Following the sky’s cycles: moon phases, retrogrades and eclipses

The lunar calendar: moon phases month by month

The lunar calendar opens on the Moon right now (its phase, its sign, how much of it is lit), then on the next full moon and the next new moon. Below come the lunations of the next twelve months, each with its date, exact time, sign and degree, then the detail year by year. Times are given in UTC, calculated to the minute with the same ephemerides as the birth charts.

A row of buttons leads to a specific month, from last month to the twelve months ahead. A month’s page gives its four phases (new moon, first quarter, full moon, last quarter), the Moon’s sign day by day with the exact time of each sign change, and the meaning of the month’s lunations, each with three concrete pointers. The current phase also appears at the top of today’s sky: see how to read today’s sky.

The Moon stays about two and a half days in each sign. On each month’s page, the table headed “The Moon day by day” tells you at what time it moves on: useful for picking the moment for a meeting, a launch or a delicate conversation.

New moon, full moon: what do they mean?

Every 29.5 days, the Moon joins the Sun: that is the new moon, a sky with no visible Moon, the time to sow. Two weeks later, it faces the Sun, fully lit: that is the full moon, the time for reviews and realisations. The sign the lunation falls in gives it its colour: a full moon in Cancer brings you home, a new moon in Gemini restarts conversations.

Each lunation has its own page per sign, twenty-four in all, from “New Moon in Aries” to “Full Moon in Pisces”. There you will find the next date with the number of days left, what this moon means, three things to do or three intentions to set, the house it activates for your rising sign, and all its dates over several years.

• At the new moon, you sow. The first two days are the best for setting an intention, phrased in the present tense and the first person, with a first step within forty-eight hours.
• At the full moon, you harvest. It shows what has ripened since the new moon in the same sign, six months earlier, and invites you to let go of what is finished.

Retrograde planets: dates, shadow periods and advice

A planet is retrograde when, seen from Earth, it appears to move backwards through the zodiac: a time of review in its area of life. The retrograde planets page gives each one a card, from Mercury to Pluto, with the current or next retrograde, its dates and sign, what it means, and one button per year.

A planet’s page for a given year details each period: the retrograde station and the direct station, the degrees covered, the pre-shadow and post-shadow, what this retrograde asks of you, and what is best done or avoided. Mercury turns retrograde three to four times a year for about three weeks; Venus roughly every eighteen months, for six weeks; Mars roughly every two years and two months, for two and a half months.

The shadow is the stretch of degrees the planet crosses three times. What is set up in the pre-shadow replays during the retrograde and resolves in the post-shadow: note what comes up in the very first days.

The eclipses, year by year

An eclipse is a new moon (solar eclipse) or a full moon (lunar eclipse) that falls close to the lunar Nodes. It carries the meaning of an ordinary lunation, only stronger and longer-lasting: what it opens unfolds over six months. The eclipses page lists them all, and each year has its own page.

For each eclipse, the year page gives the exact date and time, the sign and degree (linked to that degree’s page), its meaning, the eclipse it pairs with, and the house it activates for your rising sign. Eclipses come in pairs, about two weeks apart, and return to the same axis of signs for eighteen months: the series tells a story.

The big transits of the slow planets

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto change sign slowly: a year per sign for Jupiter, two and a half years for Saturn, seven for Uranus, fourteen for Neptune, up to thirty for Pluto. These passages set the backdrop of an era, for everyone. The planetary transits page presents them planet by planet.

Each one has three ways in. A page per sign (“Saturn in Aries”, “Pluto in Aquarius”…) with exact entry and exit dates, back-and-forths included, and what the passage asks of each sign. A table of its aspects to your natal points, from the Sun to the Midheaven. And a page for each of the twelve houses it moves through.

How to connect a lunation or a retrograde to your chart

A lunation, an eclipse or a retrograde applies to everyone; it concerns you in a precise way depending on where it falls in your chart. Two questions are enough: which house does this degree fall in, and does it touch one of your planets?

1. Calculate your birth chart with your birth time: it is the time that places the Ascendant and the houses. Note your rising sign.
2. On the page of a lunation or an eclipse, the table by rising sign gives the house activated, and so the area of life: a new moon in the 10th house speaks of work, in the 7th of partnership. For the exact house, find the lunation’s degree on your chart wheel.
3. Compare that degree with your planets: within three degrees of a planet or an angle of your chart, or opposite it, the cycle touches it directly. For a retrograde, the year page gives the range of degrees the planet crosses three times.
4. See what the period is stirring up for you in My transits, which follows the big transits on your chart, or ask your chart directly: five questions a week without an account (how your chart answers).

A retrograde over a natal planet plays out in three acts: the first pass, the backward return, the final pass. Note all three dates: they tell one story, from the question to its answer.