Rambling 121: Moon Folklore
/What did our ancestors believe about the moon? And how did they come to these conclusions? Unpacking cultural stories about the moon.
Story
The duo decide to begin investigations into the moon. Starting their search for knowledge on cultural tales told through the ages, the duo begins to understand how similar these stories are to one another. In questioning these similarities, the duo comes to an unexpected conclusion! Find out what on this episode of Just Conversation!!
+Episode Details
Topics Discussed:
- The Names of Full Moons
- Cultural Beliefs
- Moon Gods
- Native American Moon Folklore
- Cheese Moon Theories
- Egyptian Gods
- Aztec Gods
- The Moon Rabbit
Our Links:
Official Website - https://greythoughts.info/podcast
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+Transcript
Cristina: Do y' all like weird stuff? How about mysterious stuff? Are you a skeptic or a believer? Wanna hear the legend and the facts and the lore and the science and the myth and the theories? Come on down to none of this is Real, the podcast for all things mysterious and weird with us, Doomsday Demeni and Sarah Sinkhole, lifelong friends who have spent years poking their fingers through the veil, all while making each other laugh till it hurts. Find us on all the major podcast platforms and social media. That's none of this is Real, the podcast. You don't have to believe any, but you do have to believe on yourself. Believe all over yourself. Warning. This program contains strong themes meant for a mature audience. Discretion is advised.
Jack: Going live in 5, 4.
Cristina: What does live mean? Welcome to Just Conversation, the show where we ground humanity most absurd and baffling ideas in childish ways. I'm host Christina.
Jack: And I'm Jack.
Cristina: And if you haven't yet, remember to hit that subscribe button to get notified the second new episodes are released.
Jack: Yes, and also this show is most enjoyable with a listening partner, so be sure to find somebody to pull nice and close and get ready to listen to some exciting woke teachings from the spirit realm.
Cristina: From the spirit realm? We're in the spirit realm now?
Jack: Sure.
Cristina: When did that happen?
Jack: In our excavation. We've been looking, researching, doing things, and now we're reporting from the spirit realm because I've decided.
Cristina: So what, did you send us here?
Jack: Yes, with my mind.
Cristina: With your mind.
Jack: With the power of imagination.
Cristina: Amazing. Amazing. So you remember that time a few months ago where we talked about the moon on the Halloween episode?
Jack: Right. What about it?
Cristina: That the full moons had names and I mentioned two of them. The harvest moon and the. What was the other one? The harvest moon and the hunter's moon. Well, I want to talk about the other names because they all have names.
Jack: Right? What are the names?
Cristina: This month, the moon will be called the worm moon. The full moon will be called the worm moon for this month because worms begin to appear.
Jack: Worms begin to appear?
Cristina: Yes, because they've been hibernating, I guess. Worms hibernate, I'm assuming. Yes. They hide from the cold the whole time. And now it's time for them to come out and do wormy stuff out here. I don't know why they would pop out. Why would they pop out?
Jack: I don't know. I don't think they get anything from over the dirt.
Cristina: They want to be eaten by birds. They're making a sacrifice to their bird gods.
Jack: Could be. Can you Imagine, probably.
Cristina: That's crazy. Like, what reason do they have? But, yes, they come out. And next month is the pink moon because there's flowers. Pink flowers on the ground. Not just. I mean, there's other flowers, but they pop up in May. That's why May is the flower moon.
Jack: But I'm definitely positive that other flowers come out in the pink moon.
Cristina: Yeah, but I bet pink flowers are more often. I don't know how they came up with that. Maybe the pink flowers probably disappear by the time the flower moon appears. There's no pink flowers in May.
Jack: No, there's definitely pink flowers throughout the whole year.
Cristina: Throughout the whole year? Yeah. There's pink flowers everywhere in winter.
Jack: Well, when there's flowers, there's pink flowers.
Cristina: Yes. And then in June is the strawberry moon because the strawberries are ready to be picked. And Ian. And in July is the buck moon, because the bucks are growing new antlers. And then on August is the sturgeon moon, which is a large fish found in the Great Lakes. And they're easily caught this time of year because I guess they're coming out of hibernation. I don't know what's happening in August. Or they're mating. Maybe that's their mating season. So they're all together and so they're easier to catch.
Jack: That's probably what happens. I'm sure that they're in mating seasons. Animals are easiest to catch because they are in larger numbers together trying to find one another.
Cristina: Yeah. Then the harvest moon, of course, is September or October. And then the corn moon is on September, which is the time to harvest corn. Delicious.
Jack: So corn doesn't grow year round.
Cristina: This is when they stop. Well, I guess this is the last time you can get corn before they don't grow anymore. And then the October is the hunter's moon because you're preparing to go hunting for the last time, also to prepare for winter. And then in November is beaver moon, because they're more active building their dams, their winter homes.
Jack: The dams are for winter?
Cristina: I think so. That's what I like to believe, that the dams are where they live for the winter. I don't know if they live in the dams, but angry beaver makes me believe that they live in those dams. They become more active in building their winter dams in preparation for the cold season. But why do they need their winter dams?
Jack: Oh, I guess it is to go vibernant.
Cristina: They're just obsessed with the dams. And then December is code moon, because winter is beginning. January is wolf moon, because the wolves are howling. Because they're hungry maybe. Or they're calling for each other. Like it's time to go out and hunt or to get together and what's the other thing? And mate.
Jack: Mate. Could be. It seems like mating would probably be reasonable around when animals are contacting one another.
Cristina: Yeah. And then February is the snow moon because a lot of snow. The heaviest snowfalls happen in the middle of winter, which is usually February. Around February Sounds legit. Yep, yep. And those are the incredible names of the HFU moons. And the moon is interesting because of how people all over the world see the moon as being something special.
Jack: Like religions. Like religions and Islam and old school Christians and Native Americans and pretty much every culture underdeveloped at some point. Indigenous people.
Cristina: Yeah. There's a bunch of themes and beliefs they have for the moon that they have in common, even if they're not all like the exact same story told over and over. There's like themes that match around what the moon represents. The easiest one is like the phases of the moon symbolizing birth and death. Because the changing of the phases of the moon is like a cycle. So it's just the moon represents many different types of cycles like birth and death and creation and destruction and things like that. It also symbolizes immortality and eternity because gods are immortal. And so the moon is. There's a few stories that have to do with the moon being a place where the elixir of life is at. For some reason, or at least in two stories there seems to be. So I don't know why the moon has it, but it has something to do with the phases of the moon. Like it's water, because they can control the water on Earth, they see the moon as water as well. So it's the elixir of life itself. Like it's the actual bottle that the gods are drinking. And people also see as comparing it to the stages of humans life. Like the new moon is the infant and the waning moon is the decline of life. Like it's dying, then it's coming back to life, like, you know, rebirth and that stuff. And that stuff appears in many of their stories.
Jack: Many whose stories?
Cristina: Many different stories that I will talk about. But first I want to talk about Khonsu, the Egyptian God of the moon. His name means traveler. And he's also thought of the as a pathfinder and defender. He guides and protects those who travel at night against wild animals and thieves and whatever the dangerous things that are out there.
Jack: Right. Why do they believe that?
Cristina: Why do they believe he protects them yes, because he guides them well, the moon itself is guiding them. They're using the moon's light to help them. So they believe whatever is in control of the moon, which I guess is that God. It's him that's helping them through the moon.
Jack: Got it.
Cristina: That's helping them.
Jack: You know symbolism.
Cristina: Yes, yes. That's why I think a lot of people see with the moon is like it's symbolizing something else. It's not the actual God, but it's like the God has some control over the moon as an object.
Jack: Yeah. Like it's a celestial object.
Cristina: Mm. This God has. Is sometimes a young man, but sometimes he's a hawk headed man. Because a lot of their gods have, you know, animal heads. But I wonder because he is also a lot of.
Jack: Whose gods?
Cristina: Egyptian gods.
Jack: Oh, okay.
Cristina: Have animal heads, but they also show him as a young man. So I don't know about other gods, but I wonder if they also have human forms and animal headed forms. Forms. I don't know how, because I know there's also.
Jack: There are animal headed forms.
Cristina: No, I mean, like, do they have both? Like this guy, he has both a human form and then the hawk head form. Do all the gods behave like that? Because there's also gods that have three different body animal parts. Do they also have a human part or a complete human form? But I'm not sure about that. I'm just curious about that. Okay. And he is also the God of time. He's also seen as a God of healing. He's healed the pharaoh, or they say he healed the pharaoh. He also, before they saw him as this kind God that heals and protects. He was a bloodthirsty God who helped the dying king catch and eat other gods.
Jack: Other gods?
Cristina: Yes, other gods.
Jack: A God who would catch gods to feed to a king?
Cristina: Yes, a dying king.
Jack: Why do they believe that?
Cristina: That was the story written super long ago. I don't know if they have the explanation for that, but that was like written on Egyptian coffin thing. That's where they get a lot of these ancient stories, man.
Jack: I wonder if we truly understand what these hieroglyphs say.
Cristina: Yeah, like that's. That's probably a problem. Like, are we reading them right?
Jack: Are we reading them at all? Are we making up what we're saying?
Cristina: Are we making? Exactly, yes. Are we making. Because it's just pictures.
Jack: Yep.
Cristina: Yep.
Jack: We're applying meaning to pictures. We find we have people who believe they're experts at piecing together other people's pictures. Yet to this day, we consider art up to interpretation. So how the f*** do we consider that not just to be up to interpretation? We just sell s*** like it's fact?
Cristina: Huh? So I guess this story could totally be untrue. I mean, if people nowadays see him as a good guy, maybe he was always a good guy. And this one guy who read this story was like, nah.
Jack: Or maybe he was always a bad guy.
Cristina: Where he was always a bad guy and people just changed their opinion on him over time.
Jack: Not necessarily their opinion, just whoever's reading the thing at any given moment. Because we don't know what it says.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: Or even if it says anything. Or even if it could just be drawings.
Cristina: It could just be drawings, huh? Maybe. And then there's Artemis, the Greek God. And also Diana, I think, is the other one that's. She's not Greek, she's the Roman God. But they're almost equal in a lot of ways. They pretty much symbolize the exact same things, even though they're from different cultures, they're from different locations. Greek, Roman. Yeah. So Artemis is a Greek God. She's the goddess of hunt, wilderness, wild animals, chastity, and the moon. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. She's known to have the ability to give diseases to young women who disobey her instructions. But she also has the ability to heal young girls that were ill.
Jack: So the God of women.
Cristina: Yeah, the God of women also. Yeah. I don't know why she's the God of moon. I think somehow moon and women somehow relate. I just don't know how the two relate.
Jack: They're probably attaching menstrual cycles to it.
Cristina: Yes, that's probably it. That's a very important thing. In a lot of these religions and things. They connect the menstrual cycle with the moon. And according to a Greek legend, there was the queen of Thebes. Her name was Niobe, who I guess made fun of their mom. Artemis and her brother Niobe had more children than Leto, so she was making fun of her, I guess. And then the two kids decided, well, this isn't right, and then they murdered her children. I like that story. She made fun of their mom because their mom only had two kids, which is the twins. And Niobe, who made fun of Leto, had 14 children. So they murdered all 14 children. So now Leto has more children than Niobe, who was making fun of her.
Jack: This is a good thing or a bad thing? Where does it stand with people?
Cristina: I don't know. I just think it's an interesting story.
Jack: Like gods killing other gods.
Cristina: Yeah. Well, no. Naobi was a regular lady. She was the queen of thieves. She was a queen.
Jack: Niobe is not a God.
Cristina: No, she's a queen. She's human. And she made fun of a God. I guess that's the big thing, is, like, you don't make fun of gods or their children will get revenge.
Jack: Naomi's children got killed.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Got it.
Cristina: She had 14 children. They're all dead now. Or they're dead. Yep. So that's cool. I mean, Artemis has done a bunch of other violent things, but that was the most interesting one, I thought. Not very moon related. But there's Har. It's like, for that one at least for her, I couldn't really find anything about the moon relating to her. But a lot of other gods definitely have stories relating why they are the representation of the moon, or whatever you want to call it, the God of the moon. There's Mani, the Norse personification of the moon. He is the God of the moon and he's the brother of the goddess of the sun, who. Her name is Sol. Both Sol and Mani are being chased endlessly by a pair of wolves. I think you know the story. They're destined to be caught and devoured by the wolves at Ragnarok. Because the wolves, I think, are the children of Loki.
Jack: Yes.
Cristina: If I'm getting that. That's right. Okay. Yes. I thought that was interesting. Yep. They're just constantly. They're moving around in the sky, running from the wolves.
Jack: Okay, that makes sense. That's why they're moving in the sky at all.
Cristina: Yeah. And the lunar eclipse is thought of when one of the wolves was very close to Mani, the moon God, like he was about to eat him.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: But of course he doesn't. So that's why he comes back. But that's a really interesting way to explain that. So he's not the moon. But it's interesting because he's not the only one who does this. But he's steering a chariot in the sky, which I guess is part of the moon. I'm not sure. But he's not the only moon God that's steering a chariot. And I forgot where that other guy was from. I think he is the Hindu God, but I might be wrong. But I think he is also steering a chariot, which I don't know where they got these two ideas. They're very far from each other, aren't they? Hindu? And I don't know.
Jack: Where did Norse mythology happen?
Cristina: Where did it happen in Norse. That's not a location. No, in Scotland. And the phases of the moon were said to represent his endless running from the wolf, you know, trying to avoid him. And that's why the moon changes, because it's like. I don't. He's guiding the moon. The moon is with him and is changing its side depending on how he's moving. Right? That sounds right.
Jack: Got it. So they're running together.
Cristina: Yeah. Okay. So there's many moon folklore around the world. Many. And we're going to start in Native American folklore. Native Americans see the sun and the moon as a leader and his wife and the stars are their children. The sun loves to catch and eat his children, which are the stars, and they flee from the sky. When, you know the morning is coming. The stars are disappearing because they're running from the sun. And then at night, the moon comes, and he's. It's playing with the. Or I guess she's playing with the stars, the children, while the sun is asleep. But once a month, she turns her face because she's mourning for the children that were caught from the sun. And when she's mourning is when it's a new moon. The new moon would be her turning her back, I guess, from the world because she's crying.
Jack: No, that's crazy. So they think the sun is a murderer.
Cristina: A lot of these stories, the son is a murderer, and one of them, the son is a rapist to his.
Jack: Sister, which is the moon.
Cristina: Yes. In Nigeria, there are people that believe the sun and the moon are husband and wife. Long ago, they lived on earth, and then their best friend, the flood, came over to visit their house.
Jack: And then the flood?
Cristina: Yes, the flood. A flood. I don't know why they were friends with the flood, but it came over their house, and they couldn't stay in their house because they would drown. So they ended up having to go into the sky, and now they live there.
Jack: So the flood isn't like their enemy?
Cristina: I would think it would be, but they considered it their best friend. I guess they don't think of him as their best friend anymore.
Jack: And what Nigerian culture believes this?
Cristina: The epic Ebiboio people of Nigeria, is.
Jack: That like a tribe? Is it a religion?
Cristina: A tribe? A tribe of people in Nigeria believe this. A lot of these are from tribes. Another one in Kenya, the Luiya. The Luiya people believe the sun and moon are brothers. The moon was older, bigger, and brighter, and the sun got jealous and picked a fight with him. Then during the fight, the moon fell into Mud. And that's why it's dimmer now. And I guess that also explains the dark of it. You know, the spots that I have that people see things on the moon sometimes. The craters. Yeah, yeah. So that's explaining why the moon isn't as bright as the sun.
Jack: Moon is just dirty.
Cristina: Yeah. Oh, and also God told them to stop fighting and kept them apart by ordering the sun to only be around here during the day and the moon at night.
Jack: Which doesn't happen.
Cristina: Which doesn't happen. Well, they try, I guess. I don't.
Jack: The moon and sun are regularly together.
Cristina: Well, they're trying to fight each other again, but no one. I wonder if that eclipse for them then when they're about to fight each other again.
Jack: Well, no, because there's many, many times that the moon is out during the.
Cristina: Daylight, but that's when it's going back home or going back is leaving while the sun is coming.
Jack: That doesn't work that way.
Cristina: No. Well, that's how they're seeing it happening.
Jack: Right, but how do they interpret when it's broad the middle daylight.
Cristina: Oh, and they see the shadow of the moon.
Jack: No, they literally see the moon in the middle of daylight as well.
Cristina: I don't know. Maybe they don't see it as the moon.
Jack: They think that's a different rock.
Cristina: Yes, it's a different rock. And then in. In the Indonesia island of Hava, there are a tribe there that think there's a moon goddess who came to Earth to bathe in a lake. And while she was bathing, a man stole her swan feathers because she does the thing that werewolves do and she's just wearing a swan. I guess she was a swan when she landed. She took it off, she became human. The guy stole the swan feathers so she couldn't leave back to the sky. So she married the man.
Jack: So no more moon.
Cristina: Well, no, that's not the end of the story. And then she did end up finding her swan feathers and now she can return to the sky. But she has children here. So she'll go back to the sky at night and then come spend the daytime hours on Earth with her husband and their daughter.
Jack: Interesting. And does anybody believe they knew who this woman was?
Cristina: They probably know her right now. Like she probably doesn't die. Unless there's a story explaining why she's not there. No, no more. Maybe they suspect someone to be her.
Jack: Yeah, like basically the difference between God and like Jesus, except it's continuous. So like God is up there, but randomly he's not. So sometimes people Just. Well, I don't feel the spirit of God. Oh, he must be on earth today.
Cristina: Really? That's the thing.
Jack: No, I'm using an example.
Cristina: Okay. Okay. Well, that would be really interesting if there was stories like that though. But I thought it was interesting that she had a swan outfit. Like, I wonder how many different creatures they saw as just people in disguise.
Jack: Or I guess not in disguise, but rather they have like a magic get up.
Cristina: Yeah. Or are they magical creatures that have human skin under their fur or something? I don't. I don't really understand how it works because she. She's a moon, but she dresses into a swan and then she looks like a human. So when she's back, like what turns her from one to the other?
Jack: Taking it off.
Cristina: She takes off her human skin and turns into the moon?
Jack: No, putting. I guess she's just human with powers. Putting on the swan outfit makes her the moon.
Cristina: maybe. I don't know. It's weird, but. Yes, but that's interesting that a bunch of stories used to be like that. I don't think there's anything like that anymore. Like the werewolves came from stories like that of men with for belts or whatever. And then they turned into werewolves.
Jack: Yeah, I remember that.
Cristina: Yeah. So. But. And now they're just werewolves. They don't need anything. They just. Full moon. Hey, full moon. But alright. In Siberia, the story of why the moon is scarred, they believe that it's fang marks left from this thing called. I think that's how you say it. And he's a monster with huge black wings. He's the personification of the darkness of the sky. And he feeds on the moon every night. He's just slowly devouring it for the whole month. But the problem is that he can't actually eat the moon. Like eating the moon upsets his stomach. So by the end he ends up vomiting the moon. And then piece by piece the moon comes back because he vomited out. And that explains also why the moon.
Jack: Has phases and then he eats it again. So he's eating his vomit?
Cristina: Essentially, yes.
Jack: It's a sort of God creature that's consistently eating his vomit for all of eternity.
Cristina: Because it's delicious, it's addicting. It's the most addicting vomit he's ever had.
Jack: It's the only vomit he's ever had. Yeah, it's been happening for eternity.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: It's the perpetual cycle of vomiting.
Cristina: Yeah, that's disgusting. But who knows? Maybe it's delicious, I don't know. But he keeps doing it so it must be delicious, right? And then in. In Serbia, they probably. What's the oldest explanation for why we say the moon is made of cheese? Which is there was a wolf chasing a fox. The fox convinced the wolf that there was a block of cheese in the bottom of a pond. And the wolf didn't realize that it was just the reflection of the moon. So he went to drink the pond and eventually he blew up.
Jack: But he explains, he blew up because there were explosives in the pond.
Cristina: He was just so filled with water. He just kept drinking. He just never stopped because he needed that cheese. I don't know why he thought that cheese would be better than that fox, though. Like fox or cheese for wolf.
Jack: Maybe wolves love cheese.
Cristina: Maybe wolves loves cheese.
Jack: Maybe that's their s***.
Cristina: He exploded for that. He drank all that water for some cheese. What?
Jack: Maybe cheese is rare for fox, for wolves. Maybe cheese is rare for wolves.
Cristina: Don't they have good smells? Can he smell that? There's no cheese.
Jack: Not under the water.
Cristina: Mmm. Well, yes, he blew up. And it's amazing. And that's probably one of the oldest stories of why the moon is made out of cheese. Although I think people also see the moon as cheese somehow. Like they see it as different things. They see different things on the moon, I guess, like the craters look like cheese hose. But also a lot of people say the man on the moon, they see a face of a man on the.
Jack: Moon, this super epic. One time when the lunar rover landed and it sent back that weird message and they were like, what? And then they aimed the telescope that zoomed in like crazy. And they found a castle made of cheese. And the rover was like, I do not compute. And they were like, sir, Captain of NASA, there's a cheese castle up there. And we discovered the cheese people that day.
Cristina: I thought that we made that cheese castle. No, that had nothing to do with us.
Jack: That had nothing to do with us.
Cristina: Whoa.
Jack: That cheese castle.
Cristina: We just have cheese people living on the moon.
Jack: Cheese people living on the moon? Well, they're not people made of cheese, but we call them cheese people because they're people who make things of cheese.
Cristina: That's disgusting.
Jack: They go out of their way to breed farm cows.
Cristina: So there's cows on the moon?
Jack: Yes, on the dark side of the moon.
Cristina: That's why they keep the cows.
Jack: That's where they keep the cows. See, what people don't understand is that the moon isn't real.
Cristina: What? But then how about everything we just said?
Jack: Well, that's not the moon. The moon Wasn't like a natural creation. The moon was put there by them. By them. It's a spaceship.
Cristina: It's a spaceship. And they. That's why they kidnap our cows?
Jack: Yes. The cows get taken to the moon to make infrastructure with their milk.
Cristina: Why?
Jack: Facts. You could go to the library of the Freemasons and find this.
Cristina: Nah. If they're stealing our cows, it's cuz they love cheese. They love eating cheese. There's no way that they need cheese to build things with.
Jack: They eat their buildings.
Cristina: No, that's crazy. That's crazy. How did they get this far if they're living in cheesy buildings?
Jack: They also. They're aliens. They figured out the formula to preserve cheese forever.
Cristina: They love cheese that much. They're just obsessed with cheese. That's amazing.
Jack: To be fair, if we travel far enough in an infinite universe, eventually, like, every possibility should happen. So there should be a region of space where there's a planet of people who build things of cheese. That should be a real thing, like just based on science.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Mathematically speaking, the numbers tell us there should be somewhere in the universe where there are cheese structures. So that wolf wasn't far off?
Cristina: That wolf wasn't far off, I guess. I wish. Where are these aliens? Where are they? Where's the whale alien that's just swimming through space? If you can describe it that way, that'd be awesome. Yes. Yes, it would.
Jack: Maybe it's out there and we just. We suck at looking at space. We pretend we're awesome, but, like, maybe it's floating out there. We don't even see it.
Cristina: I know. It's so crazy. There could be mad stuff.
Jack: There's probably a bunch of s*** living inside the meteor belt.
Cristina: Mmm.
Jack: Although the meteor bell is also not as close together as movies would pretend they are.
Cristina: Yeah, but they could be living in there. I mean, how do we examine that? Do we even look at that?
Jack: We can't really see anything in there.
Cristina: Oh, okay. So there could be things in there.
Jack: What, they think there's a planet in there.
Cristina: They think they don't even know.
Jack: Nope. There's no way to tell.
Cristina: Oh, okay. It's one of those things that, like, there's gravity doing something weird there.
Jack: Yeah. And then we were like, well, what could explain it? Boom. Planet.
Cristina: Oh, okay. So. Man, we suck. Especially looking at things around us. Like, we do a better job looking at other star systems.
Jack: We do a really s***** job of looking at other star systems. We're worse than that.
Cristina: Really?
Jack: Yes. We just happen to have picked Something we could already aim at. But how much s*** are we not aiming at? The further out, the less we could see.
Cristina: Oh man. So is there a specific spot before, like that is a perfect space that we could see of, or is that not a thing. Everything's just crap.
Jack: Yeah, we just have certain spots that we favor. Okay, but we miss 99.99% of everything in space. Of course, even in our observable distance, we see almost none of it.
Cristina: Then why do we cry about there not being any aliens? We can hardly see anything.
Jack: I don't know.
Cristina: Because we figured.
Jack: We figured they would come to us.
Cristina: I can't. Ah. Like we just got blind and we're looking around the room and they're like, why isn't there anyone here? And there's probably someone right there trying to help us guide. Like trying to walk us to the right direction. And we're not paying attention to them.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: In Greenland, the Inuits believe that their moon God raped his sister, the sun goddess, and that every night he chases her to possess her again. And he also, the whole time he's starving as he runs, getting smaller and smaller every night until he disappears. And then he slowly comes back to his full self in like, I think they say, like three days. That whole time he's taking a break to eat and he's full again. Which is another explanation of the moon phases.
Jack: Interesting. But it takes way more than three days.
Cristina: Oh, it's not. Okay, how many days does it take?
Jack: From 15 in either direction.
Cristina: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Jack: On average it takes about 15 days for a moon to fully dissipate and another 15 to come back. That's why there's only one full moon a month.
Cristina: Okay, well then he takes a 15 day break to eat and then he chases his sister, I guess to rape her again. What a beautiful story. I wonder where they get that story from. How random. It could be anything. Chasing anyone. Chasing anyone for any reason.
Jack: Does it take 15 days?
Cristina: So he eats for 15 days, but he takes a three day break to eat to be full, and then he continues on running after her. That makes sense because you see the full moon three for about three days.
Jack: Before it's visibly shrinking.
Cristina: Yeah. Yeah. So. And during that time is when he's feeding to chase her again. Yay. And then in Africa, there's several indigenous peoples around the continent that call the moon God MAU MAU. And Mawu's companion is the sun goddess, Lisa. And. Oh, and when they meet and make love, they make an eclipse. And also they created the World. Their son Gu is the smith God. They used him to shape the universe. And also there's a serpent, his name is Da, who helped them during the creation, which I thought was interesting because you mentioned there's serpents everywhere in different stories.
Jack: Yes.
Cristina: So here's the serpent. And so Muwu was the goddess of night, joy and motherhood. And Lisa was the God of day, heat and strength. And in Aztec, there was a moon goddess. Her name is very complicated, but it means the Golden Bells. She was the daughter of the earth goddess and the sister of the sun God. And golden bells encouraged her 400 sisters and brothers to kill their mother. I don't know why, but she wanted her mom dead. But when she was planning, when she was about to do that, her mom gave birth to her brother, the sun God. When he was born, he was an adult already and he saved her life. And then he cut off his sister's head and threw it into the sky and it formed into the moon. How cool is that?
Jack: So he turned out to be the killer.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: And also, are the brother and sisters the stars?
Cristina: Maybe. I feel like it. 400 sisters and brothers. I don't know what they were, but they must be. Right. But what's the mom? Because usually the mom is. Everyone is something in the story. And in this one, except the sister.
Jack: Was not the moon yet.
Cristina: She was just the moon goddess. Or maybe she became the moon goddess after this. Whatever. Now she's the moon. That's the important thing. She is the moon for trying to kill her mommy. And in Hindu, Soma represents the God of the moon. And he rides through the sky in a chariot drawn by white horses, which is similar to the Egyptian God Mari from the Norse mythology also had a chariot. So I thought that was interesting that two different places had the moon on chariot, or the moon God on chariot. Soma was also named the elixir of immortality. That was the name of it. And only the gods can drink it. And it was stored in the moon in. Yes.
Jack: The moon is just an alcohol container.
Cristina: Yes. And when the gods drink the moon, that's when the moon wanes because the gods are drinking away some of its properties. Because it's the actual liquid in the moon that's being poured out into the gods. In New Zealand, there are people called the Mari people who see a girl in a bucket on the moon. And their explanation for that is that there was a lady who was carrying a bucket of water to her children in a cloudy night. And in a moment the clouds covered the moon and she tripped and fell. So then she cursed at the moon for her falling. And then the moon heard that and got angry. So he cursed it, cursed the Mari people. And then it grabbed the girl. The grabbed the lady and the bucket and threw her to the moon. Or I guess he kidnapped her.
Jack: The moon kidnapped the lady?
Cristina: Yes. So that's why they see the lady with the bucket on the moon. Because she was still holding the bucket when he took her.
Jack: Okay.
Cristina: Yes. It's strange the different things people see on the moon.
Jack: Yes, it's really weird.
Cristina: Also, when the girl's upset, she. When she drops her bucket on the moon, it rains. That explains, because they were explaining the rain and stuff on the Earth. It comes from the moon, I guess, to them.
Jack: And it's what happens when it rains on a moonless day.
Cristina: What happens when it rains on a moonless day? They're like, the moon is out there no matter what. We're scientists like that. We know it's there.
Jack: It's just hiding.
Cristina: It's just hiding. The Japanese people believe that the moon is a fortune telling God. So the priests that want to fortune tell would study the moon's reflection on Amera because they believed if they looked into the moon that it would drive them crazy. So it's like a superstition about the moon.
Jack: So they would just not look at the moon.
Cristina: Yeah, but just the reflection on the mirror because they thought it would drive them crazy.
Jack: Because meanwhile looking at the sun. A. Okay.
Cristina: Yes, it's perfectly fine. But it's interesting because a lot of people think the moon drives people crazy. So it's a different story, a different version of.
Jack: That's how werewolves happen.
Cristina: Just like werewolves, it's just people going mad. And Shinto, the moon God Tsukiyumi, was born out of the right eye of a ancient being. And he used to live in the heavens with his sister, the sun God, Amaterasu. But she asked him to represent her to the goddess of food, whose name is Yukimashi. To celebrate, the goddess of food offered him a meal, and she created the meal from her mouth and nose. He thought that was disgusting, so he killed her. But then when his sister learned about what he did, she was so angry that she didn't want to see him anymore. And since then, the brother and sister live apart, and they take turns being in the sky.
Jack: So broken up family.
Cristina: Yeah. Yep. Such a strange. Like he was born out of an eyeball and he was disgusted by this lady who made food out of her mouth and nose. But I'm Sure. Her nose and mouth would grow back. Like, she's the God of food. I'm sure the food is fine, right? I don't know, but. Or maybe it's not. I don't know. I don't know anything about gods. Okay.
Jack: Perfection. The food should be amazing.
Cristina: It should be like, she's the God of food. This is her thing. She's known for this. Why would you be disgusted? Like, why not at least give it a try? I would think you could trust it, but I don't know. Then there's the Mayan people. They have a old goddess. I mean, their moon goddess is an old lady. Her name is Ixchel. I think it means the lady rainbow. She was depicted as an old lady wearing a skirt with cross bones. And she had a serpent in her hand. Look at that, a serpent showing up. Anyway, she had the assistant sky serpent, whom they believe carried the waters of heavens in its belly, because the moon and water, the serpent is carrying the water. Okay. And she also carries a jug filled with water as well, which she uses to send floods and powerful rainstorms to the earth. So, yeah, they're all related, you see, in some little ways, but. Okay.
Jack: And then, I mean, most stories share an origin to begin with. There's probably like, you could trace all of this back to a single point that then kept branching off into many different stories.
Cristina: You think there was one story? One story.
Jack: Not literally one story, but like many of these stories have a similar origin. So each area might have a bunch of stories that came from one point, from one observation. Then the story got told and altered tiny bits every time it was told until different cultures around the same region had different explanations for the same thing.
Cristina: Yes. Yes, I think so. And in China in the ancient times, there were. They believed that there was 12 different moons for the different 12 different months of the year and 10 suns that were the 10 days in the Chinese week. The mother of the 12 moons was the same as the mother of the 10 sons. And at the beginning of each month, the mother washed her children in the lake in the. At the extreme western side of the world. Then each moon, one after the other, would travel to in a chariot. In a chariot for a month's journey to reach the opposite side of the world. And that's where the suns will begin their journey. And I thought that was interesting. Chariots and all interesting.
Jack: It looks like they're all Asian cultures that believe that, though, because the other one was Hindu, right?
Cristina: Yeah, it was Hindu. And what was the third? The first one was Norse. Whatever that is.
Jack: Oh, crap. Norse. Thus far.
Cristina: Yeah. And then there's this one thing that a lot of places have is the moon rabbit, which is people see a rabbit on the moon, and there's a bunch of explanations for this moon rabbit. In China, it's very popular. So the folklore began in China and then spread to the other Asian cultures. Story goes that the rabbit is seen as the companion of the moon goddess Shang O. And it's on the moon pounding the elixir of life for her. Hey, similar to some other story, right? Okay.
Jack: Yeah.
Cristina: The elixir of life, which seems to.
Jack: Be on the moon.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: In a castle made of cheese.
Cristina: A castle made of cheese? Yes. So this woman once used to be immortal, but was turned immortal for bad behavior. And now she's just trying to get back into the good side of the other gods by making this elixir and living forever. But, like, the first time, she drank the too much of it, and she ended up floating onto the moon, and then she made that her home. So now she lives there with a rabbit who's trying to come up with the perfect formula for this elixir to keep her alive forever.
Jack: Interesting.
Cristina: Which. It seems like it's still working. I mean, I guess it's like adrenochrome, where you got to drink it forever. Consistently? Yes, consistently. Or you will die.
Jack: It could be like the limitless pill where you take it and the effects are slowly going to wear off and make you go crazy.
Cristina: Oh, yeah.
Jack: And so they're looking for the perfect one where you take it once and you're just good forever.
Cristina: Yes. Man. We got to get that. I mean, we're on the moon. No, we're not. What did you say we were? Dream. No, I don't remember.
Jack: The spirit realm.
Cristina: The spirit realm. What are we doing here? Whatever. In the Japanese and Korean versions, the rabbit is pounding either ingredients for mashi or for some kind of rice cake.
Jack: Pounding. What do we mean? It's f******, like, the stuff. It's just f****** ingredients. It takes a pounding.
Cristina: Like jumping on it, like with its pouncing. Pounding. The word is pounding, but. Or hitting. Maybe they see it hitting something like that. I don't know.
Jack: It's very strange.
Cristina: Pound. Excuse the word pound, but I think they mean hit or jump. It's hitting something, and that's what they believe it is.
Jack: Okay.
Cristina: It's hitting a ball, which I guess, you know, there's a ball in the moon. One of the. You know, there's so many blobs on the moon. They see one as a rabbit, one as whatever they think it is, whether it's the medicine or rice ball or. What was the first one? The elixir.
Jack: Yeah. So the rabbits up their f****** balls.
Cristina: Yes. And also in China they instead of using the word the moon, they call it either the jade hair or the gold hair. These are pretty cool names. Pretty cool. Well, the rabbit is not just seen it from the Asian folklores, but also in indigenous American folklore there's a bunch of stories and they're also similar about like the rabbit is sacrificing its life usually and it ends up on the moon somehow. And also further in North America to Canada, they also have a rabbit story. Who with a rabbit that wished to ride the moon. And that's how the rabbit ended up on the moon. So there's a bunch of places.
Jack: How'd it get to the moon to ride the moon?
Cristina: That bird, the crane flew it there. That's how it got its super long legs.
Jack: Got it.
Cristina: Yep, yep.
Jack: Yeah, that makes sense.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: So flying to the moon and all.
Cristina: So China, I mean, the Asian cultures aren't the only ones that see the rabbit. A bunch of other places see the rabbit.
Jack: There's a lot of consistency. Chances are it did begin these very similar stories began as one and then sort of evolved depending on the culture.
Cristina: Okay, so that's it for now. I think that's enough moon stuff. And I know there's a lot, but I tried my best to give as much as I can.
Jack: Yes, very fascinating. It's crazy how many different cultures have. But I guess all cultures had to explain the universe one way or another. And before science was like a sure thing because there were science minded people, the science wasn't really a thing. Thing.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: And I think before science became a thing, people just had explanations. They were always mystical.
Cristina: They're always mystical. Yeah. And I think the moon is just really interesting because of its whole face thing. It makes it much more interesting than anything else up in the sky that just looks static. Yeah, everything looks static, even the shiny or whatever. Like. Yeah, it's just really big. But the moon is got that interesting.
Jack: Phase thing and way more visible.
Cristina: Mmm. Mm.
Jack: The moon is clearer than the sun because the sun is too bright and the stars are some too dim and too small. Whether dim or not.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: And there both of these instances, the sun and the stars are very static. While the moon has phases, it moves around the sky in visible ways and.
Cristina: We can see a bunch of crap on it that's not even there.
Jack: Even with like wack telescopes, you can see pretty well.
Cristina: That's pretty awesome. But anyway, it's time to close the show. It's time to close the bag. Was it that they say in Comedy.
Jack: Central, time to close? No, it's a plug bag.
Cristina: It's a plug bag. It's time to close the plug bag. Oh, no. It's time to open the plug bag. No, I did the opposite that they do. Okay. It's time to open the plug bag. No. Okay. Anyway, you can find more things like this, I think. Have we done anything like this? Well, we've gone all over the place. So you can find other things.
Jack: Yeah. I'm pretty sure we've mentioned the moon before. Probably not in great detail, but it's come up before for different reasons. And because of aliens and space travel and werewolves. And werewolves and probably demons and, you know, we handle things in outer space because it's part of our job.
Cristina: Yep.
Jack: What we do is deal with space creatures and interdimensional beings and things of that nature.
Cristina: Yeah. That's all we do.
Jack: And we got Mars and some stuff on the moon and apparently the moon castle with cheese Castle. To cheese Castle where there's aliens. Anyways, you can find all that stuff on the official website, greythoughts.info or Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcast.
Cristina: And you can reach us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, uscombopod.
Jack: And remember to subscribe, rate and review the show.
Cristina: Let someone who might like the show know about it.
Jack: Yes. Cause word of mouth is extremely powerful and very important.
Cristina: And this has been the JustConversation podcast. Take nothing personal and thanks for listening.
Jack: Bye. That's an interesting question. I've never considered creator. I always just considered when thinking of atheists, I only considered God. Like what would somebody knowing all knowing creature be? And how would they react to what we consider reality as humans? And the only thing that makes sense is Atheos.
Cristina: Yeah.
Jack: If there is something that made us, whether or not they made everything they are or not that made us is there's. If there's something that's everywhere all the time and knows everything, it can't give a s***. And that's how atheos came to be. Because good and bad doesn't make a concept of something that is all of the above.
Cristina: Yeah. So then he is. He did create everything.
Jack: I don't know if he did create everything. I know he knows everything.
Cristina: So he just. He popped up the same time as we popped up, though. Because he was there to measure everything.
Jack: I'm very Judaistic. Judaistic. I'm very much of a Jew when it comes to the belief that what happened before, we don't know what happened after. What happens after, we don't know. That's irrelevant. What's happening now? I know he's.
Cristina: That he's.
Jack: He's watching like Santa Claus or some s***. And he's not judging your good or bad, but whether for whatever reason you're not being you and he's not judging. There's just rules that are set in place universally that when you don't please you, you're miserable.
Cristina: It's kind of like you're judging yourself.
Jack: Yes. Giant mirrors being held up.
Cristina: Yeah. That's interesting.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cristina: Because you are God.
Jack: So it's very interesting. You can picture Atheos essentially being a scale. That's where the chains came in. It was just balance. You bring it down anytime you do something counter to you.
Cristina: He's a scale.
Jack: He's a scale. Are you maintaining the balance of who you are?
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: Or are you. Because you can't fully indulge in anything either. Because then it becomes meaningless. Anything you do fully in one direction just becomes a normal. You don't want that. You need the balance. But who are you as a balanced person?
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Because everybody's balanced differently.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: And that's the whole point. If you're not keeping your balance. So Atheos is the scale by which you balance yourself.
Cristina: So he looks like a scale ball. Like we could picture him as a scale. Like picture the spaghetti monster as a spaghetti.
Jack: Well, I wouldn't picture this. I find the irony of that religion funny, but I don't really. I rather use the word Pastafarianism because the flying spaghetti monster is. Although funny, the reasoning behind the belief system is pretty solid.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: It's actually really rational, minus the whole jokes on God part. Same with Atheos. Giving him a visual is weird thing. He's a concept, not a being of any sort.
Cristina: Well, people like putting cons.
Jack: I know. I rather use a symbol to represent.
Cristina: Him, which is the scale.
Jack: The scale would be the symbol.
Cristina: Exactly.
Jack: Not who he is, not who is.
Cristina: But if you like to picture him, it would probably be a person. Because it's easiest to imagine.
Jack: It's easiest. Yes. It's easiest to imagine the cliche old guy in the sky looking.
Cristina: Yes.
Jack: Atheist is nothing but a concept, a thought, an idea.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: A philosophy. There you go. It's a philosophy. A philosophic way of thinking of a God the same way that the flying spaghetti monster is a philosophic way of thinking of a God. Shaggy. Well, actually, all things considered. Because if you think of the idea of kek, what makes sense about Kek is that we all have a crazy psychotic kind of side. Yeah, we suppress it for social norms or whatever. And some of us feel comfortable doing that, others don't. I like chaos. I enjoy chaos. I normality bores the s*** out of me and I die a little on the inside if I have to be normal.
Cristina: Mm.
Jack: I'm not a fan of that. But chaos is amazing. And testing people and pushing them to their limits and seeing where they stand on something. I love that. The concept that if that brings you pleasure, you should do it. I like that.
Cristina: Good morning. Good morning. The Just Conversation podcast is hosted by Christina Collazo and Jack Thomas, produced by Lynn Taylor and published by Great Thoughts.info art by Zero Lupo and logo by Seth McCallister with social media managed by Amber Black.
Speaker C: Hi, I'm Mike. From the Genuine Chit Chat podcast where we have honest conversations with interesting people. I speak to a wide variety of guests including CEOs of businesses, psychological psychologists, authors, musicians, travellers, people suffering with physical and mental illnesses, and everyone in between, where we speak about a large variety of topics including music and movies and pop culture, but also some more controversial topics including drug reform, political correctness and many more. No subject is off limits. You can find us on all the usual podcast places including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, as well as on YouTube and you can follow us in all the YouTube social media places. And to be clear, I don't expect everyone listening to enjoy every episode of my show. What I do think is that due to the wide variety of guests and topics, that there'll be at least one episode that each person listening will enjoy. So if you still appreciate the art of conversation and want to hear honest conversations with interesting people, then be sure to check out Genuine Chit Chat in all the usual places.