Full moon
A full moon rising often looks enormous near the horizon and smaller once it climbs, though its size never changes. Beside rooftops and trees it seems bigger, a good prompt to ask what you measure your own days against.
What it may mean
Few sights fool the eye as well as a full moon coming up over the rooftops. It looks huge, almost within reach, and an hour later, high in the sky, it seems to have shrunk. It has not: a pencil eraser held at arm's length covers it in both places. One common explanation is that near the horizon the brain sizes the moon against trees, houses and hills, while in the open sky it has nothing to compare it with. What stands beside a thing changes how big it looks. A raise can look small next to a friend's news, a slow weekend dull beside someone's vacation photos. Neither has changed size; only the company has. Swap what you hold your days up against, and the same week can look quite different.
Depending on how you saw it
A full moon on a snowy night
Snow and a full moon together can make a winter night bright enough to walk without a flashlight, with clear shadows on the ground. The dark is not as total as it seemed from indoors. Which part of a hard season turns out to hold more light once you are out in it?
Moonlight through the curtains
Bright moonlight through a gap in the curtains can wake a light sleeper in the small hours. The house looks different then, silver and still. How might you spend one wide-awake hour if you stopped fighting it?
Walking under a full moon
On the brightest nights of the month, a familiar street or field turns silver and strange, colors drained away and shadows sharp. Night walking makes the ordinary unfamiliar for an hour. When did you last see your own neighborhood with new eyes?
Why it happens in nature
The moon is full when Earth lies roughly between it and the sun, about once every 29.5 days, so its whole sunlit face points toward us and it rises around sunset. Near the horizon it looks bigger than overhead, but that is a trick of perception; a camera records the same size in both places. Low down, its light also passes through more air, which can tint it orange.
What folk beliefs say
Greece
In Greece it was unlucky to sow or graft when the moon was full.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 961. View the page
Sweden
In Sweden, new moon or full moon was reckoned the most auspicious time to begin any business.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 962. View the page
Ireland (Inishbofin)
On the island of Inishbofin it was thought most unlucky for a young girl to be out of doors at the full of the moon.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 958. View the page
To reflect on
What have you been measuring your days against lately, and is it a fair comparison?