Moon Legends

IL MONDO GIRA CON ME QUESTA NOTTE
PICCOLI PASSI CHE FACCIO CON TE
SEGUO IL TUO CUORE E SEGUO LA LUNA
COSI' NASCOSTA LONTANA DA ME
IL MONDO GIRA CON NOI QUESTA NOTTE
UN POSTO DOVE SCOPRIRE IL MIO CUORE
SAPERE SE LUI PUO' AMARE TI O NO

(From Gira Con Me)

The moon has been remarkably beautiful lately. From the Blue Moon during New Years to this month’s crescent, I’ve been spending a lot of time just looking and admiring la luna. In Tagalog, we call the moon buwan which is very close to the Chamorro name of pulan. Here are a couple of stories about her that I like.

A CHAMORRO LEGEND
The Chamorro people believed that two mythical siblings Puntan and Fuuna created the world that we know. They lived before the world was created for many many years. When the benevolent Puntan was about to die, he instructed his sister Fuuna to create from his chest the earth, and his back, the sky. His eyebrows were made into rainbows. His eyes became the sun and the moon.

A GREEK LEGEND
Endymion the shepherd,
As his flock he guarded,
She, the Moon, Selene,
Saw him, loved him, sought him,
Coming down from heaven
To the glade of Latmus,
Kissed him, lay beside him,
Blessed is his fortune,
Evermore he slumbers,
Tossing not nor turning,
Endymion the shepherd.
(from Mythology by Edith Hamilton)

Ah, to be loved for eternity! Ah, and to sleep!

AN IRISH LEGEND

There were two villages separated by a dark dried up bog in the Irish countryside. At night, the villagers were never afraid to visit their neighbors from the opposite village because of the moon’s warm light. The moon always lit the night, keeping at bay the dark and evil creatures from harming people. In fact, it used to visit the earth quite often.

One night, the moon got curious and went down the dried up bog. While it was distracted, the dark and evil creatures captured the moon and buried it in the middle of the bog. The creatures took over the night and villagers, afraid for their lives, could no longer voyage across the dark dried up bog. “What happened to the moon?” they asked each other.

One day, an old woman gathered the villagers. She told them that she knows where to find the moon. “Tonight, each of you will carry with you a small pebble and we will venture through the dark bog to free the moon!” That night, the old woman instructed the villagers to put the pebbles in their mouths as a reminder not to make any noise that may alert the dark and evil creatures of the bog of their presence.

When they got to a big mound of earth, the old woman suspected that the moon was buried there. She instructed the villagers to dig quickly but quietly. Little by little, they revealed the bright surface of the moon, until at last, it was free! The moon flew quickly towards the sky, away from the bog. The moon will never again venture too close to the earth and the villagers were never again scared to venture across the bog!

A NORSE LEGEND

It is said that the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill had its origins in the Icelandic myth of brother and sister, Hjúki and Bil. Máni, the embodiment of the moon god, captured the siblings as they were fetching water from a well called Byrgir. Their story unfolds in the phases of the moon as it waxes and wanes, as Hjúki falls down and Bil tumbling after.

I am sure that you know other great stories about the moon. I hope you have a few moments this week to appreciate her beauty.

Ti napu.

The Beachcomber

Solar eclipse

Today in the CNMI, we get to experience a partial solar eclipse. An eclipse of the sun occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. For a short period of time the Moon will block the Sun from view briefly making it seem as if the day turned into night.

Today’s eclipse is one of the longest of the 21st century occurring approximately at 10:55 AM until 1:30 PM (The point of total eclipse lasted 6 minutes and 39 seconds!). This duration is because the Moon is on on its axis to the Earth that is in periapsis or, its closest approach to the Earth. The apparent diameter of the moon is 8% larger than the sun when we view it on Earth. This particular partial eclipse is an annular eclipse, where the moon blocks out all but a small outer rim of the Sun.

The last time we in the CNMI experienced a solar eclipse was the annular solar eclipse of June 11, 2002. The Moon will start obscuring the Sun on Saipan at 11:24 PM and will obscure 77.1% at the most around 12:53 PM. Tinian will have 76.2%`Sun coverage and Luta with the least at 72.1% at the same time.

From the Saipan Tribune: The path of the total eclipse will traverse across the North Pacific Ocean and will include the 14 islands of the CNMI. According to the NASA Web site, the path of the Moon’s umbral shadow will begin in India and cross through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path will cross Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and curve southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 minutes 39 seconds. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean. Also, tips for safely viewing the eclipse are found here.

From Wikipedia.com: Totality will be visible in many large cities, including Surat, Vadodara, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Dinajpur, Siliguri, Tawang, Guwahati, Chengdu, Nanchong, Chongqing, Yichang, Jingzhou, Wuhan, Huanggang, Hefei, Hangzhou, Wuxir, Huzhou, Suzhou, Jiaxing, Ningbo and Shanghai, as well as over the Three Gorges Dam. According to some experts, Taregana in Bihar is the "best" place to view the event.
This picture of an eclipse cycle is from here and it occurred in Adrasan, Turkey and was captured there by awesome professional astrophotographer Stefan Seip of Stuttgart, Germany. During the 2002 eclipse, my friends on Guam and I kept emailing and updating each other on a chat line about what we were seeing. My friend Bobat wrote, "Yoda says, 'Look not at the Sun directly, or blind you will be!'" That guy cracks me up!

I am sorry but I do not have any photo equipment that can take actual photos of the eclipse but here's a play by play:
11:10 The Sun is still complete.
12:00 The obstruction is like the 4th picture from the right of Stephan Seips photograph.
12:15 The obstruction looks like the 5th picture now. The shadow is moving pretty fast!
12:30 We're on the 6th picture now.
12:45 Still on 6th.
12:50 7th!!!
12:59 This is as "total" as were supposed to get: 7th!!!
13:15 Slowly going back to normal. Back to 6th.

Well, that was pretty cool. Thanks for sharing in all the astronomical excitement.

Ti napu.

The Beachcomber

Laurina and the moon

My friend Yerma R. sent me a forwarded email about National Friendship Week that listed several virtues of what a true friend is. The original email was sent sometime in October and I can’t seem to Google when the actual dates of the week are. Anyway, I usually don’t even read emails that are of the “FW:” kind but it just so happened that I have been thinking about posting about my best friend here on Saipan. I thought I should get some good solid quotations and sayings regarding friendship, but I decided against it because they don’t seem so genuine. I’ll just list a few things that I appreciate about my best friend recently here and end this blog describing a piece that I cut for her.

• You are quick to laugh at my stupidity, and quick to forgive my faults
• Once, we argued for a whole semester and didn’t talk or even look at each other. Now, our arguments don’t even last a day
• It’s important to me that we pray together, although I do most of the praying out loud
• I know that I can trust you with anything, and you will see anything through
• You think that I am so smart, and pretend that I am a genius even though you know that I am BS-ing
• When I got into a car accident in May, you cleaned up my house so that I would have space for my peg leg and crutches to fit. You cooked for me many meals after the accident, got mad when I wanted to work after a week, and became my personal RN
• You were willing to try new things with me even though they made you uncomfortable (sounds questionable I know, but I am just really talking about badminton and lifting weights …Hahaha!)
• You are my beachcombing buddy that always wants to go outside with me (oftentimes, the one telling me to get up off my butt)
• You’ve done my laundry, filed my taxes, lent me money and are my personal unflinching dermatologist (I am so glad you are a nurse)
• In public, you are fearless to let me know if I’ve got a boogie or if my breath stinks so that I don’t embarrass myself
• You are good at what you do and I trust you professionally as a colleague
• You laugh when you want to laugh. You sing when you want to sing. You do it both in your own style, but always with class
• Although you and I don’t have a lot of money, you are not cheap in our friendship
• Your heart is gold
• I am glad that you can eat a meal now without rice, but if the meal does come with rice, I still need you to limit my intake
• You believe and you are proud of me
• Your kids and your family love me because you love me
• Your friends think I am special because I am special to you
• You’re willing to see foreign films, documentaries, and anything I want to see that’s not so mainstream from the Block (but how far from mainstream can you really get at Blockbuster?)
• You don’t think I am effeminate when I sing and make actions to Best Days by Matt White
• You like reading my blog and are critical of the things I write
• You’ve seen me through three tough breakups and was always there when I needed you, and gave me space when I needed to be alone
• When my last GF proposed that we get married, you were willing to be my Best (wo)Man and wear a tuxedo
• You are strong when I am weak (because you know that I am all about the drama, baby)
• You understand my “idzi nu iptakcho pabo ya”
• The egotistical married jackasses that always seem to flirt with you have no clue that they are so tiny and so out of your league. Guys, you’re making other guys look bad for being so dumb!
• You know the most about mi Gabriella
• You can find anything that I lose in my house (She says that if "that" was detachable, I would lose it too!)
• You are so beautiful; thank goodness you allowed yourself that backless outfit!
• I thank God for putting you in my life everyday
  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera….

This is my best friend, Laurina B. I could list so many more things about her here, but words will never do her justice, nor justice to how lucky I am to have her as a friend.

Here is my bru, Laurina with some of our friends (Jeanette, Grace, and Chi) at the Thursday Night Street Market in Garapan Saipan. Laurina always gets coconut juice while I get the beef barbecue sticks.

Laurina is wearing Pulan yan Tasi (moon and sea), a piece made of hima salape’ (giant clam money bead) and a square Spondylus pendant. Hima is hard to cut because it is dense and crystalline. It chips and cracks if it gets too hot while cutting, grinding or polishing. The square Spondylus piece is an uncommon color very different from the traditional orange colored Spondylus salape’ that the ancient Chamorros fashioned. The shell fragment that I fashioned it from polished quite nicely, but it was rough and eroded when I found it. Even though it is pretty solid, it is thin and only a few millimeters in thickness. This square design, I also owe to Laurina and it reminds me of the moon above the sea at night with its reflection in the water and the waves.

In Chamorro legend, the moon came from the god Puntan, who before dying, transferred his extraordinary powers to his sister, Fu’una and requested that his body parts be put to creative use. She created the beautiful island of Guahan using Puntan’s body: his back for the earth, his chest for the sky, his eyebrows as the rainbows, the right eye as the sun, and the left eye as the stars and moon. This legend illustrates the link that the Chamorro people believe they have to the sun, the moon and the stars. Just like the gualafon (full moon) Laurina brightens my life everyday on Saipan.

Thanks for being my friend, and thanks for letting me share once again.

The Beachcomber