The lunar cycle we’ve been working with covers the Moon’s eight phases. But these phases are not simply defined by the amount of light waxing and waning as the Moon moves through the cycle. Scientifically, we know that the Moon moves around the Earth, and reflects the Sun’s light according to the angles between the three bodies. New Moon occurs when the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, First Quarter occurs when the Moon is at 90 degrees after the Sun beside the Earth. Full Moon occurs when the Moon is behind the Earth opposite the Sun, and Last Quarter occurs when the Moon is 90� before the Sun in the morning sky, again beside the Earth.

The intermediate stages are harder to define explicitly, as they represent a gradual shift between intermediate signs on the way toward the peak points of New, Full, and First and Last Quarter Moons. Because of the way the Moon moves about 5 degrees per day, the peak points last for about 3 days energetically, as the old Moon’s energy wanes into its exact New point and then slowly waxes into first Crescent. (You typically can’t see that first crescent in the sky for about a day after New Moon, as it is too close in the sky to the Sun at sunset to discern most of the time.) The same thing holds for the waning Moon, with the last day’s crescent lost in the glare of the rising Sun. The three days around Full Moon are harder to see physically, except that the waning and waxing Moon looks full pretty much through all three days. (And anyone sensitive to Lunar energies can feel it.)

Each ‘moonth’ the cycle repeats, the roughly 28 days from New to Full to New Moons. Many of our previous cultures had a calendar that preserved this cycle, and the Jewish calendar still does, as does the Islamic calendar. (In the latter, the beginning of the month is determined just as the very slightest crescent appears on the horizon after sunset, something that can only be regularly observed against a flat horizon.) Even the Christian calendar that most Westerners live under continue this Lunar orientation, at least in part: the celebration of Easter in the Catholic and Protestant churches is timed to the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox. It was various arguments over when to explicitly time Easter that caused many early fights and splits between the factions of the early Church, including between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. All of these were intended to draw pagans away from their traditional celebration of the Spring Equinox, and dissociate them from the energy flows that exist between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Even our months in the Christian calendar are such random numbers of days to ensure moving us away from the Goddess’ 13-Moon ‘moonth’ to a more chaotic 12 month calendar that obstensibly celebrates the 12 Apostles. (Remember that nothing was ever done for only one purpose by the early Church. They were in a very intense competition with other pagan religions, many of which had far more dedicated followers, such as that of Isis.)

The Moon’s cycle has been associated with Goddesses and women in most early cultures for an obvious reason: the lunar cycle is a fairly good match for a woman’s menstrual cycle, as well as pregnancies, which are approximately 10 moons. This helped women in timing births and learning the mysteries of fertility, possibly long before anyone realized men’s contributions to the process. But in reality, it is an interaction and interplay between the Moon and Sun that provides the greatest interest, because the seasons of the year clearly change as the Moon’s cycles interlock with the Sun’s yearly cycle, and most ancient cultures were well aware of this effect. (It is one of the reasons that the Greeks, a relatively late culture, paired the Moon—Artemis—with the Sun—Apollo—as twins, neither one ‘greater than the other’ but both interacting with each other on many levels.

The Sun has traditionally been seen as male in most cultures (there are obvious exceptions and reversals), with it’s yearly cycle associated with birth of the Sun at Winter Solstice, new growth at Spring Equinox, burgeoning harvest at Summer Solstice, and the death of the old God at Fall Equinox and the falling away of the year towards Winter again. (Remember that many of these cultures developed in the Northern hemisphere, and may be substantially different for Southern hemisphere cultures. But, then, we don’t know a tremendous amount about the ancient Inca and their preceding cultures, the ancestral Polynesians, ancient African culture, or the roots of the Australian aboriginal cultures.) And just as with the Moon, the quarter points between the Solstices and Equinoxes are of significance; in the Celtic culture these were the so-called ‘Fire Festivals’ that were often considered of greater power and significance than the actual Solstices and Equinoxes. The only real difference was that the Solar points of greatest significance corresponded to the 135 degree point (Beltane) and its opposite, 315 degree point (Sahmain), rather than the 225 degree point, which corresponds to Lughnassadh, the first Harvest. (The 45 degree point is Imbolc, which pairs well with Lughnassadh, as the year’s ‘quickening’ points.)

Going back to angles made between the Sun, the Moon, and Earth, we can use the energies of the Western tradition to help us amplify our understanding of the ways the cycles of Goddess and God interlock, and learn how to work with and balance both. Western astrology is based on the apparent movement of the Sun against the background of the constellations in the sky over the course of the year. There used to be 13 of them, rather than the 12 we currently know, but we’ve invested so much energy in our current system that it’s probably easier for us to work with at present. My first, formal astrology teacher described the interactions between the planets and the Zodiacal constellations with a very effective metaphor: the planets are the ‘teachers’ and the signs are the ‘lessons.’ So if you know a little bit about the ways the planets are described (what they teach) and the ways the signs manifest (what their lessons are), you can greatly extend your practice of Lunar meditations into union with the Solar, the interactions with Goddess and God throughout their cycles.

Take the first sign, Aries, which begins on the Spring Equinox. At some point, as the Sun (the God) moves through the 30’s of the sign, the Moon (the Goddess) will come into alignment with it, and New Moon will occur. The Sun’s lesson is that of ‘ego,’ of expressing one’s essential nature out in the light of day. As with Apollo, who was originally a Solar hunter whose rays represented his arrows in the hunt, but became associated with logic, science, ‘reality,’ and an Ideal philosophy espoused by the Greek Platonists, so our Sun has also become associated with our ‘public’ face, logic, science, and normal, everyday reality.

Artemis, whom the Classical Greeks both feared and repressed, was originally Apollo’s absolute equal, the chaotic ‘illogic’ paired with his ‘logical’ order. Indeed, one of the earliest myths has Artemis born first so that she could assist her mother, Leto, with giving birth to her brother. (Shades of memories of the earlier, Lunar Goddess religion in Europe!) It helps explain why Artemis is a ‘birth goddess,’ one of the major Goddesses Greek (and later Roman) women called upon to help them through the pain and fear of childbirth. She was considered shadowy, and apart from society, retaining her wild, ‘Huntress’ aspect derived from the ‘Lady of the Beasts’ Goddess of the older Goddess-worshipping cultures of Europe.

As the Moon, Artemis’ rays (also symbolized as arrows) bring light into the night, and guide us through the shadowy underworld that psychologists call the unconscious mind. The Moon also has come to symbolize the Feminine, in general, as well as our emotions, needs, and hidden agendas. Because the light waxes and wanes, the Moon’s effects are considered to be fluctuating, chaotic, and unpredictable, but ever-present, because we tend not to pay attention or express our inner world except through unconscious actions and situations where we feel safe with close family or friends.

But everyone has both aspects (teachers) within them, and most religious systems were strongly concerned with brining the energies of the two into balance within oneself, including Druidry. A reason for this is quite apparent in our current culture: if you don’t bring your own Sun and Moon into balance within yourself, you tend to project your denied side outward onto others, seeking your ‘perfect mate’ to fill the gaping hole you feel within yourself. This effect is one of the major reasons why so many relationships disintegrate—the partners are expecting each other to fully fill in their missing needs and drives, and no one can possibly do so, except yourself. Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, in their extremely patriarchal, anti-woman focus has dispensed with the idea of balancing your inner feminine (or masculine), with predictable results. We have probably all experienced them at some time during our lives.

The sign of Aries, our lesson of the New Moon, concerns new birth, new projects, creativity in general, planting the seeds of the future harvest (whether literal or metaphorical), energy in general, abrupt action, excessive energy and force being used to achieve one’s end, and aggression. When you consider that for many Northern hemisphere culture, the timing of Aries represents the burst of returning warmth, growth, and fertility after the cold of winter, and the tendency for winter to randomly return at awkward moments, you can get a sense of the kinds of lessons Aries teaches.

So, New Moon in Aries unites the Sun’s outward-flowing force with the Moon’s inward-drawing energy to highlight the energy of each process in balance, symbolized in Asian cultures by the Yin/Yang symbol, and in ours by double spirals, Greek keys, and other two-fold energetic symbols. So out in the world, you are presenting a new face to the world, beginning to dress for the warmth of Spring (even on days when winter reasserts itself), and feeling an aggressive need to get out and about. Similarly, the Moon draws us into thinking and planning tasks for the new year, such as what to plant for summer and fall harvests, projects that we want to manifest, and also echoes the Sun’s need to experience the warmth that arises after Winter, and get one’s hands into the warming soil. (The Moon’s expression is often sensual as well as emotional.) But the potential downsides can also manifest, with wearing too little for an extremely cold or wet day, ending up with a cold or the flu, which tend to be heightened at this point because people are getting out and congregating again.

Full Moon usually occurs with the Sun still in Aries, teaching its lesson of action and creation, but with the Moon opposite it in the balancing sign of Libra. Used carefully, the energy of this lunar point can be used to provide behind-the-scenes support, plans, or stability for the ideas and plans one started at New Moon, so that they may be sustained throughout the rest of the year. For example, at New Moon, one may impulsively buy bright packets of seeds for flowers and vegetables with great ideas for summer flowers and fall harvest, but if one doesn’t use the Full Moon energy to plan how to lay out and plant one’s gardens (Libra’s aesthetics at play), harmonizing heights, colors, and sunny locations (Libra’s aesthetics and sense of balance), and make the Lunar effort to start baby plants indoors while it’s still too cold outside to plant them, you may end up with packets of seeds sitting in your garage until next year! Or you may experience this point as complete indecision about whether to plant flowers for beauty or vegetables for energy, or indecision over the course of the creative process you’ve begun—one of Libra’s negative lessons concerns indecision and wavering between competing desires.

The 90 degrees and 210 degree points (First and Last Quarter) are when the Moon is in the signs halfway between Aries and Libra on both sides, e.g., Cancer and Capricorn, both of which are strongly concerned with tradition and the family, but from different perspectives. First Quarter in Cancer represents a time of emotional enthusiasm, nurturance, and sensual indulgence, particularly in the family, possibly enjoying the first fresh foods available after Winter. It may be a time of nurturing your thoughts about what to plant, or how you feel about your creation that you started at New Moon, so that it can be sustained over the long run. Last Quarter in Capricorn is all about control, structure, and consolidation into form, hopefully taking the balanced ideas you developed at Full Moon, and moving them towards detailed plans that can be actualized when New Moon occurs in Taurus. In astrology, both of these points are referred to as ‘squares,’ as they represent one-quarter of a circle, and are considered points of tension in the energy flow between its beginning (New Moon) and its opposition (Full Moon), with the 90 degree point moving towards opposition (waxing), and the 210 degree point moving away from opposition (waning). So while these may not be ‘crisis’ points for you in any particular ‘moonth,’ be aware that sources of stress or obstacles may turn up around this time in the cycle, which lets you be prepared for them!