science’. I agree the community is getting broader, at least.
I have the pleasure to live where it gets so dark outside my bedroom window that I can’t distinguish any shapes in the darkness on moonless or heavily cloudy nights. Thus when the moon does shine, I have an experience much like Kate’s. Sometimes I get up and peek out the curtains at the bright white river rocks, silvery water and stark moon shadows cast by the trees. I sleep much more soundly than I did in the city. I felt less stressed almost immediately when we moved here, although – oddly – the comparative silence sounded loud the first few nights. I didn’t realize how much the ‘light pollution’ and constant electronic hum of the city wore me down until I left it.
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I think a lot of people experienced that ‘quiet’ in 2020, which was a good thing, but it probably freaked a whole lot of them out too … going deaf has been a bit of a blessing in that way 🙂
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I love watching science catch up with reality 🙂
Though you are right, and it has been doing a sterling job of trying to do so lately…
Artificial light, I think, will start to carry the blame for a fair few more of our ills.
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Like all things ‘science-y’ it’s not that artificial light is a bad thing it’s just that humans have a grossly underdeveloped ‘enough’ button.
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Which applies to most things we set our hands to really…
We still need to grow up a bit. In the right way, of course… 😉
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Heh, heh, heh, yeah, just a bit. 🙂
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😀
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Ha ha ha! I love your new terms. It’s like information doesn’t exist as truth unless it’s written in a scientific paper and read by at least seven accredited scientists. Thousands of years of empirical data means nothing.
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Yep, talk about your ‘old boy’s club’!
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Reblogged this on Books & Bonsai.
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Do have a cup of tea 🙂
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Heh, will do, 😀
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🙂
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I don’t know exactly what affects my sleep, but I definitely sleep better in winter than in summer. East facing windows probably don’t help.
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Me too, even in winter I always have my bedroom much colder than the rest of the house..
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We don’t get snow so I have my bedroom window open all year round. [Note to stalkers: it’s a security window]. It is chilly but I snuggle under my doona and sleep really well.
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If I’m remembering this correctly, back in the 1980s, a woman received a million dollar MacArthur grant for her study on the connection of the moon to women’s periods. I thought that was a no-brainer but then I’m not an academic. lol
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I hope she spent it all 😀 and had a blast. 😀
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It is interesting how sometimes science has to go around the block to end up at the same place. My mom used to repeat the saying: “If you go far enough west, you end up in the east.” I never forgot it.
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Heh, a great saying, 🙂 … but troublesome if you’re a flat-earther! 😀
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LOL. Yes, that would complicate things.
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Or coffee, for us coffee lovers ☕
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Heh, yep. 😀
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