Friday’s Full Moon is closest to Equinox which makes it this year’s Harvest Moon. Harvest Moon is not larger or more orange in color, and it doesn’t stay up later so farmers have more light to bring in the harvest. It’s special because it reveals the magical, elemental forces at work turning Earth’s resources into gold.
Throughout the ages, these elemental forces have been known as nature spirits appearing most often in fairy tales. In the physical world we know these elements as earth, air, fire, and water, but in the fairy world, they’re known as gnomes, sylphs, undines, and fire spirits ~ and each one lends their art and charm to the fruits of the harvest.
The gnomes, or earth spirits, occupy a really important role in the harvest, because theirs is the care of the vast treasure chambers below earth’s surface. The gnomes charm roots out of every seed that’s planted so that they’re nourished for what will become the upward sprouting into leaf, blossom, and fruit.
Throughout history, gnomes have been storied about for the secrets they hold that have great value for human beings, like Rumpelstiltskin, who can turn straw into gold.
One of my favorites involves a folklore spirit from central Europe named Rübezahl. Now gnomes live hundreds of years, and on occasion, this particular gnome will come out of his gloomy underworld kingdom to the green earth for awhile, to bask in the sunshine. Once he fell in love with a princess that liked turnips, and he kidnapped her to his lonely underworld kingdom. To amuse her, he turned the turnips into her best friends and acquaintances, but as the root vegetables ripened, they got old and wrinkly, and the princess had to mastermind an escape back to the upperworld.
The message in these tales is always clear: When you partake of a bountiful harvest at Full Moon, remember the elemental beings working in the forces of nature ~ because they’re the ones balancing earth resources for our use.
Follow this link for the fairy tale of Rübezahl:
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/139/the-brown-fairy-book/4331/rubezahl/