The mind is a prickly beast.

It disbelieves almost everything the heart believes. It takes the heart to task for being foolish. It demands that we ignore feelings in favor of facts.

To a large extent, this is a good thing. We can’t run around willy-nilly to the whims of a red, thumping reactionary like the heart. Much wiser to follow the gray, humming pragmatism of the brain.

At least that’s what I tell myself. I usually give my mind the reasoning it requires: asking questions, gathering information, making unsentimental decisions.

Then how do I explain that since I was a girl, I’ve believed in one thing beyond all practical reason: the moon.

All my life I’ve felt drawn to it, especially when it’s full, in an inexplicable, ancient kind of way I can’t explain. I’ve howled at it, skinny-dipped under it, written poems for it. Whenever I’ve come upon a full moon unexpectedly, say while taking out the trash or waking up in the middle of the night to find it shining through my bedroom window, the sheer sight of it has rendered me unreasonably happy.

I like to tell myself I’m immune to the wax and wane of romance, but I challenge anyone to not feel “in love” when a full moon is out. In love with the dog you’re walking, in love with the person standing next to you, in love with the shadow of yourself the moon is casting to the ground. In love with life.

I can be a cynic every day of the month but when the full moon comes, I’m a woman in love. Doesn’t matter whether I’m alone or with someone, watching the milky-white moon traverse the night sky is like having confetti of all colors showered across my heart.

A full moon is a free pass to beauty and inspiration, like having Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” hanging over your backyard or Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” sounding a celestial symphony.

A full moon is a direct flight to romance, especially if you live in Southwest Florida, where the senses are under constant inundation. It takes little more than the ocean’s sensual embrace or the sexy red hues of the setting sun to cause you to abandon reason for romance.

And though I find skilled conversation – the artful, enigmatic exchange of brainpower – to be the ultimate seduction, there’s nothing more visually romantic than a full moon snuggling over the sultry Sarasota sky.

They say the moon rules our planet’s ocean tides, that it transforms men into werewolves, that you can plant by the moon, harvest by the moon, even walk on the moon.

All I know is that with the world going crazier by the minute, the moon illuminates my heart — and I believe in how it makes me feel.

Tonight’s full moon, if you’re reading this on October 14, is a Full Hunter’s Moon.

Make sure you go outside. Make sure you look up. If nature is kind, the clouds will be few. Take a minute to marvel at its magnificence. Smile at its rising. Imagine its long night ahead of sprinkling moonlit magic on all the would-be lovers of the world.

Let its lovely luminescence trick your mind into understanding what your heart already knows:

That reason is to the mind what love is to the heart. And unless we want to end up living on the dark side of a half moon, we’ve got to have the light of both to make us whole.