There is something troubling about a red moon, it has a mysterious beauty. The photograph of a red moon that Lotfi Bouslah of Lolo Pics shared this week with these haunting words " Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul ", has a powerful presence like that, that doesn't let go, like a very stubborn thorn. These words from a song by the English rock group Porcupine Tree, a song called " Lazarus " are a shattering introduction to this photo of the red moon, with its brightness of a burning coal, a sizzling brightness that is in distressing contrast to the pitch black sky, a blackness so complete that the moon barely is able to escape it. A red moon happens under specific circumstances. It is necessary to have very precise astrological circumstances. Most of the time, the moon's colour is white, grey, or golden, the red colour it achieves sometimes has to do with the way the moon reflects and refracts the light from the sun. It is this reflected solar light that allows us to see the moon here on earth. When the moon is visible to us, it reflects between 3 to 12% of the light it receives from the sun. There are three situations under which the moon achieves its red colour : during a lunar eclipse, when the moon is low in the sky, and when there is a presence of micro particles. These micro particles can be present after a volcanic eruption. In each of these three circumstances the moon appears red because it reflects the red light that is filtered through the earth's atmosphere, since red light is more resistant to diffusion, compared to blue light, and also red light passes with more ease through the atmosphere.
During a lunar eclipse, the full moon finds itself in earth's shadow, and earth is positioned between the moon and the sun, and the sun's rays cannot reach the surface of the moon, but the red light refracted in the atmosphere of the earth is capable of reflecting itself from the surface of the moon, which is what gives the moon it orange or red colour. When the moon is low in the sky, it often appears orange or red, because the light has to cover a larger section, which causes blue light to be diffused, while red light stays visible. An increase in micro particles can be caused by a volcanic eruption , and also by forest fires, or atmospheric pollution. The photo of the red moon in such a black sky that Lotfi Bouslah shared has a message, a message for the nature photographer, to follow his heart and his dreams, because as the singer Steven Wilson of the rock group Porcupine Tree explains in the song " Lazarus ", " Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul ". It is the destiny of the artistic soul to follow its passion, all other life is a betrayal, a living death. There is a startling correlation between the red moon that is a call for the artist to follow his passion, to trust his courage, and the beat of the war drums I hear resonate throughout this photo of the moon that is angry with the inhabitants of earth, for their indifference towards the destruction of nature, towards decency and towards tolerance. The forest fires caused by atmospheric pollution are visible from space, so that means they are visible from the moon. The season for forest fires in California starts in April these days, and the worst forest fire in the state's history, the Paradise Fire, that started at the beginning of November is ongoing, that means, one month before the start of winter, nature is out of balance, in free fall. 80 people have died, and more than 13000 homes destroyed, and 475 persons are reported missing. The local authorities do their best, in spite of a continuous frustration with the federal government that remains indifferent to the urgent need to address the undeniable reality of global climate change. The red moon, the moon of war, that paints its frustration so that all of earth can see it, that invokes the sensitive souls of artists, of poets, to notice that there is a connection between the violence and cruelty on earth at this moment, the racism, the fanaticism, and the cries of a tormented nature, that is exhausted and furious, not unlike the way Steven Wilson sings it :
" I survived against the will of my twisted folk
But in the deafness of my world the silence
broke
And said ;
Follow me down to the valley below
You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul
You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul "
The artist knows how to confront the inevitable battles of the sincere artistic soul, and the moon in the photo reflects at the same time these difficulties and the challenges of the world. This photo has a powerful impact, that makes me hear the music of beating war drums, coming from the moon, to wake up the sleeping humans, indifferent to the fact that if the earth burns, the future will only exist in the emptiness of a destroyed world, and that is why the moon bleeds red with the wounds of every sensitive and conscientious soul and with the wounds of the soul of nature, like a mirror from the future coming to us from far, very far, as a prophetic warning of distress and anguish.
Trudi Ralston
The research on the red moon, courtesy of Wikipedia, as well as the information on the song " Lazarus " of 2005, from the album " Deadwing " by Steven Wilson from the English rock group Porcupine Tree that was formed in 1987.
The identification of the title for the photo " Moonlight bleeds from out of your soul " was given to me by nature photographer Lotfi Bouslah.
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