The Moon in the almanac

For most of history, the Moon was the part of astrology ordinary people actually used. Farmers, barbers, physicians and sailors who never cast a chart still kept an almanac on the shelf, and the page they turned to first was the Moon's: where she was, how old she was, and what she was good for that day.

This lesson walks through that old lore, and shows you how the Moon section of the Almanac here lays it out. It assumes you already know the phases and the Moon's signs from Moon signs and phases.

A word before we start. Much of what follows is tradition about health, the body, the garden and the home, given as its sources give it. Plenty of people still plan by it, and what you make of it is yours to decide. Where your health is concerned, use it alongside your doctor's advice, not in place of it. The stars incline; they do not decree.

Phase and age

The phase is the Moon's relationship with the Sun: how much of her lit face we can see. The almanacs counted it two ways.

• By phase — new, crescent, first quarter, gibbous, full, and back down through the waning half. The old rule of thumb was simple: the waxing Moon, growing in light, favours what you want to grow, begin or increase; the waning Moon, shrinking, favours what you want to end, reduce, clear away or let rest.
• By age — the number of days since the last New Moon, from 0 to about 29½. "A Moon five days old" is a slim evening crescent; "fourteen days old" is about full. Indian astrology divides the same month into thirty tithis, lunar days measured by the Moon gaining 12° on the Sun, and gives each one its own character.

The Almanac shows the phase as a picture of the Moon as she looks tonight, with her age, how much of her face is lit, and when the next New, First Quarter, Full and Last Quarter fall.

Her sign, and the body

The Moon changes sign about every two and a half days, so she gives each stretch of the month its own colour. Old almanacs printed a figure to go with it: the zodiac man, a human body with each sign ruling a part of it, from Aries at the head to Pisces at the feet.

The idea behind it, set out in Medical astrology, is that the part of the body ruled by the Moon's sign was especially sensitive while she passed through it. The best-known rule built on it is the barber-surgeon's: do not cut or operate on the part ruled by the sign the Moon is in. When the Moon was in Leo, the heart and back were left alone; in Pisces, the feet.

The Almanac's Moon panel names the sign and the body area the tradition gave it, and, with the health box ticked, what the old rules say of the day. If you time a treatment by them, agree the date with whoever is treating you, and never put off urgent care to wait for a better Moon.

The old rules for beginning things

Choosing a good moment to begin something is electional astrology, and for everyday matters the old writers put almost all the weight on the Moon. Some of their rules are still printed in almanacs today.

Avoid the void. A Moon that will make no more major aspects before she leaves her sign is void of course, and things begun then were said to come to nothing. This is the single most widely used Moon rule, ancient and modern.

Avoid the burnt way. The stretch from 15° Libra to 15° Scorpio is the Via Combusta. The electional writers kept the Moon out of it for any important beginning; William Ramesey, writing in 1653, applies it even to cutting your nails.

Waxing for growth, waning for reduction. Hair cut on a waxing Moon was said to grow back thicker and faster; cut on a waning Moon, to stay short for longer. Ramesey adds the sign: a fruitful water sign for hair you want back quickly, a barren sign like Gemini, Leo or Virgo for hair you would rather keep short.

Surgery — where the authorities disagree. This is a good place to see that the tradition is not one voice. Ramesey wants the Moon increasing in light for surgery, in a fixed sign, and not in the sign of the part. Most modern almanac writers say the opposite about the phase: operate on a waning Moon, away from the Full Moon, when swelling and bleeding were thought to be less. Both agree on avoiding the sign of the part and the void Moon. Modern hospital studies have looked for an effect of the Moon's phase on surgical outcomes and not found one.

The Almanac shows these rules as tradition, with the source of each, and when two sources disagree it says so rather than choosing for you.

Near and far: perigee and apogee

The Moon's orbit is an ellipse, so her distance changes through the month. At perigee she is closest, at about 356,000 to 370,000 km, and moves fastest across the sky; at apogee she is furthest, around 404,000 to 406,000 km, and slowest. A Full or New Moon close to perigee is popularly called a supermoon: a Full Moon then looks about 14% larger and up to 30% brighter than one at apogee, and the spring tides that follow run a little higher.

Traditional astrology made a related point through speed: a Moon "swift in motion" was a good testimony in elections, a slow Moon a weaker one. The Almanac gives the Moon's distance, whether she is near perigee or apogee, and her speed against her average.

High and low: declination and out of bounds

Besides her place in the zodiac, the Moon has a height north or south of the celestial equator, her declination. Over about 27 days she climbs to her northern limit and sinks to her southern one. Because her orbit is tilted to the Sun's path, there are years when her limits go further than the Sun ever does — beyond about 23°26'. A Moon past that line is called out of bounds, and modern astrologers read it as a Moon that acts outside the usual rules: unconventional, intense, hard to predict. Declinations and parallels covers it in depth.

The same climbing and sinking is what biodynamic gardeners call the ascending and descending Moon — more on that in the next lesson. The Almanac shows the Moon's declination, whether she is rising or falling, and flags her out of bounds when she is.

Two ways of counting the zodiac

There is one more choice to understand before reading any Moon calendar. Most Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which starts 0° Aries at the spring equinox and keeps the signs tied to the seasons. Indian astrology, and some Western astrologers, use a sidereal zodiac, tied to the stars. Because of precession, the two are now about 24° apart, nearly a whole sign: a Moon at 10° Gemini in the tropical zodiac is at about 16° Taurus in the sidereal one.

There is more than one sidereal zodiac, because people disagree on exactly where to fix the starting point. The two in widest use are the Lahiri ayanamsa, the official standard in India, and the Fagan-Bradley ayanamsa, used by Western siderealists; they differ by a little under a degree. The Almanac lets you switch the Moon's sign between tropical and sidereal, and names the system it is using.

Reading the Almanac's Moon section

Here is how the pieces fit together on the page.

• The picture shows the Moon as she looks tonight, with her phase and age underneath.
• The details open beneath it: the sign and the body area the tradition gave it, the coming phases, the void-of-course times, distance and speed, declination, and the zodiac in use.
• The tick boxes let you choose which kinds of old lore to see — health, beauty, the three systems of gardening, the home, work, fishing, rest. Tick only what interests you; the rest stays out of the way.
• "Today favours" lists what the ticked traditions say about the day. Read it as "the almanacs would have said", never as "you should".

One last thought

The Moon's almanac is the oldest and humblest form of astrology, and in some ways the most human: a way of noticing that every month has a rhythm, and of deciding to work with it rather than against it. You don't have to believe that hair grows faster on a waxing Moon to enjoy watching the month turn. Look up tonight, find her, and see whether she matches the picture.