The Moon is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun. Hidden half behind the clouds it appears beautiful, alluring and invites the lens to capture it, which I did dutifully. The Moon has been the subject of many works of art and literature and the inspiration for countless others. The contrast between the brighter highlands and darker maria create the patterns seen by different cultures as the Man in the Moon, the rabbit and the buffalo, among others. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Moon was personified as a deity or other supernatural phenomenon, and astrological views of the Moon continue to be propagated today. The Moon has a long association with insanity and irrationality; the words lunacy and loony are derived from the Latin name for the Moon, Luna. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Pliny the Elder argued that the full Moon induced insanity in susceptible individuals, believing that the brain, which is mostly water, must be affected by the Moon and its power over the tides, but the Moon's gravity is too slight to affect any single person. Even today, people insist that admissions to psychiatric hospitals, traffic accidents, homicides or suicides increase during a full Moon, although there is no scientific evidence to support such claims.
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