Tonight’s full moon is known as the Harvest Moon, traditionally associated with the full moon that falls closest to the autumnal equinox. Its light once helped farmers continue harvesting after sunset, extending the working day when crops needed gathering.
There’s something poignant about that name now. The moon still rises over the fields, but many of the landscapes that gave these old names their meaning have changed. Fields have become roads, old paths have disappeared, and villages have grown, shrank or vanished altogether.
Yet the names remain.
Perhaps that’s another kind of lost place? Not somewhere that’s disappeared, but something whose meaning has slowly been forgotten.
And still, the Harvest Moon rises.
