Midsummer Full Moon Walk
Gather at the park entrance, 7pm
Park on the Hwy 55 access road (police are starting to ticket cars here again)
The heat is coming on but the days are getting shorter. It’s midsummer in the great Midwest, the corn is growing, and the wildfires, the wildfires are choking the skies with haze.
We think the rain is not what it used to be, that now it’s too much or too little, floods in part of the state along with drought. But it’s always been a weather yo-yo in Minnesota. It’s just that politics out of Washington D.C. is so crazy that everything seems out of whack. Here’s a piece of Coldwater history from 49 years ago by Carolyn Lyschik of Little Falls, written October 2006.
“In 1976 after months of drought the city water developed an algae that was putrid and undrinkable by my husband who was very sick at the time. I made trips every other day to Coldwater Spring and stood in line to get the best tasting fresh water. We were so thankful for this vital resource. If it is still not polluted it should be a national treasure!”
Imagine driving into the fenced very off-limits federal research facility where classified [anti-Communist] post-World War 2 science was happening and standing/waiting in line to access this secret wonderful water source. Since she stood in line to get “the best tasting fresh water” the area around Coldwater has been developed and the flow reduced. The six-foot fencing is gone, the laboratory and buildings gone, but Coldwater still flows. It’s a national park, open to the public.
Coldwater has been flowing about 11,000-years—even under the last glacier.
Coldwater is an acknowledged Dakota sacred site. Friends of Coldwater seek to honor our 11,000-year-old landscape ancestor and the people whose dust we stand upon. So we return and return to remember the spirits that feed this sacred place.
Full moon walks have been celebrated at Coldwater Springs each month since 2000, that’s a quarter of a century of paying attention. Traditional group howl when the moon peeks out.
Sunset 9 pm (exactly the same time as last full moon)
Moonrise 9:31 pm (33-minutes earlier than last month, the days are getting shorter)
15-hours, 27-minutes of daylight (6-minutes less than last month)
Moment of the full moon: 3:37 pm
Raindrops take 8 minutes at 14.5 mph to reach Earth from 10,000 feet.
DIRECTIONS: Coldwater Springs (5601 Minnehaha Park Drive in Minneapolis) is between Minnehaha Park & Fort Snelling, just north of the Hwy 55/62 interchange. From Hwy 55/Hiawatha, turn East (toward the Mississippi) at 54th Street, take an immediate right, & drive all the way down the frontage road where you can park at the pay meters.
Gather at the cul-de-sac, which is the Coldwater Park entrance.
Free. All welcome.
Our website is
https://www.friendsofcoldwater.org
Also check out other Sports events in Circle Pines.
