Wolf Moon

Tonight's full moon is known as the Full Wolf Moon. So said the article I stumbled across today.

There's a significant number of people who tend to get crazy when the full moon rolls around, I wondered if a full wolf moon meant the craziness would be above and beyond the norm. Since I'd be dealing directly with the general public for the next few days I figured I'd better find out.

I wasn't sure what I was going to learn when I clicked on the link to the article. I sort of expected to find myself reading about how the full moon figures prominently in stories about men turning into wolves.

I was wrong.

It turns out Native Americans assigned different names to the full moon based on the month of the year. January is when the moon is closest to the earth so appears bigger than the full moons in other months. Native Americans associated the full moon with the howling of wolves. Between the closer proximity of the moon and the scarcity of food in the cold winter months, wolves put more energy into their nocturnal cries. So the January moon was named after the wolves.

It follows that if wolves are more frantic in January, then the folks who suffer from full moon personality disorder will be likewise affected. Perhaps I should slip a sterling silver trinket in my pocket before heading off to work in the predawn hours tomorrow.