Strawberry Moon 2025

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes

thou lovest best,

Night, sleep, death and the stars.

A Clear Midnight by Walt Whitman

Early Wednesday morning, the June full moon, also known as the Strawberry Moon made its appearance. 

The hype leading up this this particular full moon was about how low it was going to be due to a couple of factors.  The June full moon typically takes a low path across the sky.  Combining its already low trajectory with a “lunar standstill” which only happens every 18.6 years, and this full moon was the lowest since 2006.  There was the added bonus of it possibly having a red/orangish tint to it because it was so low and the light has to travel through more of the earth’s atmosphere.  That warm hue had nothing to do with its nickname of “Strawberry Moon” but mere facts didn’t stop a lot of terrible AI generated pictures of Barbie pink moons popping up all over social media advertising the pending “Strawberry Moon.”

Tuesday night found me once more in my yard trying to take pictures of the moon.  Since it was just barely hovering over the trees, I wanted to get a neat perspective shot of it with the tree line, but I just don’t have the right camera to capture that well.  The moon did appear to have a warmer tint to it than usual but it was only after I came in and compared the shots to other pictures of previous full moon that I could appreciate just how much warmer tone it was compared to the usual gray scale of the moon.

I realized after I came in the house that the last full moon I had really stopped to look at was the March full moon that ushered in spring and brought with it a lunar eclipse.  So, I guess it is fitting that I stopped and took a little time to see the last full moon of spring.  Spring 2025 certainly flew by.