August Sweetness
A stargazer's feast, a tomato fight, and that time of year when we say goodbye to one season and hello to the beginnings of another
Happy August! After a break for July, I’m back with another month of sweetness, right in time for one of the year’s biggest astronomy events.
Below are three events to watch for, two quotes for the season, and one grounding activity to get you slowing down in the month ahead.
Three Events to Celebrate this Month
1. Perseids Meteor Shower
The Perseids Meteor shower is one of the best meteor showers of the year with about 50 to 100 meteors seen per hour. Although it’s been going on since mid July, it is most visible this coming week, peaking on August 11-13.
As NASA explains, the Perseids meteor shower is also famous for its fireballs. Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color. They are brighter in color than a regular meteror and tend to persist longer than an average meteor streak.
The best time to watch for the Perseids is during the pre-dawn hours, though they are visible as early as 10 pm. Don’t have good viewing conditions? Check out this Space.come livestream with telescope views starting this weekend.
2. Peak Summer Garden Harvest
The summer vegetable harvest time, with tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, chiles, eggplant, zucchini, herbs, and so much more peaking in gardens and farms around the northern hemisphere.
Summer harvest means lots and lots of fresh available food, as well as lots of fun food festivals — and one of the wildest of those is La Tomatina the annual tomato “food fight” festival (I kid you not!) held in the small town of Buñol near Valencia, Spain, on the last Wednesday of August every year. Until they began ticketing to limit crowds in 2013, anywhere between 40,000 and 50,000 people would come to the town to hurl tomatoes at each other (delivered by truck at noon that day).
What does this tomato flinging bonanza look and feel like? This AP news story from a while back gives a good sense of it.
3. The First “Supermoon” of the Year
The next full moon occurs on Monday, August 19, and this month it’s the first of four “Supermoons” this year, which means it’ll appear bigger and brighter than any of the full moons we’ve seen so far this year. This moon — traditionally known as the Sturgeon Moon in honor of late summer freshwater fishing — will be visible to the southeast after sunset on August 19.
And get ready. Every month from now to November will feature a super moon! The spooky season will be here soon enough.
Two Quotes for August
1.
Some mind call August a transitional month. For late Scandinavian author Tove Jansson, it is, like twightlight or dusk, a kind of liminal space between two states of being:
“I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know.
Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way.”
2.
If you (like myself) are starting to long for fall, this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson might by just what your looking for:
“When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn.”
Slowing Down: Try this for the month of August
Even if it can still feel so so hot on certain days, we really are in a state of more rapid transition towards fall than we were a month ago.
And one of the biggest ways to tell is by paying attention to the sunrise and sunset times.
In Portland, Oregon, where I live, we’ll be losing about about 85 minutes of daylight this month, bringing a reprieve by the first of September to the summer heat. Folks along the latitude of Washington DC, St Louis, and San Francisco will lose about an hour, while southern Florida will lose about a half hour.
So whether you are mourning the end of summer season or are eager for fall to arrive (or a littel of both), it’s a good time to take stock of these changes. Step outside in the mornings to witness the sunrise. Have a picnic around sunset to bid farewell to the warm summer nights before they’re gone.
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