August 23

Sturgeon moon.  Sunrise at 6:05 at 85 degrees

At 5:00 this morning, the full sturgeon moon of August hung 30 degrees up from the western horizon, casting everything in the twilight that only moon reflection can create.

I went down to the stretch of Route 56 that travels from Paxton toward Leicester, skirting along beside the Kettlebrook Reservoirs that are nestled within tall white pines. The road was perfectly illuminated by the moonlight for the first quarter mile, until entering the canopy of pine, where after the way was made of trunk shadows and light.

It was beautiful here, moving along close to the reservoir and seeing the moon interrupted by the passing trees, crickets calling in earnest in the background, made bolder by the warm August morning and sultry beginning. It is what we think of as a summer moon, with light that diffuses more gently through the humid air, making everything it reveals softer somehow, as if it is important that these August days begin more lazily, not cast in sharp relief.

Even the moon itself has a fuzzy halo, so distinct from what we’ll expect in several months yet, when crystalline skies reveal everything in harsher detail.