Name of the Day

At the end of the year I always purchase a new planner. This year I bought The Old Farmer's Almanac Planner as I mentioned in a previous post. It has so many interesting and cute little tidbits on every page. Today is a day of the full moon, or as the Almanac tells me, Full Wolf Moon. I just had to look that up.

Research told me how Native Americans gave the full moon each month a different name, tracking the year and seasons by those names. In January, in the midst of winter, when the wolves roamed hungry through the wilderness, their howls would fill the night skies. Therefore, it was the Wolf Moon during those lean times. The link to the Farmer's Almanac gives the names of the other full moon names.

Full Wolf Moon sounds more fun than January which is named after the Roman god of the doorway, Janus. Maybe these things like how names come about catch my interest because I write fantasy and science fiction. World building is a big part of my preliminary planning for each series. Part of world building is all that naming and even deciding if there is a moon or more than one. And what are the moon cycles? Does it appear every night? How long are days? I'm getting ready to dive into my last Recon Marine novel, the second draft, and a lot of these questions came into play. To have a moon and moonlight or not?

Also from my planner this week. Did you know cats have 32 muscles in each ear? Or that coconut oil is good for chapped lips?

Do you ever think about where the names of the months came from? If you world-build do you make you days and other time frames similar to our world? Are you going to check out the Wolf Moon tonight?