Working with the Moon, Part 1
Editorial note. In astrology, the moon and sun are treated as specific astrological entities like the planets, so they get treated as proper nouns. In this post, regardless of whether I’m referring to the astrological entity or the astronomical body, I’m probably going to just consistently capitalize Moon and Sun for sanity’s sake.
If you haven’t studied astrology or you haven’t gotten far in your astrology studies, it can seem a lot more confusing than it really is. I don’t consider myself to be a professional astrologer, but I am a teacher, and I know the basics (and more) of astrology, so I’m here to help make it easier to understand. When you understand some of the basics, you’ll find it easier to apply the parts that matter to you to other areas of your life (if that’s what you want to do). In Part 2, we’ll look at some of those applications because they have been so literally important for me these past two weeks that it’s eerie.
One of the things that I always found confusing was the moon’s cycle through the astrological signs: Where will the Full Moon be in a given month? What about the New Moon? When is it the First Quarter or the Third? And why those names? Also, can we talk about eclipses? These were all questions I found myself asking, but I never thought to understand this part of the sky or astrology in any systematic way.
Yet once I understood some fundamentals in astrology (and astronomy), the moon cycle in astrology just clicked. It made so much sense. It was like one of those moments when a child learns something relatively simple that adults have taken for granted. You might be one of the adults who just sort of assume that everyone understands why you’ll never see a Full Moon setting shortly after the Sun, but I’m going to assume that I’m not alone in never having really thought about it.
Of course, you could just look it up every month, but that isn’t convenient. And truth be told, that A-ha! when it clicks is so damned satisfying! So I want to share what may seem like a basic lesson for some because it might be totally eye-opening for others.
The short version is that the Moon’s phase is related to its position in space compared to the Sun, and those positions are consistently mapped onto the zodiac (the astrological wheel in the sky, as seen from Earth). If some of this doesn’t make sense to you, you may need some astrological fundamentals, which I explain further below.
A New Moon (or Dark Moon) occurs when the Sun and Moon are conjunct (they are in the same position on the zodiacal wheel). From our perspective on Earth, the Moon is directly in front of the Sun, which is why we can’t see the Moon (its “backside” is illuminated). That’s why you can have a Solar Eclipse only during a New Moon: if the Moon is “overlapping” the Sun, it’s the New Moon. The New Moon will always be in the same sign as the Sun (e.g., you will have a New Moon in Virgo during Virgo season).
A Full Moon occurs when the Sun and Moon oppose each other (they are 180º away from each other on the zodiacal wheel). The moon only appears full when we on Earth can see it all illuminated by the sun. That means that it’s on the exact opposite side of Earth from the sun; put another way, Earth is directly between the Sun and Moon. That’s why you can have a Lunar Eclipse only during a Full Moon: if Earth is directly between the Sun and Moon, it’s a Full Moon. The Full Moon will always be in the sign that is opposite the Sun in the zodiac (e.g., you will have a Full Moon in Virgo during Pisces season).
The First and Third/Last/Final Quarter Moons occur when the Sun and Moon square each other (they are 90º away from each other on the zodiacal wheel). The moon only appears half-full when we on Earth can see half of what’s illuminated by the sun. Imagine that we’re looking at it in profile; something is in profile when it is turned 90º away from us. That means that your First and Third Quarter Moons will be in a sign with the same modality (cardinal, fixed, or mutable) as the Sun. If it’s a waxing moon (it’s growing from New Moon to Full Moon), the First Quarter Moon has a waxing square, so it’s the next sign with the same modality as the Sun sign. If it’s a waning moon (it’s shrinking from Full Moon back to New Moon), the Third Quarter Moon has a waning square, so it’s the sign with the same modality that comes just before the current Sun sign. That’s why you have a Third Quarter Moon in Scorpio when it’s Aquarius season and a First Quarter Moon in Scorpio when it’s Leo season.
Now, because the calendar is 365 days when there are only 360º in the zodiac, some signs have 31 calendar days in them while others have 30 days, and that results in weird instances when the Sun could be “in Gemini” on May 21 even though Taurus season goes from April 20 through May 21. As a result, you could have a New Moon in Gemini during Taurus season because we are delimiting seasons by days instead of more precise measurement, but actually the Sun and Moon are still in the same sign; it’s just the limitation of the calendar system that is throwing a wrench in the works. (And no, the Sun and Moon are probably not actually even near the real constellations that they’re “in” for purposes of astrology, but I’ll explain that at the very end for people who care.)
So as long as you know what sign the Sun will be in, you don’t have to double-check what sign a New/Quarter/Full Moon will be in. You can quickly figure it out on your own. Neat, huh?
If that made sense to you, then you probably don’t need what comes next, but maybe it’ll still be fun to read. And if some of that doesn’t make sense to you, you may need an introduction to or a refresher on some fundamentals of astrology, which I’ll give you below.
First things first, astrology revolves around the idea that the sky can be mapped onto a theoretical 360º wheel, the zodiac, which revolves around the Earth (having Earth at the center of things is called geocentric).
There are twelve equal sections of the wheel, each 30º, like perfectly divided pieces of pie.
The twelve sections are represented by astrological signs, which are inspired by constellations of stars.
In this model, the planets and luminaries (the Sun and Moon) are thought to revolve around the Earth (the geocentric model) and, from Earth, they appear to be in one of these twelve signs at any given time.
There are a number of reasons why this doesn’t match up with reality, which can be confusing: space is three-dimensional, but the wheel is flat; the Sun is the center of the solar system and the Earth revolves around it, not the other way around (the solar system is heliocentric, not geocentric); the constellations on which the signs are based are scattered throughout space that is not perfectly divided into twelve equal segments that nestle up perfectly next to each other in the model of the zodiac; after a couple thousand years and cosmic shifting, the signs barely overlap with even the theoretical model of where the signs were when the current Western (Tropical) astrological system was defined (Sidereal / Vedic astrology addresses that to some extent, but I don’t know much about that system). But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Astrology is largely theoretical, so it’s actually easier to understand once you learn the abstract patterns rather than try to put it into the sky.
Once you understand the zodiacal wheel, you need to know that the Sun and Moon move through the twelve signs in predictable and consistent ways, always going in the same direction at the same rate.
This is because Earth revolves around the Sun and the Moon revolves around Earth (the Moon’s orbit is geocentric, and the Sun looks like it has a geocentric orbit because it’s in direct relation with the Earth’s orbit).
This is not true for the other celestial bodies because they do not have a direct relationship with Earth, and thus they lack a consistent path in a geocentric model. That’s why the planets can appear to be “retrograde” (moving backwards), but the Sun and Moon never do. The geocentric model also explains why Mercury and Venus are never more than a few signs away from the Sun’s sign. If someone says their Venus is in Scorpio when their Sun is in Gemini, they’re lying! Venus and the Sun can never appear that far away from each other from Earth’s perspective.
The order of the signs is traditionally as follows:
Aries: Mar 21–Apr 19
Taurus: Apr 20–May 21
Gemini: May 22–Jun 20
Cancer: Jun 21–Jul 22
Leo: Jul 23–Aug 22
Virgo: Aug 23–Sep 22
Libra: Sep 23–Oct 22
Scorpio: Oct 23–Nov 21
Sagittarius: Nov 22–Dec 21
Capricorn: Dec 22–Jan 19
Aquarius: Jan 20–Feb 18
Pisces: Feb 19–Mar 20
The Sun and Moon proceed through these signs at a regular rate, with the Sun moving through all twelve signs in a year (365–66 days) and the Moon moving through all twelve signs in a lunar month (29–30 days).
If you do the math (divide by 12), you can see that the Sun would spend just over 30 days in each sign, and the Moon would spend about 2 ½ days in each sign.
If you’re curious, we start with Aries because it’s the start of the spring season in the Northern hemisphere, which is where these systems emerged, and spring is the beginning of life and thus (symbolically) of the year.
Because the zodiacal wheel is, like all circles, 360º around, and each sign is an arc of 30º, all of the main aspects of astrology are multiples of 30º, but you only need to know three for the four phases of the Moon.
Conjunct is when the two celestial bodies are in the same space on the wheel (i.e., 0º apart). The New Moon happens when the Sun is conjunct the Moon.
Opposing is when the two celestial bodies are in the opposite space on the wheel (i.e., 180º or six signs apart). The Full Moon happens when the Sun is opposing the Moon.
Squaring is when the two celestial bodies are at a right angle to each other on the wheel (i.e., 90º or three signs apart). The First Quarter Moon happens when the Sun squares the waxing Moon (it’s between 1–180º away). The Third Quarter Moon happens when the Sun squares the waning Moon (it’s between 181–359º away).
Now you may wonder whether the Moon is waxing (getting larger/heading toward Full Moon) or waning (getting smaller/heading toward New Moon). The Moon grows (and shrinks) from right to left (looking straight at it—don’t try to be the Moon) in the Northern Hemisphere and left to right in the Southern. So if you are in the US or France or Japan and see light on the far right side of the Moon (whether it’s a sliver or 90% full), it’s waxing. If you are in Canada or Egypt or Thailand and see that any part of the right side is dark, it’s waning. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t matter. You’re probably not jumping between Hemispheres often enough to care, so just memorize what matters for you.
So as long as you know in what sign the Sun is on a given day* (more below) and know the order of the zodiac signs, you can figure out where the Moon phase of interest should be.
Of course, if the phase you care about isn’t coming up right away, it’s useful to keep the moon’s cycle in mind. As I mentioned above, there are 29–30 days in a lunar month (cycle), and it moves consistently, so you know that there are 7–8 days between phases. If you count the New Moon as Day 1, then the Full Moon will be on Day 15 or 16, and the next New Moon will be on Day 30 or 31. In between, on Day 9 or so and Day 23 or so, you’ll have the First and Third Quarters, respectively. There are a lot of imprecisions in that, but you can usually get to something close enough most the time. And for the few instances when you need more precision because the Sun sign is changing or you want to do magic or something else that requires knowing the exact day of the Moon phase, then you can just look it up. But since the Sun moves just over 1º each day, and the Moon is at very specific angles ending with 0 for the Moon phases, you can get pretty close even on the degree just using these estimation tricks.
All right, if you are really new to astrology or are just not great with details about dates, you may not be sure what sign the Sun is in on a given day. You can use the list above or look it up online, but when you’re not staring at a screen, it’s possible to know as well. Start by memorizing a few signs, such as your Sun sign (also called Star sign or birth sign) by month. Signs typically go from the ~21st of one month into the ~21st of the next month, which aligns with the changing of the seasons (the equinoxes and solstices), which happens around the 21st. This “21st” estimation for the start or end of a sign is plus or minus a few days, but it’s good enough to get you the right sign 80% of the time. Once you have a few memorized by month, you can start to use the patterns of the signs to help you build an understanding of the wheel, and that will make it easier to remember. You may still sometimes have to mentally calculate it (as I do), but it takes a few seconds once you’ve learned the patterns and you have a few starting points.
There is a pattern of 3s and 4s to the order of signs: three modalities and four elements. The signs cycle through these two characteristics, so even if you can’t remember the order of all twelve signs, you can deduce it once you remember the elements (modalities help, but most people are good once they know the elements because they have some seasonal association with signs).
The signs always go in this order: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water (before starting up again with Fire ...). If you can remember your own sign’s element and the ones to either side, you can figure out this pattern.
Fire: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Earth: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
Air: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius (yes, it’s air)
Water: Cancer, Scorpio (yes, it’s water), Pisces
You can use modality to determine the order because there is an order (cardinal, fixed, and mutable), but those are less obvious to most people.
Cardinal: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn
Fixed: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius
Mutable: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces
Last, if you have no idea where to start for memorization after your birth month, start with the changing of the seasons and their signs (the cardinal signs): Aries is ruled by Mars, and it starts in late March; Cancer is ruled by the Moon, and it starts in late June (plus, it kicks off summer in the North—hello, beach crabs); Libra starts in September, which has no cute rhyme, but in the North it starts the fall season, and you don’t want Libra’s scales falling; and last, that old goat Capricorn, ruled by old man Saturn, starts in late December, which is when we say goodbye to the old year. There are plenty of mnemonics to use or make up for yourself, such as Pisces is the sign of two fish, and it starts in the second month (February), or Leo, the royal sign, includes July and August, which are the two months named after emperors. Use whatever tricks work for you.
And that’s that on using the fundamentals of astrology to figure out the phases of the Moon (plus some other basics for learning purposes). Part 2 will look at some ways to work with the Moon.