{"id":2862,"date":"2016-06-21T05:00:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?p=2862"},"modified":"2016-06-21T10:49:29","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T17:49:29","slug":"strawberry-moon-longest-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2016\/06\/strawberry-moon-longest-fast.html","title":{"rendered":"Strawberry Moon – the longest fast"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Summer<\/a>
Summer Solstice Strawberry Moon (June 20, 2016) by nate2b on Flickr<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last night was the first full moon coincident with the summer solstice in 50 years. The last time this convergence happened was in 1967, and it won’t happen again until 2062. For comparison, Halley’s comet last arrived in 1986 and will return in 2061. Yesterday was the longest fast for the vast majority of the world’s Muslims – though our Australian m8s enjoyed the shortest fast ever. <\/p>\n

This kind of convergence is rare because it requires two totally separate geometries to line up perfectly – the earth and the sun (for the solstice) and the earth and the moon (for the full moon). Spiritually, the Moon is reflecting the light of the longest day, which means it is the mirror in which we see our longest ibadat reflected at us, and we marvel at its beauty. But it’s our beauty, after all.<\/p>\n

Related: Why a Muslim welcomes the summer solstice<\/a>, and my contribution to the moonsighting debate.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night was the first full moon coincident with the summer solstice in 50 years. The last time this convergence happened was in 1967, and it won’t happen again until 2062. For comparison, Halley’s comet last arrived in 1986 and will return in 2061. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2866,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/2866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}