Moon (astrology)

Moon (astrology)

The Moon is the Earth's companion satellite. The Moon is large enough for its gravity to affect the Earth, stabilising its orbit and producing the regular ebb and flow of the tides. The Moon is also familiar to us for its different phases, waxing and waning in appearance in an unchanging cycle. For this reason, astrologers consider the moon to be at least secondary in importance to the sun in astrological terms, and it is widely considered to be just as important as the sun.

The Moon orbits the earth in 28 days, spending a fleeting 2.33 days in each of the signs of the zodiac. Recently, more accurate measurements of the Lunar orbital period have revealed two different numbers, depending on viewpoint. The synodic period is measured relative to the Sun and gives us a period of 29.5 days from new Moon to new Moon, the start of the Lunar month. When observed from the Earth and relative to a fixed point in space, the sidereal period is 27.3 days with minor variations. In order to give a figure in whole numbers for ease of astrological calculation the Lunar orbit can be approximated to 27.75 days which then returns a period of 54 hours or 2.25 days for the Lunar transit of each sign.

Also important in astrology are the moon's nodes. The nodes are where the moon's path crosses the ecliptic, the sun's path across the sky. This means that they are the only locations where solar eclipses can occur. The North node marks the place where the moon crosses from South to North (or ascends), while the South node marks where the moon crosses from North to South (or descends). The nodes' motion is always retrograde, so that they appear to move backwards through the zodiac. This motion is the same as the precession of the equinoxes, but in the case of the moon it only takes 19 years to complete a cycle. The two nodes are always exactly 180 degrees apart from each other at opposite ends of the ecliptic (i.e. if the north node is at 23 degrees Aries, the south node will be at 23 degrees Libra).