What Is A Blue Moon? When Is The Next Blue Moon?

"Once In A Blue Moon"

Over the years we have all at least heard, if not used the term, "once in a blue moon". Where does this come from and what does it represent?

Certainly it does not refer to the actual color of the Moon becoming blue. It is based on the occurrence of two full moons within any given month when you follow the "trendy" definition. This is the widely accepted definition as of this date in history. In the past, a blue moon was the third full moon of any season containing four full moons. This definition comes from various editions of The Farmer's Almanac.

So, keeping it simple, the blue moon is the second full moon that rises in the course of any given month.Lunar cycles are 29.5 days therefore somewhat less than an actual month. With this being said, there will never be a blue moon within the month of February as there simply is not enough days in February to host two full moons.

On average blue moons occur approximately every 33 months or close to every three years. It is from the period time between these blue moons that came the saying, "once in a blue moon", to signify that it does not or will not happen very often. There are exceptions to this time between full moons. An example is January and March of 2018. There will be blue moons within both of those months.

According to what I call the "trendy" definition of the blue moon we experienced a blue Moon in August of 2012. The first full moon was on August 2, 2012, and the next full moon, the blue moon, was on August 31, 2012.

Following the August 2012 blue moon, the next blue moons will occur in July of 2015, January & March of 2018, and October of 2020. (To view all future Blue Moons, click the link below to view the Blue Moon Calendar.)

Following the definition of the Farmer's Almanac, with the third full moon within a quarter, the next blue moon was on August 21, 2013.

Which ever definition you find yourself following, as you can see, the blue moon is a rather rare occurrence. Keeping that in mind, when you use the phrase, "once in a blue moon", you are accurately describing what you consider to be a rather rare event within a period of time.

Note: There are atmospheric conditions that can occur at times that will actually make the moon appear to be blue in color. Haze and smoke in the atmosphere can certainly alter the color of the moon as well as other astral bodies that are floating around out there.

One must keep in mind, however, that these atmospheric conditions are not what is referenced when thinking about the term, "once in a blue moon".

Blue Moon Calendar

An Alternative Log In For Your Yahoo Email While You Are Not Being Allowed To Log: Troubleshooting

Log In Error Message Yahoo Mail and How To Troubleshoot It

Here it is, the alternative sign in for Yahoo mail while this glitch is going on not allowing folks to sign in and where it keeps asking you for log in information and password over and over.

This link works when you get that message after you try to log in to verify your password, or to reenter your password.  Multiple attempts fail when this Yahoo email glitch is going on.

So.....click below to log in to your Yahoo mail when you are being unable to do so in the normal manner.

This link is to a version of Yahoo email "Neo" that is working:

https://us-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/b/launch

Hope that helps.

Selling On Amazon: An Insider's Review

Earning Money On Amazon

Over the past several years I have been an Amazon Seller.  In other words, I sell items on Amazon.com.  This has opened the door to make some honest extra earnings.

There is always a pretty steady stream of orders in my inbox.  I am not a super seller or anything like that, but I do make enough in profit to pay a bill or two every month.  Supplementing your income is a rather nice thing in this day and age!

Many people are intimidated at the thought of becoming a seller on Amazon.  Actually, a good review of the policies and rules is wise, but once that is done, it is not hard nor cumbersome to sell on Amazon.

Some seller have a very large catalog and focus on many different types of items.  Many do as I do, find a specific area and stick with those types of items. 

You can become a seller on Amazon with no problems and you don't need to have start up money.  You can list for free.  I was a free listing merchant for about two years, just recently upgrading to becoming a Professional Seller.  The upgrading does have some great advantages, but should only be used once you are established and have a decent flow of items moving on the site.

A great page to check out your options of becoming an Amazon Seller and how to make money on Amazon is to check out this link: Sell on Amazon and reach hundreds of millions of Amazon customers

I would love to hear from other Amazon Sellers in comment here on this blog post.  You can discuss the pros and cons of being an Amazon Seller, or give some advice to my readers from you experience of selling on Amazon.

If you have questions about becoming an Amazon Seller, feel free to post them in comment here on the blog or over there on the right, as you scroll down, you will find an email link in my "About Me" that you can reach me at.

How To Make A Low Fat Egg Salad Sandwich

Low in fat but high quality protein

Low fat foods have proven to be healthy for many various types of medical problems, especially those with diabetes. I am diabetic and had the doctor's instructions to go with a low fat diet. There are plenty of prepared foods out there that are low in fat, but many simply did not replace the craving for the more fatty foods of the same variety. In order to work around this, I started experimenting with various avenues of creating my own low fat foods that satisfied that "void" I was feeling. This Low Fat Egg Salad Sandwich recipe is one of those self-created low fat foods.

Any time of year is a great time to pack up a lunch and head outdoors. This sandwich makes a great addition to any outdoors activity, whether it is a picnic, a fishing trip, or sitting on the sidelines watching your favorite game. You may well want to increase the amount of the egg salad as others will certainly want to have a sandwich as well! This recipe is for two servings, as that is what we always make around the house for just the two of us.

This is an example of utilizing natural foods (yogurt) in place of the traditional mayonnaise and coming out with a delicious sandwich that is very low in fat content and remains a high quality protein.                                                            

Cook Time

• Prep time: 30 min
• Cook time: 12 min
• Ready in: 42 min
• Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients

• 2 Eggs, hard boiled, mashed
• 2 oz. Yogurt, substitute skimmed milk
• 1/2 tsp. Chile or Mustard
• 1/2 Small Whole Wheat Pita Bread, unleavened - or use natural grain bread without fat or sugar
• 1 Small green onion, chopped
• 1 Large mushroom, sliced
• 1 oz. Alfalfa Sprouts
• 1 Tomato, sliced

Instructions

1. Cook eggs until hard-boiled, remove egg yolk and give to your pet.
2. Dice all ingredients (finely) and mix with the yogurt. Add natural spice of your choice.
3. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours for aging - optional, but adds flavor!

Witches and Pagans Combine The Mundane and the Magical Worlds Daily

Caught Between Two Worlds

Many Witches and Pagans will find themselves leading two lives. One mundane one where we interact with co-workers, insurance companies, paper delivery persons, etc. In the other we are walking between the worlds in order to connect with divinity, take control of our lives, work as agents for transformation and connect with ourselves.

Does this split between the mundane and spiritual have to occur? There should be some way to integrate these two aspects of one's life. But when demands that seem totally outside of the mythical and magical begin to dominate our time and thoughts, sometimes it seems easy to get swept away by it all and watch our magical and spiritual practices get pushed to the wayside of things.

We find sometimes that we allow this split to occur in our life and end up neglecting one side of things or the other. We start beating ourselves up for it because we can be extremely hard on ourselves having exceedingly high expectations. However, living this way is not healthy nor productive and if you stress yourself out over things this much, you just end up getting really tired and then nothing you want to do gets done.

It seems that more than balance is being called for here. One of the hardest lessons I've dealt with, and that always seems to crop up at least once in a turn of the wheel, is learning how to live magically in the mundane - or in other words - making the mundane magical. Chief Two Trees used to tell this story of this woman he once knew who worked in a textile factory and her job was knotting materials all day long on an assembly line. This sounds like at first glance a terribly mundane and spirit suppressing type of job. However, when asked about it, this woman said that yes, it could get boring, but she had learned how to make the process magical for herself. If there was something she needed to work magic for in her life, she would knot her need into the material she was working with, over and over, day after day until her need manifested. Witchcraft and spirituality do not have to be separate from her work.

Learning how focus on the magical and mystical while doing things that are of the mundane world is not as hard as one would think. Start with one thing. Once that is in your mind try focusing on this mundane "thing" and see if you can associate something magical or mystical about it. Some, like myself, are blessed to work with animals on a daily basis. That is part of the mundane employment world. However, gaining the ability and insight to see the divine qualities of the animals and feel the divine energies that radiate from the animals allows for the transition to flow from the mundane world to the magical world.

Should a commute to work be part of one's mundane world, learn to open your eyes and actually see what is happening and going on around you as you commute. In most circumstances you will be able to see something from nature along the way. Focus on the beauty, the creation, the divinity and magical qualities such a creation. Once again, you are then making a transition from the mundane to the magical with a simple thought process.

The more that you achieve an integration of the two worlds, the more at ease your life will become. Things will come together, flow smoothly around you and create a positive environment for yourself and others.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - An Oversaturated Market

SEO Research

While Hub Hopping on HubPages, I notice a large amount of hubs with SEO in the title. Of course, many of these are what I refer to as simply "ad" hubs. Selling a product or service. Still, it appears to be a very popular subject.

I have browsed other sites as well, with community generated content, and have found the pattern repeated over and over. The overall majority of these articles I find elsewhere are very similar in what they have to offer. I see repeated information that appears to have been shared with just a jumble up of words.

I realize the importance of Search Engine Optimization, as we all want to improve the visibility of our hub or web page in the eyes of the search engines. As an author, we do know that we have to tweak things at times.

As important as this is, when I put just "SEO" in to Google search and I received a return of over 224,000,000 results. That is a tremendous amount of material!

So you write a article here or elsewhere on SEO and where, in that list, will it appear? My guess it would depend on how well you applied SEO to your article.

It appears that folks realize the popularity of SEO based articles and have totally over saturated the web with such material. I have read approximately 20 articles on SEO, and as stated, a lot of repeated information in just various formats of presentation. I have scanned an additional several hundred SEO articles and see the same pattern.

Good luck in your search for those SEO articles, Ebooks, Technical Reviews, software and more, as you sift through the large mountain of information out there. Some advice for those with limited time to research would be to take the top ten to twenty search returns and work with that and you will have the basic information. If you are interested in other aspects of SEO, then be sure to narrow your search down by adding additional words and terms to your search.

It will be interesting to see how well this hub does as it will fall within that quarter of a billion other listings out there.

SEO article update: 06-16-2013

This article has been up and running for right at a year and a half now. I have checked SERPs and have not found this article in the top 20 pages.

I would presume that the reason for this is the subject matter of this article. Just far too many other pages out there with the keyword "SEO" in them. This is what this article was about, an experiment to see what happens when a keyword is overused in Google.

Folks trying to capitalize on keywords, most of it spamming content, works to the disadvantage of those "honest" persons who have chosen SEO as a career.

I deem this article a success, within the parameters of it being an experiment. It has proven out the "fact" that people are the ones who are ruining what we get in our search engine results.

Darkness: What Is The Dark Path?

The Dark Path Defined

To being with, let me state that I do not follow or practice the Dark path, but have encountered it and been associated with those that do practice the Dark path. One must keep in mind that there are balances to be kept, which does allow for the Dark path. Also, the Dark path is not all about evil and doing wrong as suggested by our ever so popular media. This article is an attempt to answer the question that people have asked me, "What is the Dark Path?"

The definition of a Dark path has always been a little cloudy and hard to put down. One reason for this is because the Dark path is an individual one that each person defines how they operate and what actions they will partake of in accordance to his or her own views. However this doesn't help the curious or the potential initiates looking into what this path actually consists of. It doesn't give them the answers in a clear format from which to base their start or exit from. I hope that I can help give a very basic view of what Darkness truly means.

The definition that I like to give my view of the path is simply this; It is a path that teaches and works through self empowerment in to accomplish self realized and or individual goals. Seems simple enough right?

No, alright then in Guardspeak: You gain power to do what you want.

Breaking this down we can see that the goals we make are for ourselves to accomplish using the power and means that we have acquired to see them through. Power is gained for the benefit of the self to secure our needs and wants. It is used as the individual sees fit. This power is not gifted from others but gained and owned once again by the self.

Darkness is about living life on your own rules and in your own ways to accomplish whatever it is you want in life. Accomplishments can range from caring being gave to the sick, to yes, ruling the world. Two completely different paradigms it would seem but yet the Dark path allows for both. It is this broad based thinking in regards to Dark pathed spirituality that confuses many people. However once again in breaking it down, the common theme in it is that it is an empowered conscious movement of the self to fulfill its own unique goals.

Embedded in this theme of self empowerment is the aspect of being the individual. Not necessarily standing out of the crowd but not maintaining a sheep herded mentality. Those of the Dark must be able to break out of herded restraints and moralities in order to fulfill what they wish at times. They seek not to unify themselves completely with any organization but to stand apart when needs be to fulfill any greater objective they might have.

Below are some of the personal meanings of practicing the Dark path shared with me by some followers of the Dark path:

The ends will always justify the means so long as at the end your position is one of advantage and not of liability.

Power is what keeps those at the top in charge.

Might is the arm that will crush those that are not strong enough to defend against it.

If you cannot be unpredictable then you cannot win for any real length of time.

I might protect myself and others that I cherish with pre-emptive attacks.

I might disguise my movements and slide behind another who will then take the brunt of an enemies attack for me.

I seek those that will advance my position, and court those that will sustain it.

Friends are allies, but allies will not always be friends.

I understand that sometimes gains cannot come before a loss.

I understand that sometimes gains might end up meaning a decline before the end hits.

Life is a gamble, you play the cards as luck is most often made by those with greatness rather than greatness coming from luck.

I use what works be it spellcraft, be it direct energy manipulation, or even rites of invocation.

I understand that limiting yourself on any level especially in terms of energy most often means an inability to act when a new situation appears.

I am both a fist and a treaty, yet each one acting as a sword which slices through my opposition.

I am of the Dark and it is that alone in which I follow.

In conclusion, it is my hope that this article has presented a good understanding about what the Dark path is and what is associated with it.