Ah, the lunar cycle, that relationship that is the basis of all life on Earth.
The lunar cycle is not simply about the movements of the Moon. It’s about the changing relationship of the Moon and the Sun, as both move through the skies at their own speeds.
The relationship of the Moon and the Sun is the cosmic union of archetypal feminine (Moon) and masculine (Sun) energies. The Sun is the source of light and warmth, and needs the Moon to be the mediator and transmitter of that energy into a form that can be received on Earth.
The phases of the lunar cycle form the process through which every creation is born as an idea, then manifests in the physical, grows, matures, is spread, eventually dies and is transformed into the basis of something new again.
Neither the Sun nor the Moon can operate without the other, but their union is the basis of all life. So it is also in each of our individual lives, where the basis is the natal lunar phase - the phase of the cycle of the Moon in relationship to the Sun that you were born under. In astrology this means the angle or aspect between the Moon and the Sun in your birth chart.
Do you know what this phase is for you? And what it might describe about you?
What is the meaning of the natal lunar phase?
The lunar phase that you were born under is an important building block in how you approach, well, life itself! It contributes towards for example:
Your reaction to life’s events and relationships: How do you relate to the opportunities offered by life, and the challenges it presents? Especially in relationships? The Sun and Moon represent some of our archetypal masculine and feminine energies respectively. It follows then that their relationship, the lunar phase, at the time of your birth describes a key internal patterning towards the theme of relationships in general in your life, and how you approach them.
Your motivation behind your actions: What is it that motivates you? What spurs you into action? The natal lunar phase describes how life itself operates within you: how the creational forces search for a channel to express themselves through the unique unfolding of you and your life.
Your contribution to your community: How do you define your community, your crowd? What is the input or contribution that you bring to your community? Whereas the lunar phases each symbolise a different phase in the process of creation, our lunar phase at birth is the phase in that process of creation that best describes our natural inclination to contribute.
These are of course very broad themes, and at the end of the day the entire birth chart as a whole contributes to these topics. However, the natal lunar phase is a very interesting part of this picture that is often overlooked.
So what do each of the natal lunar phases mean?
The lunar cycle starts at the New Moon, when the Sun and Moon are in conjunction (the relationship or aspect between them is 0 degrees). The Moon moves much faster than the Sun, so from the New Moon onwards we calculate the Moon as being a certain amount of degrees ahead of the Sun, until it again meets the Sun approximately 29.5 days later in a conjunction (with the Moon 360 degrees ahead = again at a 0 degree conjunction). This is the start of a new cycle.
The Sun and Moon always move counter-clockwise in the astrological zodiac, so this is also the direction we count in when seeing how many degrees ahead of the Sun the Moon is. There are eight phases, each 45 degrees wide (360 / 8 = 45).
If you were born very close to the ‘border’ of two phases, it may be that you feel a bit of both, or it may be very clear that you are either or. However, this does not apply at the very end or very beginning of the cycle: the very last degrees of the cycle are a very strong Waning Crescent Moon phase (which cannot be rounded up to the New Moon phase) and the very early degrees of the cycle a very strong New Moon phase (which cannot be rounded down to a Waning Crescent Moon).
🌑The New Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 0-–44 degrees.
This phase of new beginnings is a time to plant new seeds for future ideas, growth and projects. It is initially a very dark phase, when only the new, grande, perhaps vague vision exists, still without concrete evidence. As a natal lunar phase this can mean that you have a vision for your life or the world, which you may also project onto the outer world and others in it.
One of the developmental challenges of this phase is to learn to understand the subjectivity of your own experience, and that others may see and experience the world very differently. One’s own feelings and experiences may not quite match up with the external realities. There is potentially an inner pull towards living life as a movie or a dream, where other people or events become symbols, irrespective of their true character. This may lead to a lack of balance, and challenges to work on the contradictions between one’s values and realities.
The New Moon person has an intense vitality, with plenty of youthfulness, enthusiasm, emotion, spontaneity, idealism, impulsiveness, instinctiveness and even unconsciousness packed into their approach to life. While life will challenge the child of the New Moon to also see the other side, or at least remember that there is one, it is important to have a positive channel for this charge of initiating energy to flow so that life force itself does not become blocked.
🌒 The Waxing Crescent Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 45–89 degrees.
As the Waxing Crescent Moon grows, so does the direction and purpose initiated at the New Moon become clearer. The planted seeds break into sight and grow into seedlings. The awakening to and initial contact with the outside world cause a shock in the form of possible external opposition or criticism. The new and the old face off and there may be clear contradictions between them.
The Waxing Crescent Moon as natal lunar phase can symbolise an even tormenting struggle between some existing old order, culture or way of living, and a more revolutionary, individual style of doing things. There is a strong inner push towards a new future, self-determined life. However, there are also challenges from the past, such as constraints and skeletons in the closet related to upbringing, family background or social programming. The child of the Waxing Crescent Moon will need to develop confidence and belief in themselves and their own direction, and the resilience to push through challenges, even if the pull of the past sometimes feels overwhelming.
🌓 The First Quarter Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 90–134 degrees.
The First Quarter Moon brings with it a crisis of action: the growth of one’s creation has gathered momentum and visibility, and is now placing heavier demands on the necessary support structures. As the lunar phase at birth, the First Quarter Moon requires clear leadership and determination to clarify one’s direction and ensure one’s actions provide the necessary framework for one’s life to grow into an intended direction. This includes making a very clear break with any past baggage that no longer serves, with which a First Quarter Moon child may be more adamant and absolute than one born under the Waxing Crescent Moon phase.
The person born under a First Quarter Moon finds satisfaction in renewing old structures, removing the unnecessary, and building new systems and scaffolding that are better suited to their purpose. This can be related to enabling growth in organisations or communities as well as in private life, for example in how one chooses to structure one's own daily life.
🌔 The Waxing Gibbous Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 135–179 degrees.
By the time we reach the Waxing Gibbous Moon in the cycle, the momentum of growth has accelerated to the point where we are now living with decisions made earlier. It’s no longer possible to majorly change direction. If you were born during this phase, you may feel as if the direction of your life is a given, it’s been received ready-made, or it’s otherwise clear to you.
As a child of the Waxing Gibbous Moon you want to invest in the conditions for personal growth into your clear direction, and in grounding the impacts of this growth in your daily life. This includes a lot of problem-solving and fine-tuning in practice. Your life may be very intense and productive. Your emphasis on personal development and problem-solving is something you want to enable others to make use of, too, to improve their lives.
🌕The Full Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 180–224 degrees.
The Full Moon brings with it a visible culmination of growth. This is when your creation is at its fullest, most mature, most visible and overall at its peak; energy at its most intense. Also those born during the Full Moon phase are full of this frenzy and seek some kind of fulfilment or enlightenment in their lives.
The illumination of the Full Moon also increases visibility, and thus those born at the Full Moon have a clear inner drive toward objectivity, clear vision and seeing things as they are (in comparison to the strong subjectivity of the New Moon). Where the New Moon was a time for planting the seeds for growth, the Full Moon is a time to redefine or renew the goal: like with the plant, the most visible part, the flower, is not the end point, but a means to an end - to spread the seeds. The Full Moon is a phase that reorients us from material creations towards the search for meaning and the sharing of benefits gained. The importance of these immaterial pursuits matures over the life of the person born at the Full Moon.
For the Full Moon child, the importance of relationships are also highlighted. This is because the Full Moon is formed by the opposition of the Moon and the Sun, and oppositions always relate to relationships: facing and interacting with another, mirroring off of them, and seeking compromise. If the individual is not able to balance out their own inner opposing energies, and find inner compromise, their inner division may lead them to project a part of themselves out onto other people in their lives.
🌖 The Waning Gibbous Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 225–269 degrees.
The Waning Gibbous Moon continues the shift of focus from the material world to understanding the meanings behind events that began at the Full Moon. If you were born during a Waning Gibbous Moon, the interest lives strong in you to work towards the common good, in communities or with societal issues. You seek to reconcile experiences and seeming opposites to create your own life philosophy that benefits not only yourself but others, and to share what you have learned and what you have gained.
The child of the Waning Gibbous Moon has a strong sense of responsibility and the great ability to promote and spread a cause. This propensity to carry the world on their shoulders may require its own balancing act, since at extremes it may lead to either fanaticism or, on the other hand, a "why even try" mentality if one has thrown in the towel with the world's seemingly unsurmountable problems.
🌗The Last Quarter Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 270–314 degrees.
The Last Quarter Moon phase brings with it an ideological crisis: to a person born under this phase, understanding meanings and causes is everything, as is sharing them with others, be it through teaching, coaching, volunteering, and so on. An inner pressure drives the children of the Last Quarter Moon to crystallize everything they’ve learned into a philosophy or ideology of life (the fruit of the lunar cycle) on which to lean even more than those born at earlier phases. This is also because to the Last Quarter Moon child, as life goes on, it becomes clear that there is no relying upon the material structures of life.
If born under the Last Quarter Moon, you may feel like a pioneer whose work will only be appreciated by posterity. Or you may act as a revolutionary in a time of crumbling civilisations. Either way, ideology is everything to you: you want to be a living example of your beliefs and stick to your principles no matter what. This can bring inflexibility or difficulty in accepting criticism. Conflicts over ideology may also show up in your relationships, and your images of idols and role models may crumble along the way.
🌘The Waning Crescent Moon as natal lunar phase
The aspect between the Sun and the Moon in the birth chart is 315–359 degrees.
The Waning Crescent Moon phase completes the lunar cycle with a necessary phase of turning inwards and emptying. This phase emphasizes the need to slow down to reflect on the larger issues of life, inner work, healing, rest, integration of events, the need for peace and letting go - which are also high on the agenda in the lives of those born during this phase.
The child of the Waning Crescent Moon may be a fully future-oriented prophet, with an inner sense that the purpose of this life is to sum up past (life) experiences before the commencing of something new. However, the desired integration, release and peace may be challenged - yet their importance also underlined - by relationship dramas, self-sacrifice to a cause or victim-victimizer-martyr roles.
The focus is often on some higher power at the expense of the mundane. A Waning Crescent Moon person may feel like a product of the past, but a past that they have already outwardly renounced. Relationships can include a feeling of finality, as if the result of a process that transcends perhaps many human lifetimes.
--
That sums up each phase, which all bring a certain undertone to the lives of people born under them.
The primary source used was Dane Rudhyar’s The Lunation Cycle book.
💭How does this all sound? How have you experienced your own natal lunar phase?
Another reason your natal lunar phase is key...
Your natal lunar phase is also the starting point for calculating your progressed lunar cycles: a process of slow, deep inner evolution. The progressed lunar cycles are eras of slightly under 30 years in our lives, during which we live through each of the above-mentioned phases for 3-4 years. If you’re intrigued to learn more about what these phases bring along and how the events of your life fit together into a meaningful whole, dive into these cycles - potentially the most important ones in your life! To support you in the process, I’ve created the “Your Life’s Seasons - Your Progressed Lunar Cycles” self-study course. The course includes a workbook and personalized report of your progressed lunar phases, a 2h course video and still through Oct 6th, a complementary 30min Q&A call with me - to ask anything you like about the course contents, discuss insights or get additional interpretation into your cycles! After years, I’m still blown away by these, and I’d be willing to bet that you don’t want to miss them either!💫