Here are the seven ‘sacred moons’ of 2006, i.e. the Full
Moons of Easter and Wesak (Buddhist) plus some other New Moon festivals:
| Muslim New Year | 20th Jan | (NM on 19th) |
| Chinese New Year | 18th Feb., Year of Pig | (NM on 17th) |
| Hindu New Year | 19th March | (NM on 19th) |
| Easter Sunday | 8th April | (FM on 2nd) |
| Buddhist Wesak | 2nd May | (FM on 2nd) |
| Start of Ramadan | 13th Sept. Jewish New Year 13th Sept | (NM on 11th) |
| Hindu Diwali | 9th November | (NM on 9th) |
Muslims don't do this, their year has only 12 lunar months, and it moves round by 11 days every year, moving slowly backwards against the solar year. In 2007, the Muslim New Year begins on the day after January’s New Moon. A month later there comes the New Moon of the Mardi Gras (‘fat Tuesday’) which is a Tuesday-after-the-New Moon festival: this is a time to party, and a climax of the carnival season (NB, the British have pancake day instead). Ramadan, the ninth month in the Muslim year, begins at the September New Moon, as it will again do so thirty-three years hence, for that is how long their year takes to revolve against the four seasons.
Muslims are meant to experience the start of the month, so that they begin one or two days after the calendrical New Moons: they aim to see the thin crescent of the New Moon in the evening sky, when their month begins. Thus their New Year stars on 20th January in 2006, a day after the New Moon of the 29th.
The Chinese sensibly begin their year at the New Moon nearest to the quarter-day of Imbolc or Candelmas, and this also falls on 15th February. Things start their life in the darkness, as a seed germinates in the dark womb of the Earth, and so the ‘dark’ time of the month when no Moon is visible, in the dark and cold time of the year (January/ February), seems a right time to have this important celebration. It will be their Year of the Pig – their sequence of twelve years is the Chinese version of the Jupiter cycle: Jupiter spends one year in front of each of the ‘twelve constellations.’
The Chinese new year on the February New Moon is just before Carnival Day ‘Mardi Gras.’ You have to clear out your clutter, pay off debts and, with the aid of a dragon, chase away the winter blues. Buddhism does not impose a single New Year's day, because it didn’t conquer nations, so the day they celebrate varies in different ‘Buddhist’ states. However, they do have a major Full Moon festival for Buddha's birthday, called Wesak, which falls on May 2nd. This is the month after the Easter Full Moon, and it’s a few days before the the one celebrated by modern pagans as Beltane. The month-long fast of Ramadan begins for Muslims on the same day as the Jewish new year, on the New Moon nearest to the autumn Equinox, in September. Late in the year the big Hindu New-Year festival of Diwali starts just before the New Moon of November 9th.
Christianity has rather suppressed the lunar calendar, except for Easter, where Easter Sunday follows the first Full Moon after the spring equinox. One celebrates the burgeoning forces of spring and renewal on Easter Sunday, 2nd April.
Through these sacred events one can experience the concept of the New Moon as a beginning. In ancient Greece the wedding-month of Gamelia, January/February, pertained especially to the New Moon of that month. 'Monogamy' derives from this old word. Thus marriages were made in the dark time of the year and of the month. Things start to grow in the darkness, like a seed sprouting under the soil. In today's electric-light society one is hardly able to sense the significance of this time of the month when the Moon cannot be seen by day or night.
Mental health,
balance in life and happiness are all assisted by living more in tune with
the lunar month.
The SEASONS OF 2006
Young Spring was there, his head encircled with a flowery garland, and Summer, lightly clad, crowned with a wreath of corn ears; Autumn too, stained purple with treading out the vintage, and icy Winter, with white and shaggy locks. Ovid
Candelmas on February 2nd is the Christian version of Imbolc, winter’s end, when first glimpse of spring appears, then Beltane at the beginning of May heralds the change from spring to summer, and Lammas in August signifies the end of summer and the start of autumn. Autumn ends at Samhain (pronounced ‘sawain’). The nearest New moons to Imbolc and Samhain may have been used, and Full Moons for Beltane and Lammas, for festival and ceremony. A new interest in these old ‘fire-festivals’ is now bringing us into closer contact with the natural passage of the year.
These quarter-days arrive when the Sun reaches 15° of the fixed signs, eg 15° Scorpio for Imbolc, so they are midway between solstice and equinox – don’t let your friends tell you they happen on the first day of the month! That totally loses their cosmic meaning, which we need now to find again. We tune into the eightfold structure of the solar year, honouring Beltane and Lammas on the 5th and 8th days of May and August (although you might prefer the Full moon of May 2nd for this year’s Beltane).
At Beltane, when sheep and cattle were put out to summer pastures, one should be up to greet the dawn and early-morning mists - after an all-night party, if you can. The word ‘Lammas’ alludes to the loaf made from the new wheat, its a holiday summer's-end festival at the start of the harvest, time to have a barbeque. For Samhain, the start of the Celtic New Year, our modern equivalents are Hallowe'en and Guy Fawkes. As Nature dies, it has an other-worldly flavour as a time of supernatural interference in human affairs: ghosts, ghouls and divination, 'mischief night,' a time for the clans to meet. The solstices and equinoxes are given to the hour. This calendar isn’t really interested in dates that are fixed by the calendar months, but more by those defined by the Sun and Moon.
This year begins with Venus visible as the Evening Star. It will slowly grow brighter and brighter, becoming highest in the sky in June and then brightest around July 14th. This is the time for that delightful cocktail-party you were meaning to arrange, perhaps over its lovely meeting with the thin crescent Moon – the ‘Islamic’ evenings – on June 18th or 17th July. It then swiftly fades away, dying into the sunset on 13th August. If you have good eyesight and live on the country, see if you can note the first and last dates when you can see it as Evening Star – there should be 263 days between them, which is the interval of human gestation, from conception to birth. Early-risers will then see it reappearing again, growing most brilliant as ‘Lucifer’ the morning Star in September.