ESPN shared a factoid this morning: golf is the only sport that’s been played on the moon! You’re probably asking yourself, where’s he going with this post? Or, wait a second; Tony watches ESPN?
Space links aside, one doesn’t have to be an astronaut to have a grasp of the moon’s special energies and forces. My late grandmother, or Mama, as I called her, once shared with me stories of how her own father, a man with limited formal education, studied the moon’s powers. He, like many men of his generation, raised crops and he consulted The Old Farmer’s Almanac for lunar cycles, as they influenced ideal times to plant and harvest.
I relished listening to Mama’s tales of her rural Alabama childhood. “Since I was the oldest of the kids,” she said, “daddy took me under his wing. Not only did he teach me how to care for the land, with chores like tilling and sowing, he let me read his almanac.”
With its 2017 edition, The Old Farmer’s Almanac celebrates 225 years of being published. Devoted readers delve into pages of facts and figures, which still include the magic of the moon. I recall my grandmother saying, “The moon was considered the farmer’s beacon.”
During our conversation, I told Mama a little bit about my spiritual career and work as a psychic medium, expecting her to have questions. There were none; instead, she said, “What you’re doing isn’t so newfangled. You’re actually in touch with ancient wisdoms, kind of like how my daddy observed the moon.”
Her response was far from par for the course!
Love and light,
Tony
Astronaut Alan Shepard of Apollo 14 played golf on the moon in 1971.
Here’s a trivia question for you: How many golf balls did Alan Shepard leave on the moon?
You got me there, Alex Trebeck! 🙂
Oh how I wish I knew your Mama. How fortunate and blessed you are to have had such a dear and wise woman in your life!
She was wonderful (and she still comes to visit me in spirit all the time!). Thank you for your comments too 🙂
My grandma, whom I also called Mama, used to check the calendar when planting her annual garden. She said it had to be planted on “the growing of the moon,” meaning that the seeds had to be in the ground BEFORE the full moon that month. Years later when I was in a college biology course, I learned the wisdom of that belief. The moon controls the earth’s water table and as the moon gets fuller, the water table is drawn closer to the earth’s surface., thus making the seeds germinate easily and more readily resulting in healthier plants. Now, I doubt that Mama knew any of this…BUT she did know when the seeds had to be in the ground, and no one ever had a healthier, more productive or tastier garden for years!!
I love your sharing this, Joe. I believe that my grandmother had similar knowledge of the moon’s effects on the planet. xo
Thanks Tony, great story.
Thank you! I’ll never forget when we had this special talk!
Having just attended Yankee Publishing’s celebration of 225 years, sitting next to the artist who assures that just the right shade of yellow is always chosen for the cover, and hearing from the publisher–doing same job as his grandfather who took over the failing publication– I felt very centered and connected to my New England family roots, too. We always had an almanac on our shelf in Georgia, one of the things I realize helped my Mother stay connected to her real home…she had a print of foliage in Hopkinton, NH on the dining room wall and battled our Bassett hound who loved to dig, planting rows of marigolds too. The Almanac, next to two 200 year old Family Bibles, was a given…and a gift.
Wow! I love your sharing this. I know the Yankee Publishing 225 Year celebration was a special one!
My ex-Father-in-law always planted by the almanac; planted via moon, plants that went into grown to grow planed one way; plants growing upward planted by moon. He also fished according to moon, what was running at that time.
Wow! Fished according to the moon?!! That’s amazing!