Cosmos · Lunar calendar
Lunar calendar, read with care.
Phases, named full moons, eclipses and the wheel of the year, calculated to the degree, written without alarmism.
The pieces
To read in this practice
Series · 5 reads
Living by the moon: hair, garden, sleep, rituals Cut your hair, sow the garden, read your nights, set your rituals: a gentle, honest guide to syncing everyday life with the moon’s whole 29.5-day cycle. Open the series →Series · 5 reads
The lunar calendar: the 8 phases of the Moon and what they mean The lunar calendar made simple: the 29.5-day cycle, the Moon’s eight phases, and the named full moons, so you can read your own sky night after night. Open the series →The vocabulary
Words worth knowing
- Lunar phase A lunar phase is one of the shapes the Moon takes across a roughly 29.5-day cycle, as the angle between the Sun, Earth and Moon shifts.
- New moon The new moon is the phase when the Sun and Moon are aligned on the same side of Earth (in conjunction).
- Full moon The full moon is the phase when the Sun and Moon sit on opposite sides of Earth, in opposition.
- First quarter The first quarter is the waxing half-moon, seen about a week after the new moon.
- Last quarter The last quarter is the waning half-moon, seen about a week after the full moon.
- Waxing moon The waxing moon refers to the whole half of the cycle running from the new moon to the full moon.
- Waning moon The waning moon refers to the whole half of the cycle running from the full moon to the new moon.
- Eclipse An eclipse happens when a new moon or full moon falls near the lunar nodes, the two points where the Moon’s orbit crosses Earth’s path around the Sun.
- Lunar nodes The lunar nodes are the two points where the Moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic, the plane of the Sun’s apparent path.
- Black Moon Lilith Black Moon Lilith is a calculated point in the birth chart, not a body: it corresponds to the apogee of the Moon’s orbit, the spot where the Moon swings farthest from Earth.
- Eclipse season An eclipse season is the window of about thirty-five days during which the Sun travels close to a lunar node.
- Void-of-course Moon A void-of-course Moon is the stretch when the Moon, before it leaves a zodiac sign, has already made its last major aspect to the other planets.
- Lunar return A lunar return is the moment the Moon comes back to the exact position it held in the natal chart, which happens roughly every 27.3 days, the length of the sidereal month.
- Lunar gardening Lunar gardening is the practice of timing garden work, sowing, transplanting, pruning, harvesting, to the Moon’s cycle: waxing and waning phases, ascending and descending moon, sometimes the zodiac sign it is crossing.
- Ascending moon The ascending moon is the roughly thirteen-day stretch when the Moon rises a little higher in the sky each day, its declination climbing along the zodiac.
- Descending moon The descending moon is the roughly thirteen-day stretch when the Moon rises a little lower in the sky each day, its height falling along the zodiac.
- Red moon (lune rousse) The lune rousse is, in French rural tradition, the lunation that begins just after Easter, roughly between late April and late May.
- Blue moon A blue moon is, in the modern popular sense, the second full moon in a single calendar month; in the older almanac sense, the third full moon in a season that has four.