Full Moon Edition May 2025
Is there a better month than May? Warmth, growth, color, fragrance, blooms, soft skies, the entire panoply of life ramping up another growing season. It always strikes me there’s a majesty about it. Like all the earth’s organisms are calling out: we’re back and better than ever! That’s why when I chose a birthday month, May it was for me. And being the astute individual she is, my spouse made the same decision just a few years later. That we both love to garden may have something to do with it.
Because we tend to be especially aware during our birthday month, I’ve noticed the days of May each and every year are simply incredible. It’s that element of rebirth and renewal I suppose that makes it so special. It’s welcoming in the way we wish all our time on earth could be. But it ain’t so, of course, and isn’t supposed to be.
May is that exact moment in the cycle of life where the spirit is humming like the bees. As someone who walks virtually every day, regardless of the weather, I know there’s a lot to like about summer, fall, and winter, too. But spring speaks to me in a way no other season can and I’m always grateful when it rolls around. That my birthday falls right in the middle of it all is the best present of all. And the gift wrapping: wow!
Perception is reality, ‘tis said, and there’s a lot of evidence to support that statement. Who among us hasn’t heard the tale of the police gathering eyewitness accounts of an incident and each of the reports is remarkably different. They witnessed reality from their own perspective and it was equally true if varied for one and all. That’s the way they saw it.
That insularity of personal experience suggests we might all benefit from efforts to broaden and deepen our view of the world and how we see it. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the view from Antarctica as pictured above is disorienting. The world we’re looking at is familiar but, um, not quite the same as what we’re used to. Kind of upside down, in fact. That may be a good thing.
We’re developing a new class called Origins, which looks at a familiar world from some unique views, such as science as we learned it seen now in the glare of new discoveries. One thing we’re unlearning is the traditional view of cavemen (or cave people, if that’s the acceptable term). The sense of the primitive, brutish, subhuman creature defending the cave from the saber-tooth tiger is long overdue for a refresher course. Neanderthals and Denisovans left Africa and went exploring far earlier than Homo sapiens and taught them a thing or two along the way. Look it up and see.
Have you seen this chart? I’ve heard of most of these folks, although I’m surprised to learn where some of them called home. I hail from Colorado and had to ask myself, who the hell is The Fray? Well, I looked it up and, yep, they’re for real and pretty damn successful. Being a band formed in 2002, they came along well after my time. But any number of the best selling acts did in fact arrive in the Nineties and Aughts.
When we think about all the incredible performers from my home state, like Judy Collins, Philip Bailey, Glenn Miller, and so many others born there, and the huge talents who at one time or another called that stretch of the Rockies home, Steven Stills, Joe Walsh, Dan Fogelberg, John Denver, and Richie Furay among so many others, it makes you wonder why one of them isn’t listed.
But, of course, we’re talking money and not talent here, so the ranking skews to more recent times when the business of marketing music was finely tuned (so to speak). We mentioned in a previous newsletter the surprising statistics about who among the big names in the business sold the greatest number of records. Along with those you’d expect to record the 10 biggest selling albums in the U.S., would you be surprised by Hootie and the Blowfish and Shania Twain at number 8 and 9. Well?