Photo found here:
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury
Back in February, I posted about my serendipitous sighting of the beautiful hanging crescent moon in the evening sky for two months in a row. I was surprised and grateful and blogged in, “Horns of Isis New Moon” that, “It made me smile with happiness to be gifted with such a beautiful sight for the second month in a row.” Well, imagine my surprise when I spied her AGAIN in March! I noted in my journal:
For three months in a row, inexplicably, my eyes have chanced upon the sight of the beautiful ‘Horns of Isis’ new crescent moon in the evening night sky. I thought it wonderful that I saw her two months in a row, but after 3 months, I have to think she has a message for me.
I looked up other meanings of crescent moons, and especially, this shape of crescent moon.
Crescent is one of the oldest symbols known to humanity. It appeared on Akkadian seals as early as 2300 BCE and from at least the second millennium BCE it was the symbol of the Mesopotamian Moon gods Nanna in Sumer and Sin in Babylonia, Sin being the “Lamp of Heaven and Earth“. The crescent was well known in the Middle East and was transplanted by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BCE as far as Carthage.
This is the sign of being a magical warrior or a special person and is also a symbol for transformation and change as in changing from one phase to another. In ancient Japan, the crescent moon was a symbol of wisdom.
Is her message that I need to bring more balance into my life between work and pleasure, doing and being, magic and mundane? Or is her message that there is great transformation ahead? I feel as if each could be true.
Photo found here: http://phatory.net/2013/02/25/crescent-moon-wallpaper/
Fast-forward to April and May. As had happened since the beginning of the year, I was in the right place at the right time to see the waxing, new crescent moon each month. In both months, it rained on the Dark Moon and I worried whether it would be cloudy and I wouldn’t be able to see her. I needn’t have.
It was a clear when I spotted her waxing crescent beauty in twilight in April. In May, it was a beautiful stormy-looking twilight with rain clouds moving in when I spotted her in the now-familiar Western sky between the moving clouds. Though I hadn’t started ‘looking’ for the waxing crescent moon, I was becoming aware of ‘wanting’ to. I also started wondering what it could mean that I had now gazed upon her burgeoning loveliness five months in a row. I noted in my journal:
In the new months of each year when the crescent hangs on the bottom of the moon, the waxing crescent moon is called the “Horns of Isis” so I kept thinking it must be Isis reaching out to me. Now I believe it actually has something to do with new beginnings. The thin, waxing crescent moon is exactly the same moon that was in the sky at my birth. I think that means something. Each month, the moon is reminding me of birthing. Birthing my ideas, my creations, my life, my self.
Photo found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crowleymr/3929145749/
During June, my Coveners and I kept a Moon-Journal to note how our days and emotions might be influenced by the moon. By then, I was apprehensive about not seeing the New Moon because I didn’t want my love affair to end. I noticed how the sky was lighter in the evenings and worried that it would be too light for me to see her before she set. I needn’t have. I noted in my Moon-Journal:
I couldn’t wait for tonight to try and spot the moon. It was a beautiful ‘pink clouds and baby blue evening sky’ at dusk and I spotted Her! I was so excited! A brand new, skinny, tiny, sliver, baby moon in a perfect sunset sky!!! 6 months in a row I have happened upon her new moon glorious-ness, and this was the only time I ‘tried’…
It is the moon of my birth and the Horns of Isis and the moon of Inanna along with Hathor who wears the crescent on her head. The Greek Goddess Selene, most often associated with the full moon was said to be driving a chariot across the night sky pulled by a bull, hence the crescent moon horns seen with waxing and waning moons. Artemis too, Greek Goddess of youthfulness and vigor wears the crescent moon on her brow, perhaps to represent her bow (as in bow and arrows.) Mother Mary is depicted standing on the crescent moon in artwork and statuary. Even beloved Hecate is associated to the crescent moon (as she is associated to all moon phases) and her twin torches are in a thin crescent shape on the ancient vase artwork depicting her.
Photo found here: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T16.4.html
By July and August, I excitedly begin waiting to spot her after the Dark Moon. It becomes a noted and wonderful anticipation after celebrating the Dark Moon with my Coven Initiate where we often do introspective and self-transforming magic. Each month, I still feel the effects of our Dark Moon/New Moon working when I begin to intuitively look for her. In July, I spot her in the low Western sky after a glorious sunset from a high deck at a girlfriend’s “Girls Night Out” Swim Party. She has built a high platform to view the beautiful vista of country in her far north McKinney home and it is the perfect place to lovingly and longingly watch and be watched by the setting waxing crescent birth moon.
Photo found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/reitstoen/4585883/
Now it is August. Yesterday, I unexpectedly spot her between the trees when arriving home from dinner out. My SO and I find a spot on my back deck where she peeks between the swaying branches of the big Pecan trees that surround my property and we talk while I gaze at the birth of another beautiful Mother Moon. She is nearly lost in the tree-line around my house. Once the moon has set beneath the thickest trees that surround my house, I would not be able to see her but here she is again. As a Witch and follower of the Moon as Goddess (and the Earth as Goddess and myself as Goddess, but that is a whole other story), I find it very synchronous that I have ‘happened upon’ the waxing crescent moon each month for 8 months in a row. I have not ‘happened upon’ any other moon-phase for 8 months in a row.
I am struck that even when I want to see her and I consciously look for the waxing crescent moon, she pops out unexpectedly each month. Always it seems, at the perfect time. She reminds me to stop, be still for a moment, and honor Her, and in honoring Her, I honor myself. It is my birth I see in Her birth and in loving Her, I am learning to love myself.
In September, I will be looking for the Dark Moon and the waxing crescent birth in the Northern skies over Scotland. I will learn where to look for her in those Northern skies and she will still sneak up on me and delightfully surprise me.
Wish me luck!
Tree of Knowledge Coven 