part one
Anatomy of the Lunar Return
Chapter One
Meet the Moon
. . . the moon
above the rolling sea swells
to a deeper need
within each creature that must feed upon the tide
daily denied
and then fulfilled
what greater hill to climb
up the next wave of need
then to recede into decline
till all comes back again
when will it find an end
to constant repetition so ingrained that
thought cannot avoid its dictates
lest the madness of abandon fly
into the face of what the eye can but observe
the vestiges of what absorbs and still surrounds
the letters that we use to comprehend
what we would like to be an end
to up and down and right and left
forward and backward till there's
no place left to go
except to roll with what we once already knew
forever new
the tolling of the tide
outside inside
the very structure of the heart
the floating vessel that returns to meet its bride
unknown
only to the very ones to whom it's not denied
until they meet . . .
There may be only one thing that geologists, oceanographers, weathermen, sailors, fishermen, firemen, policemen, astrologers, poets, doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists all agree upon.
One thing: the power of the Moon.
This power is not theoretical, metaphorical, or mystical in nature. It is a physical power that lifts whole continents at a time, raises oceans, stirs the winds-and from all that every other effect is translated into the realms of life experience. It rocks the cradle, rocks the boat, rocks the beat, it even rocks the rocks. Short of the life-giving Sun, there is no greater force on earth that humankind and all other life must bow to.
How does the Moon do it? Simple: she is big and she is there.In concert with the Sun, the Moon daily pulls and stretches every part of the Earth, and
we all stretch with it. Moon overhead-we're pulled up and lighter on our feet. Moon below-we're heavier and sinking into the ground. It's like having alternate weights and skyhooks on our belts, twice a day. No wonder we sometimes act strangely.
science and the moon
How strangely do we act? Take a look, first, at the words of the venerable British journal
New Scientist concerning current research into the Full Moon effect, if there indeed is one:1 "Over the past 20 years, researchers looking for lunar rhythms among people have found them all over the place. Calls to crisis centres, absenteeism, heart attacks and mental hospital admissions have all been linked to phases of the Moon. Rape, robbery,
assault, theft, domestic violence, suicide attempts, poisonings, drunkenness and disorderly conduct also appear to become more prevalent in the two or three days around a full Moon. A study in 1995 by psychologists at Georgia State University in Atlanta found that people ate more food but drank less alcohol when the Moon was full. In another study from 1998, a trio of Italian mathematicians looked at the timing of births. They reported 'significant clustering' of deliveries in the first or second day after the full
Moon. The effect was particularly strong in mothers who had already had at least one child, or who gave birth to twins or triplets.
"What's more, survey after survey has revealed an entrenched belief among healthcare workers-the people who mop up after madness descends-in the power of the Moon. In the U.S., four out of five mental-health professionals and two-thirds of emergency doctors believe that human behaviour is influenced by the Moon.
"The latest piece of evidence suggests that the lunar cycle even influences our use of technology. Last year, researchers at British Telecom noticed a 29-day cycle of peaks and troughs in network traffic. 'Just out of curiosity,' says Stewart Davies of British Telecom, 'we matched the cycle against the phases of the Moon.' The cycles coincided. In the seven days before a full Moon, people spent more time talking on the phone or surfing the Internet than at other times of the month."
It is true that dozens of investigations claim to have found lunar cycles to be associated with fertility patterns, menstrual cycles, weather patterns, plant growth, economic variations, crimes, and fires, as well as mental illness, surgical bleeding crises, plus lots more.
But, as many skeptics are quick to point out, despite many surveys, definitive evidence has yet to arrive. Similar surveys often contradict each other, some have questionable methodologies, and all lack the silver bullet that science so succinctly must supply: a physical chain of effects. That is to say, the Moon may have these widely attributed influences, but just how does she do it?
The most popular theory is "biological tides," which supposes that humans and animals, being mostly water, respond in the same way that the oceans do. But that theory just doesn't hold water. The effect of the Moon's gravity upon any individual is almost immeasurably small. "The acceleration due to walking would create gravitational effects of far greater magnitude than those caused by the Moon and Sun combined," says Daniel Myers of the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine in a scathing attack on this idea in
The Journal of Emergency Medicine. After decades of dispute over the matter, it might appear that true lunar effects can never be detected by this sort of one-on-one laboratory method.
an environmental approach
So let us try a larger, more environmental approach. Suppose you are standing on the deck of a ship. As the full Moon rises, you may be impressed by her beauty, but not by her brawn-she is not, in fact, pulling your body up at all. Yet, you are steadily rising. That's because the tide is rising, and, as they say, a rising tide floats all boats, including yours. Is the Moon affecting you? You bet it is-but by proxy, through the environment
all around you. And it's not just you. Millions of creature all around you-from birds, fish, crabs, and shellfish to the tiniest microbes-are undergoing a rhythmic sea change, feeding hungrily, scurrying about making the most of the redistributed surroundings that keep them alive. This is hardly a peaceful and scenic time-it's the beating heart of life's energy exchange surrounding you while you quietly rise ever higher. No small event.
But does the Moon really affect you? That may depend on where (and perhaps who) you are. Specifics, in life, are everything-even for the ocean, which is why it took hundreds of years for scientists to actually admit that the Moon causes the tides. (Galileo, for instance, said that belief was a matter of the occult-but then he also had some serious issues with the Church.) That's because if the Moon causes the tides, the tide logically
ought to rise equally at every place as the Moon passes over-but it doesn't. It rises at different rates and different times of day (even at places just a few miles apart) all over the world, usually twice a day, but sometimes only once, and sometimes not at all. Very irregular, very unscientific.
it's about tides
Despite all this, we know the Moon causes the tides. How did we figure it out? It wasn't theoretical scientists who did it, but hands-on maritime explorers, oceanographers, and cartographers who put it all together by taking the environment into account. It's a complicated business, but in brief:
As the tidal bulge produced by the combined pull of Moon and Sun rolls around the world, it encounters obstacles: bays, channels, islands, reefs, deep and shallow water. It takes real time for the huge amount of water to pass through and around these. So, for instance, if you live on one side of a narrow channel it may take hours for the water to get through, so you can have a high tide happening on one side and the other side won't see it for hours. In the meantime, the channel is frantic with roaring currents trying to
get through. If you want to get technical about it, it's just Boyle's Law, simple fluid dynamics.
The result is, when you have serious topography getting in the way, you get giant devouring whirlpools like those off Scotland, Norway, and New Brunswick. And in the process, the timing of actual high tides is totally skewed from what might otherwise be expected.
And there's more. In a giant bathtub like the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, you get bounceback. As the rolling tidal bulge swells up against one continent, it is reflected and sends back an echo that rolls back all the way to the other side of the ocean. Depending upon the shoreline, there may be several reflections that can combine with the next rollaround and make for huge tides of forty feet or more (as in the Bay of Fundy in Canada). At other times, the reflections may meet up in the middle and cancel each other out entirely, creating mid-ocean areas called tidal nodes where there are only
miniscule tides or no tides at all.
It's no wonder, then, that it took so long to directly link the rise and fall of local tides to the Moon. If we had been limited to theory and statistical surveys alone, we never would have figured it out.
How much more difficult is it, then, to find that same lunar link as it affects life itself? In a word,
very-unless and until we take a wider, yet at the same time more local, view of the phenomenon.
Suppose we do-what should we look for? Where should we look?
all around us
The answer, probably, is just to look around us at our immediate surroundings.What are we tied into (like that ship) that is affected by the Moon and thus affects us? The sea with all its life cycles is one example, but there are more. The same rolling, bulging effect that happens on the sea also happens on land-geological tides raise the very bedrock under us on a regular basis, stressing ...
