Another full moon is upon us this week, whitewashing the Butler night sky and making it challenging for stargazers. We’re also getting into the time of year when the full moon makes a higher arc across the sky as it rises at sunset and sets at sunrise.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the magic of a full moon as much as anybody, but at the same time, I get a little frustrated with how it messes up the darkness of the sky, making it challenging to find celestial treasures like distant galaxies, star clusters, and such. Even so, the full moon is good for the soul!

The full moon is a celestial jewel celebrated by all cultures throughout the ages. This week in Starwatch, I want to touch on some of the many moon mythologies from cultures worldwide. There’s no way I could cover it all. There’s just so much! But at least I want to give you a tiny sampling of some moon lore. You can try to read this column by the light of the moon, although you might need a few more lumens than that. Like Mom and Dad said, you need more light to read, or you’ll wreck your eyes!

Probably the best-known lunar mythology is from the Greeks. Artemis was the goddess of the moon, whose job was to drive a flatbed cart across the sky every night pulled by magical flying horses. On the flatbed was the moon. Her twin brother Apollo was the god of the sun, and he had the job of steering the sun across the daytime sky with his flatbed and horses. Their father was Zeus, the king of the gods.

There are many stories about Artemis, and when I feature the constellation Orion, I'll tell you the one about Artemis falling in love with the hermit hunter. It was a definite no-no for gods and goddesses to fall in love with mortals. Because of that, Zeus arranged for Orion to be killed by a giant scorpion. In similar Roman mythology, Artemis is known by her Roman name, Diana.

According to the ancient Aztec mythology from the Valley of Mexico, Coyolxauhqui was the daughter of Coatlicue, the goddess of the Earth. According to lore, Coatlicue was also the mother of four hundred or so other gods and goddesses. It’s like the story of the old woman in her shoe with all her children, multiplied several times over!

Coatlicue became heavily wrapped in corruption for reasons I don’t have time to go into, and her kids became extremely disgusted with her. Coyolxauhqui was so incensed she encouraged many of her siblings to murder their mom. They all signed on to this plan, except for Huitzilopochtli, the goddess of the sun. She was well-armed and thwarted any attempt on her mommy’s life.

When Coatlicue learned that Coyolxauhqui was the ringleader of the plots against her, she sneaked up on her moon daughter while she was napping one afternoon and cut off her head. She then flung the skull of her dead daughter into the night sky, and it became the moon. Don’t mess with this mama!

In ancient Hindu mythology, as with many other cultures, all the parts of the day and nighttime sky were controlled by one god or another. Soma was the god of the moon. Like Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, Soma rode across the night sky in a chariot pulled by four white horses.

But in the Hindu story, the moon was also seen as the storage chamber of a magic elixir that energized all the gods. As the moon wanes in its monthly cycle and becomes smaller, it’s said that the gods were depleting the potion. Somehow, as the moon waxed and became full again, the supply of the magic fluid was restored. How that happened is not exactly clear. There has to be more to this story!

Shinto, which means the way of the gods, is one of the oldest Japanese religions, if not the oldest. Tsuki-Yomi was the moon god, and his sister was Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun. Tsuki-Yomi and his sister had a distant cousin, Uke Mochi, who served as the goddess of food. Uke, as I refer to him, had it in for Tsuki.

We really don’t know why. Maybe it was jealousy. After all, Tsuki-Yomi was a much higher-ranking god than the goddess of eats. Anyway, Uke invited his cousin Tsuki for dinner one night and told him that he had prepared a very special new dish from a recipe he had just come up with. After dinner, Uke laughed in Tsuki’s face and told him that he had eaten a meal made up of gross ingredients that I can’t bring myself to share with you! Trust me on this one.

Tsuki lost it right then and there. He choked his cousin on the spot. There are definite anger issues here! His sister Amaterasu heard of her bro’s overreaction and never wanted to see him again! She had it arranged that they never be together in the sky simultaneously.

The sun, controlled by Amaterasu, would only be seen during the day, and Tsuki-Yomi, controlling the moon, would be restricted to the night shift. Though, you can see the moon during the daytime depending on where it is in its monthly cycle of phases. You can’t let reality get in the way of a neatly packaged mythology yarn!

There are many moon tales, and I’ll share more with you in a few moons. Happy moon bathing!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.