Moon & Life

Hello! I am here to tell you some things that I know about the Moon.

Formation: Theo & Earth

When our solar system was just forming, just an immense swirl of hot dust, two worlds collided. The smaller body caused a huge splash of the molten surface, throwing a ring of lava into space before sinking into and joining the larger body. That larger body is our Earth, and the space lava formed into our Moon.

At first, the Moon was very close by. It had just splashed off of Earth’s surface and took up a large part of our Sky. I read that when life first formed here, the Moon looked five times bigger than today! I can only imagine that as it formed and spun above its planet, it caused tidal waves of magma, preventing the Earth from solidifying like Venus or Mars. The Moon has kept Earth warm for billions of years.

Maybe the rotation of the Moon aligns our iron core’s ions to help create the Van Allen belts, the magnetic power that protects life here from the radiation of outer space. Maybe. OK, that’s my imagination, as far as I know it’s not even a scientific hypothesis. I like to credit the Moon with that protective power. The Moon may have kept the Earth cool, too.

The Moon has protected Earth. Each impact on its surface was an impact that might have struck Earth, but the Moon was in the way, took the hit.

Now, the Moon is a quarter million miles away. It’s inched away year after year, for 4 billion years. It’s so far now that all the other planets, even giant Jupiter, could line up between it and Earth. Now, instead of pulling on liquid rock, its gravity draws on our lakes and oceans. It pulls on all of us too – each of us is a drop of ocean water, escaped to land.

Now you may be wondering, did I happen into some kind of science lecture? I thought this was church time. Well, to me these things are related, parts of a whole. I have loved the natural world since I was very young, and science is study of the natural world. A nature-based faith is what I need. The natural world is where I feel the divine.

Water:

As ancient peoples and modern folk know, the Moon causes the tides. Our oceans and lakes slosh around, following the Moon’s circuit, just following the law of gravity. The tide creates tide pools, places where plants and animals learned to survive being exposed to air. Tide pools facilitated life escaping the oceans a billion years ago, like a practice ground for life’s expansion onto land. THe Moon is still associated with Water, and rules the water sign of Cancer in the Zodiac.

Hunter Gatherer tribes use a Lunar Calendar. The highly conservative Chinese, Hebrew and Muslim cultures also continue to use a Lunar calendar. We have evidence that the lunar calendar has been in use for over 30,000 years.

The Lunar calendar gives a people a rough idea of the seasons and allows distant peoples to plan their trade and festival gatherings. Yes, tribal peoples gathered seasonally to common locations, in order to trade goods and probably DNA. You know, for the health of the next generation! There’s strong evidence that Pinson Mounds near Jackson, TN was such a place, a gathering site for tribes all over to meet and trade – the Mounds were built to track the seasons, but no housing was built there. There have been jewels mined in Mexico found as far north as Nova Scotia, having travelled thousands of miles thru ancient, pre-European trade rouths.

Oh, back to the Moon.

Lunar calendars get names of natural events common to each tribe’s location, names like: Oak, Beaver, Snow, Strawberry, Heat. The author William Least Heat-Moon is a First Nation American, the youngest son born to a man who was born in the hottest part of Summer, the Heat-Moon. Let me say again: each tribe had their own names for the 13 Moons of the year. There was never just one system, not like our modern, standard Gregorian calendar. Each tribe, maybe 200 people each, named the Moons by what was going on where they were. The Lunar calendar is local and immediate, it reflects the place where you live. People with different jobs used different calendars – a farmer needed a solar-lunar calendar, while a soldier used whatever calendar their general used.

You can invent your own, personal or family Lunar calendar. Watch for what happens in and around your home each season. Maybe you would have Hummingird Moon, Rose Moon, Tomato Moon, Falling Leaves Moon. Or maybe Soccer Moon, Beach Vacation Moon, Birthday Moon. Now I have intrigued myself and want to come up with my own lunar calendar system.

Lunar Phases

FULL: Most people’s favorite Moon phase is the Full Moon. THat includes Hollywood – it’s rare to see a movie that shows the Moon in any other phase!

So at the Full Moon, there are three days with a LOT of light. The reason why is: the Full Moon rises at sunset and sets at dawn. Sun goes down & the sky is still bright! The Moon and the Sun are on either side of Earth, almost like a see-saw. Hold your arms out wide! If the Sun (or a flashlight?) was your right hand, your head would be Earth and your left hand the Moon. This is when lunar eclipses can happen.

The FUll Moon is a natural time for revelry, staying up late for deep conversations, artistry, inspiration and creativity, dance parties, and making babies. Women who live under the sky – we call them “hunter-gatherers” – ovulate at the Full Moon. (This doesn’t work for those of us who live in buildings.) The Full Moon is when people want to gather! This is when insomnia makes sense. Your body’s ancient knowledge says you should be up and visiting with friends and doing things. If you want a party to go well, plan it for the days around the Full Moon.

This is also a time for BIG projects, things like planting your fields, writing a paper, building your new raised garden bed, rearranging your house so you can paint. It’s a natural time to be busy.

Moon Water: THe Full Moon energy can be captured in water. Just set a clear glass bottle of water out in the evening as the Full Moon rises, and bring it in at sunrise. Drinking Full Moon water when you feel tired or ill can soothe you with some lunar energy. It can also be used in spells and rituals. I like to use it to water my houseplants.

I once set out the same bottle under 13 Full Moons in a row, and gifted that to a witch friend of mine. It was like All Purpose Moon Water! It had the energy of all the Zodiac and all the Moons.

Divination at the Full Moon should be an extraverted affair. Many Full Moon circles will read together, tarot, bones, pendulum, et cetera, getting a glimpse of the next month’s fortunes.

The Moon is full about three nights in a row, but I DO NOT recommend trying to stay up for this entire time. Please understand this. Rest is necessary and good. Just understand that if you need to decide on a time to Get Things Done, the next Full Moon might give you the boost you need.

GIBBOUS: Before and after the Full Moon is the Gibbous Moon. Gibbous is when the Moon is kind of egg-shaped.

Before the Full Moon, when the moonlight is waxing, this is a time of growth and preparation. The Moon is already up at sunset, lengthening your evenings with its illumination. I feel the most optimistic in this phase, feeling energy growing and happy times ahead.

After the Full Moon, when the moonlight is waning or shrinking, this is a time to wrap things up, clean up, finish what you started the week before, review what’s been accomplished. You’re probably tired from the exhilaration of the FUll Moon. The waning Moon cycles are a quieter time. You won’t have the Waning Gibbous Moon in the evening, it will be up before dawn. It lets you get an early start on your day. Rising early has a more private feeling to me, when I need to focus on what I need to do on my own.

QUARTER: this name is confusing because you see HALF of the Moon. It’s just that the Moon is a quarter of the way from the Sun, 90 degrees square to the Sun, from where we are.
This can be a contentious time. Be careful with projects or feelings during the quarter Moon, because square angles are difficult to manage. Square angles are large enough to be cumbersome and small enough to be useful – almost all our buildings use square angles. But think of sitting at a stop light, or at a square table facing someone with two people sitting at 90 degrees from you facing each other, and how AWKWARD conversations are. You end up twisting to talk to the person closer to you but then feel like you’re ignoring the other folks, or having to take turns talking to the person across from you.

If you find yourself irritable, DO SOMETHING ROUTINE. Irritation is unusued energy burst, meant to get you up and doing things. Same is often true of anxiety, it comes from feeling you need to do something but cannot. So, do something ELSE. Use up that energy so it doesn’t burn you from the inside.

CRESCENT: This feels the most magical to me, as the crescent Moon is always near the Sun. So you’ll see the waxing crescent in the evening sky, often celebrated as the beginning of a lunar month. That is also the Hunter’s Moon, because animals that have just rested up during the dark Moon come out in the evening to browse in the light of the new cresent. This is a good time to clean your altar, with fresh intents for the coming lunar cycle.

We see the waning crescent just before sunrise. This is a time to enjoy your moods, your dreams, to reflect, muse, wonder, and I’ll say it again: DREAM. The waning crescent comes just before the dark of the Moon.

DARK: the end of a lunar month is the most introverted, quiet and contemplative Moon phase. The Moon is on the same side as the Sun – this is when solar eclipses can occur if the Moon happens to pass right in front of the Sun. This is the best time to star-gaze, to rest up, enjoy quiet time. Divination at the Dark Moon should be personal, and while you can talk to your ancestors any time – they are always near you – this is an especially good time. They have a;ready returned to the dark, to the beginning, to the “chaos”.

So there’s the phases of the Moon. Some more interesting facts (I’m a Gemini – interesting facts are my life!!)

Island cultures like the Japanese see the Moon as masculine and the Sun as feminine. They associate the Sun with the constancy of women’s lives, while the men hunt and fish according to the Moon’s phases.

Continental cultures usually see the Moon as feminine and the Sun as masculine. (That includes the British, a culture made up of continental Germans, Romans and French). I don’t know why it’s different than island peoples.

Lunacy: the Romans believed that lunacy was caused by falling asleep with the full Moon shining over your left shoulder. They LOVED coming up with these kinds of associations.

Lunar landing: I was just 6 weeks old when NASA sent three fellows up to visit the Moon for the first time. The flag they planted has bleached white now, which I think is appropriate. Now there are plans to build enormous telescopes on the far side of the Moon, and Elon Musk has probably laid claim to his own acres up there.

One thing that may surprise you is that the Moon is about the color of asphalt. It only reflects about 7% of sunlight. Think of what a road looks like on a bright summer day, and that is about what the Moon’s surface would look like if you were there. The Moon doesn’t have clouds, so it’s getting more sunlight than your road, but that gives you and idea. Against the deep darkness of the night sky, the Moon looks bright white. So if humans build things up there and those things are lighter than your road, it will make a difference in how bright the Moon looks.

Even in our modern, artificial lives, the Moon affects us. WE are mostly water, and in each of us are tiny tides following the Moon’s cycles. Getting familiar with the Moon will teach you more about yourself.