Sunday is April's full moon walk

The March walk saw more than 30 Wimberleyites and seven dogs join the walk

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Join your friends and their pets this Sunday (April 17) as the Wimberley Mayor's Fitness Council holds its second full moon walk of 2011. The April full moon is the Full Pink moon. Participants in the two-mile walk meet at the Wimberley Cafe on the Square at 6:30 in the evening and walk to the post office and back.

Wimberley's monthly community full moon walk, an initiative of the Mayor’s Fitness Council, started in 2009 as a way to get people into the habit of making small changes in their lives by adding a little light exercise. It has turned into a social event attracting people and their pets to meet other Wimberleyites, have some fun and get a little exercise. The March walk saw more than 30 Wimberleyites and seven dogs join the walk.

The moon walk is a non-competitive, un-timed community fitness walk, and it is part of the Mayor’s Fitness Council’s program to encourage local residents to make healthier choices to improve their overall physical well-being and to make Wimberley the fittest little town in Texas.

The origins of the idea to tie a community fitness event in Wimberley to the cycle of the moon are known only to members of the fitness council, but full moon names date back to Native American tribes in what is now the northern and eastern United States. The tribes kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. Their names were applied to the entire month in which each occurred. There was some variation in the moon names, but in general, the same ones were used throughout the Algonquin tribes from New England to Lake Superior. European settlers followed that custom and created some of their own names.

The name for April's full moon, the Full Pink moon, came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s moon include the Full Sprouting Grass moon, the Egg moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

Everyone is invited. Bring flashlights and wear light colored clothing. Pets on leashes also are invited to participate.