In the beginning, the Moon’s cycles were the only way to measure time. Since each New or Full Moon — collectively known as lunations — occurred in special relationship to the four corners of the year (the equinoxes and solstices), each lunation took on unique characteristics. Many of an individual New or Full Moon’s qualities emerged out of seasonal changes occurring in the natural world at that time.

Watching the transformation of the Moon, growing first from a tiny sliver to a large full disc, then shrinking all the way down to nothing, was the work of star gazers and priests of antiquity. Moon sightings helped contribute to the timing of rituals and celebrations, both in ancient pagan cultures as well as in modern religions.

Tuning in to the individual nature of each New and Full Moon is a way of resetting your internal clock to natural rather than manmade time. Manmade time is anything that relies on constructed measurements of time and includes our modern Gregorian calendar and clocks. Taking note of when sunrise and sunset occur in your local area, and noticing how these times change as the seasons shift, is a great way to acknowledge the natural passage of time via the Sun’s yearly movements. You’ll especially notice the changing length of days in relation to the equinoxes and solstices, with days and nights about equal length around the equinoxes, and extreme contrasts between night and day at each solstice.

Natural cycles and time

There are approx 29.5 days from one New Moon to the next, though for ancient cultures, it was often easier to measure time by the emergence of the crescent Moon a couple of days after the New Moon itself, or by counting the days from one Full Moon to the next. Crescent and Full Moons can be seen, whereas at the New Moon no Moon light is visible. As it is more visible, most of the Moon themes discussed are tied to the Full, rather than the New Moon.

Monthly cycles are tied to the Moon, whilst the seasons, which form the yearly cycles, are tied to the Sun. It’s the same principle, just on a larger scale. You might think of the Summer Solstice as akin to the Full Moon – where the Sun is at its peak, like the Moon is at the Full Moon. The Winter Solstice is like the New Moon, where the Sun is at its weakest, as hidden as it gets, just the way the Moon is invisible at the New Moon.

Therefore, one unit of “long” time, the year, was measured from one Summer Solstice to the next, while one unit of ‘short’ time, the month, was measured from one Full Moon to the next. An even shorter measurement of time was the day – from the beginning of dark one evening to the beginning of dark the next evening.

You may notice that these ancient measurements of time are based on repetition. An event is noted – dawn, the Full Moon or the Summer Solstice, and a unit of time is said to have passed when that event repeats. This gives three different units of time to measure varying lengths of time, based on different natural events.

In any given 12-month period — that is, the modern year — there are either 12 or 13 New Moons. The New and Full Moons that occur just before or right after the equinoxes and solstices are said to have more power. This includes any New or Full Moon that falls between:

• March 7 and April 4 (around the equinox of March 20)
• June 7 to July 4 (around the solstice of June 20)
• September 7 to October 4 (around the equinox of September 20)
• December 7 to January 4 (around the solstice of December 20)

Remember, the exact date for an equinox or solstice can vary by up to two days from one year to the next. Some years the March equinox is on the 21st, others on the 22nd. Also take into consideration the seasons of the hemisphere in which you live — the March equinox represents the autumn equinox in the southern hemisphere, but correlates to the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere.