A "Honey Moon" and Other Stuff

Most of the time when I tell people that I use the moon for determining the calendar they look at me as though I'm from another planet; one time someone thought I was a Wiccan; go figure.
Most of the time this stems from just a simple lack of knowledge, a lack of knowledge that we all have at one point or another in our life. What we need to learn to do is research what we hear from others. This way we will not pass unrighteous judgment on someone for believing a certain way or ways.

Take this little bit of information about the moon for instance. We use the word "honeymoon" in our culture to speak of the vacation a newlywed couple takes. Have we ever stopped and thought about why we call this time period "honeymoon?" The word honey-moon (originating probably in the 1500's) is a compound word stemming from two words "honey" and "moon." The word "honey" refers to the sweetness of time (or according to some scholars the sweetness of wine) the newly wed couple will have. The word "moon" refers to the time period of the vacation. The word moon is where we get our derivative word "month." Months, in various cultures in the past, where determined by the length of the lunation period, about 29 or 30 days. We see then that we are acknowledging that months used to be determined by the moon every time we speak the word "honeymoon."

We don't ask ourselves enough, "Why do we use this word?" or "Why do we practice this?" The next time someone speaks something to you that sounds strange to your ear, take the time to research what they are saying before jumping to any unfounded conclusions.

Matthew Janzen