Different sides of the Moon

If reaching for the stars means champagne for you then let’s just agree we’re settling for the moon. But that isn’t all that bad. The moon has been associated with everything from purity, to mystery, to madness.

The word “moon” itself is derived from Old English “mona” (any tracings to the Mona Lisa is still a mystery to be solved, as is everything with that painting). Contemporarily though, it’s often seen in two forms: first, its Greek root, “selene”, derived from the Greek Titan  personifying the celestial body. She stood for grace and love (those 172 million followers of Selena Gomez suddenly make sense now). The Old Titan gave us words like selenophile (lover of moon), selenian (related to the moon) and Selenium (element named after the moon).

The second is the Latin root, “luna”, from the Roman goddess of the Moon. Some people start to see the faces of their lovers in the moon. Some also think that the phases of the moon affect a woman’s periods. Science calls them lunatics. But that’s still not a bad thing, keep that up and you just might get a gig with the Looney Tunes. If not, maybe you’ll get inspired to write a random Instagram post about it.