Waning Gibbous Moon enters Pisces

"I'm one with the Goddess
and open to Her Wisdom."


18th Day of the 8th Lunar Cycle
Ruled by Demeter
Lunar Tree Cycle of Tinne/Holly
21st Day of the Celtic Tree
Month of Tinne/Holly
Moon Phase: waning Gibbous
Moon sets: 8:43AM EDST
Moon rises: 9:43PM EDST
Moon enters the Mutable Water
Sign of Pisces at 4:00AM EDST
Rhiannon's Cycle of the Moon
Lunar Meditation: The messages
of birdsong.
Sun in Leo
Sunrise: 6:13AM EDST
Sunset: 8:39PM EDST
Solar Question for the Day: "Where
do you need to exercise self-discipline
the most?"
Beltaine (Calan Mai) Quarter
of the Year
July 28th, 2010

Moon in Pisces - During Moon in Pisces emotional life is more introverted, intuition is at its height and psychic energy is powerful. You are now able to get in touch with your deepest self, but it can also be a time of vagueness, unclarity, and uncertainty. Pisces is about endings as a result of internal processing. With this moon transit you may notice a moodiness in others.  Many women have a good cry with Moon
in Pisces, washing away troubles. Or perhaps you will be the compassionate friend for a sister who needs to share her troubles. We cry during Moon in Pisces because it's the most watery of all the signs. Pisces Moon brings a retreat into the self to do the internal processing and contemplation necessary at least once during the cycle. The outer world 'busyness' becomes fuzzy and vague. Issues are like slippery fish. Things are not what they seem, so don't be confused by this transit.

Lughnasadh -Honoring the Grain God/Goddess

  Bake a loaf of bread on this Sabbat. If you've never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it, remembering it was once a plant growing in a field. Maybe you would like to go out and collect samples of wild grain as a centerpiece for your table. Also you could buy wheat berries at the health food store and sprout them to incorporate into the bread. If you have a garden, add something you've harvested - herbs or onions or corn or seeds - to your bread. If you don't feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread from a mix. Or gingerbread people. Or popcorn. What's most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is awareness of the meaning of your actions.
   Shape the dough in the figure of a man or woman and give your grain person a name. If he's a man, you could call him Lugh, the Sun-King, or John Barleycorn, or the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Pauline Campanelli in "The Wheel of the Year" suggests names for female figures as: She of the Corn, She of the Threshing Floor, She of the Seed, She of the Green Loaf (these come from the Cyclades where they are the names of fertility figures), Freya (the Anglo-Saxon and Norse fertility Goddess who is also called the Lady and the Giver of the Loaf), The Bride (Celtic) and Ziva or Siva (the Grain Goddess of the Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia).
    When you eat your dough figure, tear him or her apart with your fingers. You might want to start your feast using the words from the Lord's Prayer - 'give us this day our daily bread.'  If you have others sharing this feast with you feed each other hunks of bread (or gingerbread people or popcorn), putting the food in the other person's mouth with words like 'may you never go hungry,' may you always be nourished,' or 'eat of the bread of life.'
   Lammas is a festival of regrets and farewells, as well as a celebration of the harvest.  Think of the things you meant to do this summer or this year that are not coming to fruition. What is passing from your life? What is over? Say good-bye to it. You might use flowers as visual symbols of your regrets and bury them in the ground or throw them into lakes or streams.
    What have you harvested this year? What seeds have you planted that are sprouting? Find a visual way to represent these, perhaps creating a decoration, like a wheat weaving for your house or altar which represents the harvest to you.
    This is a good time for making preserves, either literally or symbolically. As you turn summer's first fruit into jams and jellies, think about the fruits that you have gathered this year and how you can hold on to them. How can you keep them sweet in the store of your memory?