PORTALS OF THE SEASONS:
A CELTIC WHEEL OF THE YEAR
by Tira Brandon-Evans

excerpt ~~

THE MOON

The moon is the Little Sun, the great luminary of the night sky. Unlike the unchanging sun, the moon waxes and wanes. Sometimes she may even be seen during the day. At others, she disappears entirely from the night. All of this makes the moon much more mysterious than the sun. Yet, if one observes closely and keeps careful count, the waxing and waning cycle is quite regular. Because we fail to look, we seldom see the tiny sliver of the new moon's crescent. In ancient times, the new crescent signaled the beginning of a new month. From one new moon to the next is 29.53 days. The actual sighting of the new moon may vary, however, from 28 to 30 days depending on weather and atmospheric conditions.

Among our ancestors, it was the custom to salute the new moon. This honoring of the new moon was common among many peoples not just the Celts. Many surviving invocations of the new moon in the Carmina Gadelica clearly indicate that this custom survived into the 20th century. There are also many superstitions concerning the new moon. To see the new moon with empty pockets is bad luck for it means that you will be poor all month. If you have silver in your pocket when you first see the new moon, you will prosper all the month but if you have only copper in your pocket, you will not. Various forms of divination are practiced at the new moon, the most popular is praying for a dream to see one's future spouse. Many people believe it is unlucky to first see the new moon through glass.

There is much controversy today as to whether or not the cross-quarter days should be celebrated on the dates now assigned them or at the first full moon or new moon following the previous equinox or solstice. For convenience sake, it is probably best to continue celebrating the cross-quarters on the modern dates but traditionally they were celebrated according to the moon. Among mainstream religions today many of the holy days are calculated with regards to the new or full moon. Among Moslems, Ramadan coincides with the first new moon after the Autumnal Equinox. In the Church of England, Easter is the first full moon after the March 21, the traditional date of the Spring Equinox.

We originally based our calendars on the moon and her phases. The earliest records of the waxing and waning moon date from cave art executed around 35,000 BCE. Beginning about 15,000 BCE, Neolithic astronomers inscribed amazingly exact lunar calendars on mammoth tusks. These carvings from Gontizi in the Ukraine are clearly and precisely marked to indicate full and dark moons. Our ancestors of the dawn times were careful observers of the moon and her many faces. One of the things they observed was that the solar year and the lunar year do not exactly correspond. There are approximately 365 days to a solar year but there are approximately 29.5 between one new moon and the next. This means that there are only 348 days in a lunar year of 12 months which leaves approximately 17 intercalary days between the lunar and solar years. This was a knotty problem for the ancient folks. In only two years time the lunar calendar is over a month out of step with the solar calendar. To combine the two timekeeping methods is very difficult. Today we do not even attempt it and stick entirely to the solar calendar. Our ancestors of the dawn times, however, seem to have devised various methods of combining the two. Many megalithic monuments throughout the world are aligned to the sunrises and sunsets of the equinoxes and solstices and to moonrises and moonsets on the quarter days.

The last full moon of the 20th Century fell upon the Winter Solstice. Because the moon and sun are out of synch, this will not occur again for another nineteen years. Astronomers have known for many millennia that it takes approximately nineteen years - actually 18.61 years - for the moon to return in the same phase on a particular date. This return to 'point zero' every nineteen years would have been a reassuring sign that all was well in the heavens and was, no doubt, an event that our ancestors looked forward to. This nineteen year cycle may be related to some surviving Celtic traditions. The numbers eighteen and nineteen were of special significance among the Celts. The breath of eighteen maidens, for example, heated the Cauldron of Annwn. In Ireland, eighteen priestesses tended the sacred fire of Brighid at Kildare, each keeping the nightly vigil in turn. On the nineteenth night, Brighid herself tended the fire.

This cycle also predicted one of the most terrifying heavenly events for in the great dance of the heavens the moon and the sun do not dance alone. The earth is one of their partners.