What
is Moon Energy?
Full Moon energy is used for banishing unwanted influences,
protection and divination. A Full Moon is also a good time for planning,
releasing and working backwards in time. Full Moon Magic can be done
for seven days, three days before the full moon and three days after
the full moon.
The
New Moon is used for personal growth, healing, the blessing
of a new project etc.
Waxing
Moon:
Between the New Moon and Full Moon is the phase called Waxing Moon.
Magick for this phase includes attraction magick, increasing, growth,
and gain. Make statements on how your life should be.
Waning
Moon:
Between the Full Moon and New Moon is the phase called the
Waning Moon. Magic for this phase includes banishing magick, such a
loosing negative emotions, bad habits etc.
Dark
Moon:
Three days before the New Moon is known as the Dark Moon, as it is not
visible in the sky. Traditionally, no magick is performed at this time.
It is a time for rest.
Moon
Myths
When people lived with Nature, the changing seasons had a great
impact on religious ceremonies. The Moon was seen as a symbol of the
Goddess. Because of this, the light of the Moon was considered magickal,
and a source of energy. Wiccans often practice magick at a Full Moon
to tap into this energy thought to exist at this time.
Plutarch
once said "Egyptian priests called the Moon the "Mother of
the Universe," because the moon, "having the light which makes
moist and pregnant, is promotive of the generation of living beings.."
The Gnostic sect of Naassians believed in a primordial being known as
"the heavenly horn of the moon." The Moon was the Great Mother.
Menos
meant "Moon" and "power" to the Greeks. To the Romans,
the morality of the Moon Goddess was above that of the Sun God.
In
many cultures the Moon Goddess and the Creatress were the same.Polynesians
called the Creatress Hina, "Moon." She was the first woman,
and every woman is a wahine, made in the image of Hina. Scandinavians
sometimes called the Creatress Mardoll, "Moon Shining Over the
Sea."
Ashanti
people had a generic term used for all their deities, Boshun, meaning
Moon. Sioux Native Americans call the moon The Old Woman Who Never Dies.
Iroquois call her " Eternal One." Rulers in the Eritrean zone
of South Africa held the Goddesses name "Moon." The Gaelic
name of the Moon, gealach, came from Gala or Galata, the original Moon-Mother
of Gaelic and Gaulish tribes. Britain were called Albion, the milk-white
Moon-Goddess. The Moon was called Metra, which means Mother , "whose
love penetrated everywhere." In the Basque language, the words
for deity and moon are the same.
The
root word for both "moon" and "mind" is the Indo-European
manas, mana, or men, representing the Great Mother's "wise blood"
in women, governed by the Moon. The derivative mania used to mean ecstatic
revelation, like lunacy used to mean possession by spirit of Luna, the
Moon. To be Moon-Touched or Moon-Struck meant to be chosen by the Goddess.
When
patriarchal thinkers belittled the Goddess, these words came to mean
craziness.
Orphic
and Pythagorean sect viewed the Moon as the home of the dead, a female
gate known as Yoni. Souls passed through on the way to the paradise
fields of the stars. Greeks often located the Elysian Fields, home of
the blessed dead, in the moon. The shoes of Toman senators were decorated
with ivory crescents to show that after death they would inhabit the
Moon. Roman religion taught that "the souls of the just are purified
in the Moon." Wearing the crescent was "visual worship"
of the Goddess. That was why the prophet Isaiah denounced the wearing
of lunar amulets by Zion women.
Because
the moon was the holder of souls between reincarnations, it sheltered
both the dead and unborn, who were one in the same. If a man dreams
of his own image in the Moon, he would become the father of a son. If
a woman dreamed of her own image in the Moon, she would have a daughter.
The
Moon Goddess created time, with all its cycles of creation; growth,
decline, and destruction. This is why ancient calendars were based on
phases of the moon and menstrual cycles. The Moon still determines agricultural
work in some parts of India. Indonesian moon priestesses were responsible
for finding the right phase of the moon for every undertaking.
The
Moon was to have been the receptacle of menstrual blood by which each
mother formed the life of her child. This sacred, taboo moon-fluid kept
even the Gods alive. The moon was "the cup of the fluid of life
immortal, quickening the vegetable realm and whatsoever grows in the
sub-lunar sphere, quickening also the immortals on high."
The
Moon was supposed to rule life and death as well as the tides. People
living on the shores were convinced that a baby could only be born on
an incoming tide and a person could not die until the tide went out.
It was often said birth at a full tide or a full moon meant a lucky
life.
Girls
in Scotland refused to wed on anything but a Full Moon.
Witches
invoked their Goddess by "drawing down the Moon." It is said
to be a rite dating back to moon worship in Thessaly, centuries before
the Christian era.
The
moon has an elliptical orbit. This means that at times it is further
away from the earth than at other times in its orbit. It also rotates
on its own axis in the same time period as it revolves around the earth.
Because of this, we always see the same face of the moon.
Esbats:
Lunar holidays are also known as Esbats, but any Wiccan ritual
held at any time other than a Sabbat is an Esbat.
Due
to the rotation of the earth, the Wiccan calendar contains 13 Full Moons
and 8 Sabbats, also known as Days of Power. A full moon happens every
28 1/4 days.