How Light Moves Across the Moon's FACE -- creating the PHASES

There are two things that change as the moon takes her path around us each month: her shape, and her position in the sky. Changes in her shape result in the phases, a pattern of change that is constant.

Notice that in the Northern Hemisphere the light, and the darkness, move across the moon from the right to the left, creating the changes in phase. 


In the Southern Hemisphere, the moon looks upside down (to us Northerners), and the pattern of light and darkness push in from the left side, moving to the right.

To help your reproductive system migrate naturally (effortlessly, basically) to the pattern established by our ancestral Grandmothers, it helps to begin to observe the full moon, which is the moon for ovulation. The moon is as full of light as she can get; after this, the light declines, pushed out by darkness. The full moon rises at sunset. If you begin to watch every night from the full moon, you will see the moon wane (lose light) in the subsequent nights. 


The  "lunar day” is 24 hours plus 50 minutes, so every day the moon rises over the horizon nearly an hour later than the day before; take that into account as you observe the moon wane. 

The new moon, two weeks later, is the moon for menstruation. The moon has no light of her own; she reflects light from the Sun. During the new moon phase, the staggered rising time of the moon has advanced several hours, to the degree that she is now rising WITH the Sun. She is between Earth and Sun, during the day. The light of the sun is shining on the 'dark side' of the moon - the side that faces away from us, shown in this photo by Bill Frymire. That's why she is not visible in the sky at night (nor during the day), during the 'no moon' - the New Moon.

ALL eclipses of the Sun take place during the New Moon phase. But we don't see them every month, because It is only occasionally that the angle of the moon in her elliptic is such that she blocks the Sun from our view here on Earth.

The line that separates light from darkness is called the "Terminator". Below, the Terminator is seen moving across the moon's face, in this demonstration from the US Naval Observatory. This is a time-lapse of a complete lunation -- all the phases in the moon's cycle (Northern Hemisphere view).
   

The movement of the Terminator delineates the changing balance of light and darkness that gives us the complete pattern of phases.

These can be simplified to the eight main phases: 

And from there, further reduced to the four phases most often seen in calendars: 

People often get confused by the names of these phases. It doesn't seem sensible that the phase following the Full Moon is the "Last" Quarter. This confusion is easily cleared by realizing that astronomers have always reckoned the phases as beginning at the New Moon: 

There! Does that make better sense now?

Of these, the two that represent the 'opposite poles' of ovulation and menstruation are what I call the 'pivot': the full moon to the new moon, and back again (I simply added Moon Phases to this illustration from Menstrupedia).  It's basically Rinse and Repeat. 

And I don't say Rinse and Repeat lightly, because bathing was, and continues to be, an element that follows naturally upon the ending of the menstrual period. 

We may not do it ceremonially so much now, but it is still a ritual we observe, one that is necessary for obvious reasons.

Water is our friend during the experience, as well. Hot water is the helper supreme, for cramping. Total immersion, if you can get it; if not, then a hot water bottle on the lower back.

We Are Water

I leave you with this quote, although I can't recall its source, 20 years on. I'll be hunting that citation now. 

May your medicine always be kept effective!

Good night, Moon