Phases of the Moon

• Hebrew calendar Rosh Chodesh and the Islamic Hijri month both begin at the first sliver after this point.
• Astronomical fact: the moon rises and sets with the sun, so its dark side faces us all day.
• Folk tradition holds this as the moment to plant intentions for the cycle ahead.

A blank page rather than a blank night. What's about to happen hasn't been written yet.

• In Islamic tradition, sighting this crescent marks the beginning of a new lunar month, including Ramadan.
• Visible for under two hours before it follows the sun below the horizon.
• Sailors once timed early-evening tides by how high this sliver rode the western sky.

Something started. Whether it lasts depends on what happens next.

• Aristarchus of Samos used this exact phase, around 270 BCE, to estimate the relative distances of the sun and moon: the first attempt at astronomical scale.
• Folk almanacs call this the planting moon for above-ground crops.
• The terminator runs as a clean vertical line through the lunar mountains, the best phase for amateur telescope viewing.

Half is enough to see what kind of cycle this is going to be.

• The Latin root gibbus meant humped or protruding, describing a moon that bulges past its half.
• Many monastic traditions hold prayer vigils through these nights, when there's enough light to read scripture outside without lamps.
• Rises in the afternoon, casting the longest moonshadows just before midnight.

Close enough to fullness that you can already see what it will become.

• Earth sits between the sun and moon. When the alignment is exact, a lunar eclipse darkens the disc to copper-red.
• Easter is dated to the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox: the Computus rule, settled in 325 CE at Nicaea.
• The twelve monthly names (Wolf, Snow, Worm, Pink, Flower, Strawberry, Buck, Sturgeon, Harvest, Hunter's, Beaver, Cold) come down through the Old Farmer's Almanac from Algonquin tribes of the northeastern woodlands.

Everything is visible. There is no shadow left to hide behind.

• Older lunar calendars called this the disseminating moon: the time of sharing what was learned during the waxing half.
• Hindu Pūrṇimā observances often extend into this phase, with each day named for what it now releases.
• Visible into the morning sky. Pre-dawn joggers tend to notice this moon long after most have stopped looking.

Not gone. Just no longer needed in full.

• The terminator now runs the opposite direction from First Quarter: the right side is lost to shadow.
• Buddhist Uposatha observance falls on the four quarter days of the lunar month, including this one.
• Folk almanacs read this as the harvesting moon for root crops, which prefer waning light.

What needed to be done is done. What remains is letting go of what didn't.

• Sometimes called the balsamic moon, from balsam, the resin a tree exudes before its dormant winter.
• Pre-dawn Hindu and Buddhist meditation practices traditionally lean into these nights, when the world is darkest before light returns.
• Within days the moon will be invisible again, and the cycle will reset.

The last quiet stretch before the page goes blank again.