Eclipsed Rusk Moon Triggers Prophetic Speculation

By James Donahue

The full eclipse of the Moon during the early morning hours of December 21, the Winter Solstice, excited astrologers, esoteric groups and Christians, all looking for a sign from the Heavens that a power greater than ourselves is about to do something to save us from ourselves.

Indeed, the signs in the Heavens were unusually crisp and the fact that it was all happening at the same time, on the day the Mother Earth reached its extreme tilt and causing the people in the Northern Hemisphere to experience the shortest day of the year, appears to be more than coincidental.

Not only was it a full Moon on December 21, but the full eclipse, caused by the Earth passing directly between the Sun and the Moon, was observed all across North America. Unfortunately severe winter storms ravaging California and the Southwestern United States, plus winter storms striking the Northeast and lake effect snows sweeping the Great Lakes area prevented many Americans from enjoying the show.

Those lucky enough to have had clear skies during the early morning hours when the Moon passed into full eclipse, however, were treated to a spectacular sight. Instead of blacking out, as one might have expected, the eclipsed Moon dimmed to a rusty red, casting an ominous image upon all who gazed up at it.

This was clearly stuff of legend and ancient prophetic warnings. It was the kind of thing that got a lot of people excited as people worry about an ominous increase in troublesome world events. A lot of groups may have taken it as a sign that someone . . . a “savior god,” a benevolent alien race or some other great force outside of ourselves . . . is about to descend from the sky and make everything better.

Many readers of this site may have participated in the world-wide “initiation” of the Children of the Sun, a group that is collectively calling upon the ancient forces to awaken humanity to the light within. They saw this spectacular ecliptic event as a sign that the time of awakening was here.

Christian believers who are looking for a return of Christ undoubtedly turned to prophetic Bible verses to justify their conviction that the “end times” are upon us all. Acts 2:20 reads: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord.”

Then in the Book of the Revelation, during the opening of the seals, we read in Rev. 6:12: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sack-cloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.”

Indeed, in the midst of a lunar eclipse, the reflection of the Moon is nearly blotted out causing the darkness on Earth to appear even more intense. And, of course, a lunar eclipse can only be observed at night, while the Sun is on the exact opposite side of the planet.

Why does the Moon turn a reddish color during a full eclipse? This is because light from the Sun is reflecting around the rim of the Earth, filling the surface of the Moon with that eerie coppery glow. Some scientists were studying the shades of color on the Moon during the eclipse to get information as to just how much dust and volcanic ash presently exists in the atmosphere around the planet.

It is that dust and ash in the atmosphere that causes both the Moon and the Sun to appear red as they break over the horizon at both Moonrise and Sunrise. On some mornings the sunrise appears extremely red, that can be an indication of an atmospheric disturbance over the horizon. There is an old saying among sailors at sea that goes: “Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning!”

It is somewhat shocking that even the Sixteenth Century French prophet Nostradamus weighs in when it comes to predicting a “rusty color” lunar eclipse at some future moment of world crisis. In Quatrain 1:84 he wrote:

“The moon is obscured in deep shadows, Her brother passes with a rusty color: The great one hidden for a long time in eclipses. Iron will cool in the bloody wound.”

As is so typical with the works of Nostradamus, the verses contain such vague reference that it is impossible to be sure what the prophet was seeing or the timeline behind the event.

Edgar Leoni, who claims to be a student of Nostradamus, suggests that the verse refers to a lunar eclipse. While the Moon is “obscured” by the shadow of the Earth, “Her brother” the Sun “passes with a rusty color” that is reflected by the surface of the Moon.

Leoni writes that the words “the great one” when examined via a coding system used by Nostradamus is a reference to something global or “pertaining to the Earth itself.” That the word cache, or cover appears in the verse line suggests that the event speaks of the Earth’s ozone layer. Based on the effect the particles in the atmosphere have on the light getting past the Earth and reflecting on the eclipsed Moon, we suggest that the reference may not have been any more than this.

The final line, “Iron will cool in the bloody wound,” is perhaps the most puzzling part of the quatrain. Leoni translates the word iron to mean “blade,” and when coded, he finds reference in cooling to refer to the dramatic weather changes and breaking up of the northern ice. The words bloody and wound are Old English terms referring to severe events. Thus the quatrain speaks of intense weather events occurring at about the time of the rust colored moon.

The Native Americans also have lore linked to a blood red moon. The late Hopi Snake Priest Dan Evehema once spoke of the signs of the Great Day of Purification as “a Mystery Egg in which the forces of the Swastika and the Sun plus a third force symbolized by the color red culminate either in total rebirth or total annihilation, we don’t know which. But the choice is yours; war and natural catastrophe may be involved.”

Evehema also prophesied this shockingly accurate description of current events:  “The degree of violence will be determined by the degree of inequity caused among the peoples of the world and in the balance of nature. In this crisis rich and poor will be forced to struggle as equals in order to survive.”

It was Chief Evehema who spoke of the “gourd full of ashes,” which many believe is a reference to the atomic bomb. He said this gourd, “if dropped from the sky, would boil the oceans and burn and land causing nothing to grow for many years. Once this thing is invented, he said it was time for the Hopi to warn the world of a looming end to all life “unless people correct themselves and their leaders in time.”

Another interesting prophetic message published by Karuk and Seneca native Bobby Lake-Thom, under the name Medicine Grizzly Bear in 2006 spoke of world-wide catastrophe after “the moon will turn completely red with blood.”

He said this was an omen that thousands of natives would be killed in a major earthquake “somewhere in Central America or Mexico.” This would be followed by more quake activity along the West Coast and “various Midwest states where earthquakes are not common. He said major earthquakes would be experienced in Europe, China and Russia.  

Lake-Thom also spoke of flooding in the northwestern and northeastern parts of the United States, an increase in the number of hurricanes and tornadoes.

In addition to this “various mountains will erupt and trigger off a chain of reaction of volcanic eruptions in the Pacific Islands.” There will be a worldwide change in weather patterns, an increase in pestilence and disease, and a “sudden appearance of solar explosions and activity on the sun.

He said along with all of this, there would be “a sudden increase in intercontinental religious conflict and wars over religious differences, land rights and political competition for religious dominance.”

We are thinking the visions of the old medicine men may have been more accurate than we might like to admit.