Letters to the Moon....

Around this time of year every year a magical thing happens: the Pantone Color Institute picks a new color for the upcoming year. This choice of color will be seen throughout the world in fashion, home décor, Christmas decorations, cosmetics, jewelry and more. If you have never heard of the Pantone Color Institute, they are all about color. If you have ever seen a color wheel or color chart, chances are it was made by Pantone. http://www.pantone.com/images/products/GG6103N-pantone-graphics-pms-srgb-cmyk-hex-color-bridge-coated-product-2.jpg Every color on the Pantone chart has a number and name. https://images.sampletemplates.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/pantone-colors.jpg The color for 2017 was Greenery, which has been likened to a famous amphibian... https://style.disney.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/43e9156bbe4b11e683ae8bc8f7a150ce.jpg This morning the Pantone Color Institute announced the color for the year of 2018. Drumroll please, the Pantone ...

To continue the “Moons of the Year” series, I now present the final installment, “The Cold Moon.” The name of the full moon for the month of December is the Cold Moon. For those of us who live in the northern part of the United States, the reason for the name is abundantly obvious. December is the first of the winter months, which can be one of the coldest of the season.  Another name for the December moon is the “Long Nights Moon.” The days are shorter, the nights are longer, and light is sparse. Early Christian settlers to the shores of America called this moon “The Moon Before Yule”, or the Christmas holiday. This last full moon of the year does have greater significance in that it will be a Super Moon, the closest one the entire year. What is a Super Moon? It is when the moon appears larger in the nighttime sky.  The website Space.com goes into greater detail on the phenomenon: “Supermoons happen when a full moon approximately coincides with the moon's p...

To continue the “Moons of the Year” series, here is the installment for November, “The Beaver Moon.” The name of the full moon for the month of November is the “Beaver Moon.” The name comes from this being the ideal time of the year to lay beaver traps to attain beaver pelts, to keep warm in the cold winter months. It is also called the Frosty Moon as this is the time of year when we begin to see a frost. The website Space.com offers more names for this moon: “According to the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition, the Ojibwe called it Mnidoons Giizisoonhg, the Little Spirit Moon. For the Ojibwe, it was the twelfth month, and it was a time for spiritual reflection ahead of the new year. In the Pacific Northwest, the Tlingit called it Kukahaa Dís, the Scraping Moon, as it occurs when bears would begin to prepare their dens. A neighboring group, the Haida call it Cha'aaw Kungaay, or "bears hibernate." In the southern hemisphere, November marks late spring. T...

Hello everyone, it is my pleasure to announce that I have published my fifth book, "El Panorama." It is the Spanish language version of my second book of poetry, “The Bigger Picture.” Now that I have published several books in both Spanish and English, I thought I would share a wonderful story with you. I have a family member who has a friend that is from Nicaragua and is now a citizen of the United States. Spanish is her native language; she can converse in English and can understand it when spoken. However, she found that she needed practice reading in English. When my family member learned of her friend's desire to learn to read in English, she gave her friend copies of my first two books in both Spanish and English. Reading both versions of the books helped her learn the language at a faster pace.  In publishing my books, I thought publishing in two languages would be a way to reach a larger number of readers, in each language. Howe...

October is National LGBT history month in the United States. Today is also National Coming Out Day I felt compelled to mark the day, to discuss some important issues. It has been a year and a half since I discovered my true sexual orientation. I am demisexual. The definition of a demisexual is: “someone who only experiences sexual attraction after a strong emotional bond has been formed with another person.”  Demisexuality is in the middle of the sexual spectrum if you will, between sexuality and asexuality.  I sometimes add a prefix to this sexual orientation: I am “hetero-demisexual.” “Hetero” being short for “heterosexual”, meaning that I am romantically and sexually attracted to the opposite sex. For more information on these terms, and my discovery of my sexual identity, I refer to you to my previous blog posts on this topic: http://letrasalaluna.blogspot.com/2016/02/speak-your-truth.html http://letrasalaluna.blogspot.com/2017/02/living-demi.html ...