Tarot and the phases of the moon

The eight phases

The moon takes about twenty-nine and a half days to go from new to new. Along the way it passes through eight phases, each with its own mood:

• New moon: a dark sky and a clean start: intentions, beginnings made on trust
• Waxing crescent: the first sliver of light: something small and young that needs protecting
• First quarter: half lit and growing: the first obstacle, and the decision to keep going
• Waxing gibbous: nearly full: refining, adjusting, getting close
• Full moon: everything lit: results, clarity, and what you had been avoiding
• Waning gibbous: just past full: sharing what you learned, gratitude
• Last quarter: half lit and shrinking: letting go, clearing out
• Waning crescent: the last sliver before dark: rest, reflection, getting ready to begin again

The cards of the moon

Two major cards carry the moon directly. The High Priestess sits with a crescent moon at her feet and wears a crown shaped like the moon's three faces, waxing, full and waning. In the Golden Dawn system she is the card of the moon itself: intuition, the things that are known without being said. The Moon card shows a full moon with a face in it, shining down on a path between two towers, a dog and a wolf howling, and a crayfish climbing out of a pool. It is the moon at its most uncertain: night, half-seen shapes, the fears that grow in the dark.

Between them, the two cards hold both sides of the moon's reputation. One is quiet wisdom, the other is confusion. Most months contain a little of each.

The crescent at the High Priestess's feet, and the Moon's uncertain light.

Matching cards to the phases

Many cards fit naturally with one part of the cycle. The Aces and the Fool belong to the new moon: something offered, nothing yet done with it. The Pages and the Twos sit with the waxing crescent, small and early. The Sun card, bright and complete, is the full moon's card. And the Eight of Cups, where a figure walks away under a moon in the night sky, is the waning moon: leaving behind what is finished.

When a card in your reading matches the phase you are in, the reading tends to feel clear and easy. When it clashes, an ending card at the new moon or a beginning at the last quarter, that tension is worth thinking about. It can mean you are ahead of yourself, or still holding on.

A new-moon Ace, the full-moon Sun, a waning-moon departure.

A simple monthly practice

If you read your own cards, the moon makes a natural calendar for a short monthly practice:

• At the new moon: draw one card for what you want to begin this month, and write it down
• At the first quarter: draw one card for what is in the way
• At the full moon: draw one card for what has become clear, and look back at your new-moon card
• At the last quarter: draw one card for what to let go of before the next cycle

How this site uses the moon

Every daily reading here is written for the phase of the moon on your date. Each card has its own reading for each of the eight phases, upright and reversed, so the same card says something different at the new moon from what it says at the full. The note at the foot of the reading names the phase and what it asks of you.

None of this is a claim that the moon decides anything. It is a rhythm people have lived by for thousands of years, and it gives a daily reading a sense of where in the month you are.

The dark of the moon: the Hermit's solitude, the Four of Swords' rest.