Timing of rituals
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I had the idea to do some lunar rituals altho astral due to communal living so to speak, during the new or full moon.
My question therefore is, if the calendar says the new moon is on the 15th for example, do you do the ritual on midnight of the night of 14th (ie you do it the night of the fourteenth) or would it be midnight the night of the 15th?
What is more astronomically and energetically accurate and useful?
Thank you for your help!
93s
chris -
The timing of the New Moon needs to be determined astronomically. You're correct that what the calendar says gives a 24-hour leeway, and you can't tell which is closer. For example, the next New Moon is March 22 at 6:37 AM Pacific Time.
With the New Moon, there is quite a distinction between the energies before vs. after the syzygy. For almost all purposes, you want the time after it, not before.
And the New Moon itself is a particularly weak time in the monthly energy cycle (unless you're working essentially the exact hour, in which case there is a brief spike in the currents). I discuss the broader patterns in the Timing sections of Chapter 16 of 776 1/2.
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Thank you very much Mr Eshelman thats very helpful!
I dont know hwen I will be able to pick up a copy of your book though I definitely plan on it.
So can I assume the solar timing is similar, just based on position in the sky although the date will be accurate since we are using a solar calendar? -
@christibrany said
"So can I assume the solar timing is similar, just based on position in the sky although the date will be accurate since we are using a solar calendar?"
The solar cycle is a different sort of thing. In their simplest form, they follow metaphors of the seasons in an agrarian community. For example, spring is a time for eruptive new life, outpouring of vital force, and seeding. Summer is a time of maximum solar force, outward-turned activities, and the development and maturation of the seeds planted in spring. Autumn corresponds to full ripening of what was previously set in motion, and the harvest; but some seeds are planted in the fall that germinate through the winter. Winter corresponds to a time of outward latency, maximum in-turned activity, and the hidden (often unsuspected) gestation of things that erupt into quick growth of spring’s next coming. In the metaphor of the human life-cycle, spring corresponds to human birth, summer to the course of mature life, autumn to ripeness and death, and winter to the latency between incarnations.
In the book, I give a much more granular differentiation of the parts of each season - one rising and falling wave that moves around the whole year - but the above covers the basics.