Finding Your Moon Sign in Your Birth Chart

When I learned what my Moon sign and how to find it in my birth chart it was an unexpected act of transformative magick. While I had been observing lunar cycles for years at that point, I was intimidated by how complex birth charts looked like, so I avoided diving into my own. I realized through a bit of study and practice that the birth chart is far less mysterious and complicated than it appears.

What I hope to do with this tutorial is demystify the process of finding the Moon in your birth chart so that you can begin to connect with your lunar flow in even more insightful and powerful ways. For the Moon represents the ways that we channel the vastness of consciousness into our life, how we are shaped by our most true yearnings and desires, and ultimately, helping us find our way back to the inner place that we call home. It’s powerful stuff, so let’s dive in.

Generating Your Birth Chart

Finding your Moon sign (also known as your birth Moon sign or natal Moon) is an essential part of your lunar journey. Use one of the free resources listed below to get your birth chart - my favorite site to do this on is Astrodienst at astro.com. Another option for calculating your chart is Chani Nicholas' beautiful chart generator. It is a great teaching tool for those of you super new to looking at and reading birth charts and works well with her book You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance (which I highly recommend). If you have the resources to, I also recommend printing out a copy of your birth chart and writing all over it as you learn more about what it means and who you are as reflected back to you by planet and star.

image via @anniespratt

Finding The Moon in Your Birth Chart

First let's start with a quick definition. The Natal Moon is the position of the Moon (including its Sign, House, and Lunar Mansion) at the time of your birth. Your Natal Moon is what we are referring to when we talk about your Moon Sign. Your natal Moon (and all of the positions of the planets and other celestial players in your chart) will never change throughout your lifetime. If you were born under a New Moon in Aquarius, you will always have the New Moon in Aquarius as your Natal Moon. This tutorial is all about helping you find your Natal Moon and its position in your birth chart.

So, once you've generated your free birth chart, you can find your natal Moon by looking for the crescent moon symbol - ☾ - on your chart. Below I have highlighted the two places on a free chart from astro.com that information about your Moon sign will show up. On our sample chart, our friend's natal Moon is in the sign of Capricorn. In other words, our friend's Moon sign is Capricorn. You can see the glyph of the Moon - ☾ - located in the sign of Capricorn and numbers next to the glyph which are the exact degrees (i.e. position) of the Moon in that sign. These degrees are also listed below the birth chart along with the degrees of the other celestial players in the chart - I've highlighted its location with an orange box and arrow.

For our sample chart, the natal Moon is located at 19° (degrees) 39' (hours) and 46" (minutes) Capricorn. You'll also see this written as 19 Capricorn 39'46" or 19°39'46" Capricorn in various astrological texts and apps. Most of the time, unless one is making very precise astrological calculations beyond the scope of this course, you only need to know the degree and hour numbers of a sign (i.e.19°39' Capricorn). Knowing the degrees of your Moon sign will help you calculate the position of your natal Mansion of the Moon - but more on that in a minute.

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Finding Your Moon Phase

The simplest way to find your Moon phase is to use an online Moon phase calculator such as Moonpage or Chani Nicholas' birth chart generator. You can calculate your Moon phase with an ephemeris and math, but that type of manual astrological technique is harder and harder to find in books these days. The one book in my collection that teaches this technique is Phases of the Moon: A Guide to Evolving Human Nature by Marilyn Busteed and Dorothy Wergin in case you want to learn it.

Whole Signs House System

You'll see that I use whole signs for my house method. If you have a preferred house method for your charts, please use what you are comfortable with. If you don't have a preference, I recommend using whole signs. The whole signs system for measuring houses is one of the most ancient and the style that many of our traditional western astrology ancestors used. I find it to be very accurate and easy to read for beginners and advanced students of astrology alike.

To select whole signs for your birth chart on astro.com, go to the "My Astro" section and click on your name to generate your chart. You'll be taken to a page where you can select the type of chart you want - choose the "Extended Chart" option. Scroll down and you'll see a section labeled "Options for Zodiac and Houses" - use the drop down menu to select "whole signs." Once you do that you can click the "show the chart" button to generate your whole signs chart.

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The House Your Moon Is In

You'll notice that the circle of the birth chart is divided into 12 sections (and if you are using the whole signs house system this will be 12 equal sections). Towards the center of the chart you'll see numbers 1 through 12 marking each of the twelve Houses. The Houses always start with the First at the left hand side of the chart and then move in a counter-clockwise direction through the other eleven.

Looking at the sample chart above, we can also see that our friend's natal Moon falls in the 11th House. You can see the number 11 in the center of the chart. The Houses coordinate to different areas of our life - come this way to learn more about the Houses as places of healing rest. 

The Mansions of the Moon

Don't worry if you've never heard about the Mansions of the Moon before - while it is an ancient form of astrology it's not used much within modern astrological practice. The Mansions of the Moon (also known as Lunar Mansions) add another layer of auspicious timing to works of magick and self-discovery.  We explore the Mansions of the Moon in my course, The Lunar Apothecary, but if you search around there are a few books and websites on the subject that can get you started on learning more (I've listed a few here). 

Remember how I pointed out where to find the degrees of your natal Moon? We'll use those degrees now to figure out which Mansion of the Moon your natal Moon was in at the time of your birth. If you look at the list below you'll see that each Mansion is defined by an area of degrees between one to two signs. So the boundaries of the 1st Mansion is from 0°00' Aries to 12°51' Aries. If the degrees of your natal Moon is on or between the degrees of 0°00' Aries to 12°51' Aries then your natal Mansion is the First Mansion. 

Using our sample chart, we can determine that our friend's natal Moon - 19°39' Capricorn - is located in the 23rd Mansion.

• 1st Mansion - 0°00' Aries to 12°51' Aries

• 2nd Mansion - 12°51' Aries to 25°42' Aries

• 3rd Mansion - 25°42' Aries to 8°34' Taurus

• 4th Mansion: 8°34' Taurus to 21°25' Taurus

• 5th Mansion: 21°25' Taurus to 4°17' Gemini

• 6th Mansion: 4°17' Gemini to 17°8' Gemini

• 7th Mansion: 17°8' Gemini to 0°0' Cancer

• 8th Mansion: 0°0' Cancer to 15°51' Cancer

• 9th Mansion: 12°51' Cancer to 25°42' Cancer

• 10th Mansion: 25°42' Cancer to 8°34' Leo

• 11th Mansion: 8°34 Leo to 21°25' Leo

• 12th Mansion: 21°25' Leo to 4°17' Virgo

• 13th Mansion: 4°17' Virgo to 17°8' Virgo

• 14th Mansion: 17°8' Virgo to 0°0' Libra

• 15th Mansion: 0°0' Libra to 12°51' Libra

• 16th Mansion: 12°51' Libra to 25°42' Libra

• 17th Mansion: 25°42' Libra to 8°34' Scorpio

• 18th Mansion: 8°34' Scorpio to 21°25' Scorpio

• 19th Mansion: 21°25' Scorpio to 4°17' Sagittarius

• 20th Mansion: 4°17' Sagittarius to 17°8' Sagittarius

• 21st Mansion: 17°8' Sagittarius to 0°0' Capricorn

• 22nd Mansion: 0°0' Capricorn to 12°51' Capricorn

• 23rd Mansion: 12°51' Capricorn to 25°42' Capricorn

• 24th Mansion: 25°42' Capricorn to 8°34' Aquarius

• 25th Mansion: 8°34' Aquarius to 21°25' Aquarius

• 26th Mansion: 21°25' Aquarius to 4°17' Pisces

• 27th Mansion: 4°17' Pisces to 17°8' Pisces

• 28th Mansion: 17°8' Pisces to 0°0' Aries

And that's it! You now know your natal Moon Sign, House, and Mansion.

image via @anniespratt

Knowing Your Moon

When you learn your Moon sign you can start to read about the ways that your inner Moon shapes the world you live in, the way that you feel at home, and your truest, often hidden, desires. When I say "desires" I am thinking of that which we yearn for most. Very few folks in our lives get to meet our lunar selves as it is such a personal and intimate part of who we are as opposed to our more outward facing Ascendant or Rising Sign and Sun Sign. Our Moon teaches us how we observe, participate in, and perceive our own consciousness - it's a big deal in the birth chart and how we are shaped as individuals. 

When you know your Moon sign, you can begin to learn more about the healing gifts of each sign of the zodiac. You can also practice the profound magick that is your monthly lunar return. By knowing your natal Lunar Mansion, you can engage with your shadows for healing and clarity. Of course, those are only just a few ways that learning about the Moon in your birth chart can be of use to you and your practice of healing and magick. I wrote a whole course of study centered on lunar herbalism and magick as a pathway to helping folks discover their unique gifts as a healer because the observation of the Moon in my life has been so profoundly useful. I hope you find it useful, too!

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Wherever your journeys with the Moon takes you, may the path be filled with the sort of insights and tenderness that come from looking into the darkness and finding how holy it is and how sacred we are.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Seeding: Waning Quarter Moon Ritual & Healing Practices

After the first round of intense heat, many of the grasses, the salad greens and sweet peas, and some of the herbs growing on the land I live with have gone to seed. I live in a place of multiple growing seasons each cycle of the year, so this cycle of seeding will happen a few times yet. This cycle, I'm learning how to collect seeds - it's an incredible sensation to be able to hold a small seed in your hand, knowing that it contains the possibilities of a new plant within it, and the possibilities of who it'll feed, help heal, bring beauty to the body and all the senses.

These periods of seeding are times that fall both backwards and forwards. There is the plant and flower which has died back, fallen to the earth, and revealed the forward momentum of a seed ready to find earth. Sometimes that finding of earth to grow in takes time - sometimes seeds are digested and eliminated from the bodies of people and animals, sometimes they are carried on the wind, sometimes they take a nap in a carefully folded seed packet passed from one gardener to another. All of this ties into the energy of the Waning Quarter Moon, sacred pause that allows us time to reassess where we've been, where we currently are, and where we might be going, after the climatic height of the Full Moon.

Like with the Waxing Quarter Moon, the Waning Quarter Moon is a time of balance. As the Moon is growing towards darkness, marking the midpoint between the Full and New Moon, the Waning Quarter Moon offers us a time to shed, fall back, and sort out which seeds we're interested in planting, if not just quite yet. Change, reassessment, release, balance, and decluttering are all key energies of the Waning Quarter Moon.

image via @ao_space

Herbal Traditions

In Traditional Western Herbalism the New Moon is considered a time of cold and moist herbs. If we were to think of the Moon phase as a cycle of building a sacred structure, the Waning Quarter Moon is a time for redesign and reworking of a temple space after it has been lived in for a while, bringing back the cool damp of malleability to reshape a space. For my garden minded friends, the energy of the Waning Quarter Moon is of the compost, already spread in the garden, ready to receive water and new seeds.

As I've shared throughout this series, there are so many ways to approach the meaning of the different phases of the lunar cycle and what follows is my interpretation through the lens of Traditional Western Herbalism and magickal practice. I encourage you to be guided by your own intuitions, spiritual practices, and cultural stories. For me, plants that have gone to seed and are in that phase of focused tension between having died back and letting loose their seeds to the earth embody the energy of the Waning Quarter Moon. I enjoy working with plant allies that help me to figure out where to draw my focus in and down as opposed to expanding outwards and up. Herbs that help me to relax, sleep deep, and digest experiences (from food to emotions to information) are all ones that I reach for. As mentioned in my Waxing Quarter Moon post, sometimes I like to use the aboveground parts of a plant during the Waxing cycle and the below ground as well as barks and seeds of a plant during the Waning cycle.

Examples of Waning Quarter Moon Herbs: Aloe Vera (Aloe vera), Borage (Borago officinalis), Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale), Elder (Sambucus nigra), Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), Lavender (Lavandula officinalis), Mullein (Verbascum thapsus), Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata), Willow (Salix alba).

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

I was first introduced to Hawthorn through the work of herbalist Deb Soule of Avena Botanicals (in fact learning that I could even be a professional herbalist happened because a friend in college handed me a copy of Deb's herbal catalogue - I read it through many, many times, completely enchanted). One of the remedies she offered was for the broken-hearted featuring Hawthorn as a primary ingredient. A few years later, remembering Deb's remedy, I blended together a couple of herbs I had stored in my dorm room, Hawthorn included, into an incredibly bitter tea for a friend who had shown up crying and heartbroken from their break-up. She drank it in stride (brave, sorrowful soul) and I began my journey with Hawthorn as a teacher (who would teach me that bitter times doesn't always call for bitter medicine). 

Hawthorn is a deeply prized cardiotonic herb in Traditional Western Herbalism. The herb is a cardiac trophorestorative which is a restorative tonic for the heart, bringing the hard working muscle back into balance whether from an illness, stress, or the effects of aging. As a powerful but gentle herb, Hawthorn can be used for children, seniors, and all between. Part of Hawthorn’s heart healing gifts is its possession of antioxidants which prevent and reverse damage caused by free radicals as well as reducing oxidative stress on the capillary walls and improving circulatory tone (whether by relaxing or strengthening). It's an herb best used over the long-term and integrated into your daily life.

I like working with Hawthorn during the Waning Quarter Moons to help reflect on the ways that grief and loss has shaped me. This can be the small griefs of temporary separation from loved ones or the unexpected change in plans (like not getting into the program you wanted or missing out on an adventure with friends) to the long and enduring griefs of losing a loved one. Hawthorn helps us to swing between what was and what shall be as we deal with the grief of what is. This magick arises from Hawthorn's power as an herb of the hedge and the hinge. The hedge refers to its use both as a thorny bush marking land boundaries but also as the hedge marking the space between our world and other worlds (traditionally that of the Good Folk and Land Spirits), between one possibility and another. As a hinge herb, Hawthorn assists the "doors" between the chambers of the heart helping to regulate and improve myocardial function. But since herbs work on multiple levels of experience, Hawthorn also "acts as guardian of the hinge, hawthorn wisely discerns the right timing for the wounded heart to open" as noted by Judith Berger in Herbal Rituals.

I write more about Hawthorn within the context of thorn magick. It's an herb that I use in my practice often from breathwork to eclipse season, too.

Altar + Rituals

Decorate your altar with dualistic images if that calls to you or images beyond the binary and objects that evoke a sense of balance from within you. If you've built a Waxing Quarter Moon altar earlier in the cycle, you can choose to rebuild it, but reverse the location of all the objects for a bit of mirrored magick. Seek out patterns of harmony amongst the unexpected. Before you begin any ritual, take in an even number of deep and sustaining breaths. Shed any symbols, jewelry, items of clothing of who you no longer wish to be or things you no longer wish to hold onto before you reach your altar. Earth and seed planting spells, spells of ink and sigils, ice and snow magick, grounding and centering magick, and rituals that help you to slow down and focus in. As an offering, think of what you can do now that will be of great benefit to future you or your future communities from booking your first appointment for mental health services to planting the first seeds of a community garden. Learn about the sign that the Moon is in for more specific ideas and recommendations.

image via @brunoadamo

A Simple Waning Quarter Moon Ritual

To ground and center in your magick

For this ritual you will need one stone, preferably large and heavy but comfortable enough to lay on your belly - but it's completely ok if you only have a small stone available. This might be a stone from your garden or a sacred crystal that’s lived on your altar for a while, but be sure to invite them into the ritual before you start, honoring our stone ancestors in the process. 

Relax into a position where you can feel the edges of your body - this might be laying down before your altar or somewhere outside, covered in blankets on your bed or sitting in your comfiest chair. The purpose is to feel planted like a seed within the nurturing earth. Take up your stone and place it on your body (such as on your belly or over your heart) or hold it in a way that you are relaxed but able to feel its weight. It can also help to have a soft cloth or pillow over your eyes to aid your meditation.

Close your eyes. Take deep and relaxing breaths, allowing yourself with every in-breath to sink deeper into a state of grounded relaxation and with every out-breath releasing any tension you might be carrying. If you get distracted, that's just fine, as it is in our nature to become busier in our minds when we are trying to become quieter in our bodies. Simply call your attention back to the weight of the stone and your breath.

Begin to visualize your body growing roots into the earth below you. It can be one single taproot or multiple smaller root systems extending from your body into the earth. Spend some time reaching out to the healing dark of earth and soil.

Take a deep breath in and out, noticing a green energy stirring around you and your root systems. The earth is reaching out to you. Call up their green energy through your roots into your body. Let the earth energy pool and swirl within you. Spend some time breathing deep here, filling up with earth energy.

When you feel grounded in the energy of the earth, it is time to center. With every in-breath draw the energy of earth inward towards a single point in your body - you can choose this spot intuitively or draw the energy into the center of your body, an inch or two below your belly button. With every out-breath feel yourself releasing excess energy back into the earth.  Feel the energy coalesce into a single, vibrant place within you, humming with contentment and power.

When you feel centered, draw your attention back to the stone. Feel it's presence helping to draw you back up from the depths of your meditation. Begin to slowly move your body, stretch, and open your eyes.

Speak the following charm three times into the stone as a way to help collect the energy of the ritual so that you can easily evoke the experience of grounded centeredness again in the future:

By earth, to earth, through earth.

It is by earth we are made, to earth we are born, and through earth we come home again and again. Having completed the ritual, you can keep the stone on your altar, beside your bed or carry it on your person for extra grounding and centering magick. 

A Simple Waning Quarter Moon Tarot Spread

To help you recognize your magickal gifts

Card 1 · Mirror

The Moon is a mirror reflecting back our truths. This card helps you to understand who you are as a magickally gifted and psychic person. 

Card 2 · Veil

At the Quarter Moons, the Moon draws a veil across half of Her face, retreating from view. This card helps you to understand the ways that you hide your gifts from the world. A veil can be beautifully protective and holy, so this card doesn't always suggest that you are inappropriately hiding something, but that there are certain parts of your magickal gifts and psychic abilities that you might keep secret for your own benefit. This card can also help you recognize something about yourself you are not seeing.

Card 3 · Soil

This card helps you to understand what supports or hinders your ability to grow into your gifts.

Card 4 · Seed

This card shows one way that you can grow into your gifts, perhaps sharing them with others or using them in your life in ways that you currently are not.

Card 5 · Story

The overall message of the Waning Quarter Moon in your life. If you are familiar with your birth chart and how to find the transiting Moon in your chart this card can help you to understand the message of the Waxing Quarter Moon in the context of where it lands in your chart.

I hope you enjoyed this fourth post in my series exploring simple ritual practices of the lunar phases (and thanks to my patrons who requested this series!). You can find the posts for the other phases here:

• Waxing Quarter Moon

• Full Moon

• Dark Moon

• New Moon

If you're looking for more encouraging tarot spreads, check out my tarot as your best friend spread. For spreads to help you connect with your inner wisdom (and time travel) check out my conversation spreads with your ancient and future selves. And if you want to dive deeper into the world of lunar magick, come this way.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Spiraling Into the Center: The Wheel of the Year & Lunar Sabbats

My herbal and magickal practice is deeply tied to the rhythms of the land - and that rhythm is set by the steady turning of the Wheel of the Year. The sacred turning of seasons known as the Wheel of the Year is celebrated by modern Pagans who either are Wiccans or Druids or practice a tradition derived from (at least in part) Wicca or modern Druidry. That is not to say that the festivities found within the Wheel of the Year are exclusively Wiccan or of the Druid tradition, but the structure of these celebrations within an eight Sabbat format is directly derived from Wicca and modern Druidry as we’ll learn below.

I realized that while I’ve been writing about the individual Sabbats, I hadn’t taken time yet to invite you in to learn more about the Wheel of the Year as a tradition, from its structure to ever-changing meaning to the ways that we shape it into a tradition informed by the land we live with. So in this three part series I’ll do just that!

Let’s start by diving into where the Wheel of the Year comes from and it’s structure. If you’re looking for a broader discussion on making the wheel of the year more personalized to your practice, come this way.

Where does the Wheel of the Year come from?

While there was no ancient version of a eight Sabbat Wheel of the Year, each Sabbat is based on ancient seasonal and celestial festivities for time periods important to those ancient peoples as reflected in the sacred sites left across the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Europe (such as Stonehenge) as well as the folk festivals and customs that survived from Pagan periods. The Wheel of the Year is one of the most popular modern Pagan calendars, but it is not the only one and there are lots of culturally and locationally specific calendars with additional or completely different festivals. Hellenic Pagans, for example, celebrate festivals based on ancient Greek tradition exclusive of or in addition to the Wheel of the Year.

The Wheel of the Year as we know it today is based on scholarship and modern inspiration, primarily - though not exclusively - codified in the 1950s by Gerald Gardner, the father of modern Wicca, and Ross Nichols, founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. Early inspiration for the structure of the Wheel of the Year came from the work of Margaret Murray, Robert Graves, and earlier Victorian magickal practitioners and folklorists. If you're wanting to learn more about the history of the Sabbats, the wikipedia page on the Wheel of the Year is pretty great with a lot of good resources in the endnotes.

Structurally, the Wheel of the Year is a made up of eight seasonal festivals, spaced roughly six weeks apart, that consist of festivals of primarily Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and pre-Celtic British origin. The codification of the Wheel of the Year happened between Gardner and Nichols, where "popular legend holds that Gardner and Nichols developed the calendar during a naturist retreat, where Gardner argued for a celebration of the solstices and equinoxes while Nichols argued for a celebration of the four Celtic fire festivals, and combined the two ideas into a single festival cycle." (1) 

Names for the Sabbats were developed on further in the 1970s by Aidan Kelly, another early influential figure in Neopaganism, furthered named three Sabbats: Litha for the Summer Solstice, Ostara for the Spring Equinox, and Mabon for the Autumn Equinox. (2)

If you're looking for the primary resources used for the reconstruction of these Celtic, pre-Celtic and Anglo-Saxon festivities, the Celtic Reconstructionists have compiled vast resource lists. Paganachd is a good place to start with extensive guides to reconstructing Celtic traditions and what that means as well as a good reading list to start working through. I recommend enjoying the primary resource rather than getting too stuck with the gatekeeping and constant search for authenticity (which is such a complicated idea when it comes to spiritual and cultural practices) that can go on in some of the CR forums. For a deep dive into the origins of the Wheel of the Year, and just how Celtic it is or is not, as well as exploring the Coligny calendar (the oldest surviving example of a Celtic solar-lunar ritual calendar), The Celtic Calendar and the Anglo-Saxon Year by Richard Sermon is a good read.

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What is the structure of the Wheel of the Year?

The eight Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year fall into two categories: The Cross Quarter Festivals and the Quarter Festivals. If you want to see additional names for each Sabbat and well as more information on how to celebrate each, be sure to click through the links for profiles on each.

Cross Quarter Festivals (aka The Fire Festivals or The Greater Sabbats):

• Imbolc

• Beltane

• Lughnasadh

• Samhain

Quarter Festivals (aka The Solstices and Equinoxes or The Lesser Sabbats):

• Yule (Winter Solstice)

• Ostara (Spring Equinox)

• Litha (Summer Solstice)

• Mabon (Autumn Equinox)

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The "Quarter" is in reference to the four quarters of the year which can be measured seasonally (spring, summer, winter, and fall) and astrologically (i.e. the start of a season measured by entry into one of the four cardinal signs of the zodiac). The Quarter Sabbats mark the beginning and end of each season while the Cross Quarter Sabbats mark the height of each season. This measurement doesn't always make sense outside of specific environments (i.e. more northern climates), but for many Pagans, there is still an energetic if not obvious start, height, and end to each season that roughly aligns with the Sabbats. So, with this understanding:

• Yule is the end of autumn, beginning of winter and Imbolc marks the height of the winter season.

• Ostara is the end of winter, beginning of spring and Beltane marks the height of the spring season.

• Litha is the end of spring, beginning of summer and Lughnasadh marks the height of the summer season.

• Mabon is the end of summer, beginning of autumn and Samhain marks the height of the autumn season.

Finally, the Celtic people did mark the dark half and the bright half the year, which has influenced the way the modern Wheel of the Year is conceived. Samhain to Beltane is the dark half of the year, while Beltane to Samhain is the bright half of the year. Samhain, the beginning of the dark half of the year, marked the beginning of the year for the Celts, much as sunset marked the start of the new day. Marking the beginning of the year at Samhain is commonly celebrated by many Witch folk, myself included.

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In the above graphic you might have noticed a series of eight symbols or glyphs in the center of the wheel corresponding to each of the Sabbats. I don’t know where these originated from and I have a vague memory of figuring this out years ago but haven’t been able to find my notes on the matter if I did (take good notes, kids!). I think that the Quarter Festivals were created first, followed by the Cross Quarter ones, but again that’s going on fuzzy memory at this point. If you know the origins of the Sabbat glyphs, please let me know. The glyphs may represent the following:

The Samhain Glyph: A sacred knot representing the cycle of life death and rebirth, showing the interconnectedness between the worlds.

The Yule Glyph: Winter store of food, people, embers of the fire and/or a sacred cairn or burial mound showing stylized bones and points of life (representing the hope of rebirth) within.

The Imbolc Glyph: Shows new seedlings and plants emerging from the earth after winter.

The Ostara Glyph: The young emerging Sun/Horned God. I also see this as an egg symbol cracking open.

The Beltane Glyph: The maypole! Or wheat stalk representing agricultural fields.

The Litha Glyph: The Sun at full maturity pouring light out across the land.

The Lughnasadh Glyph: Perhaps representing the setting Sun, who is now in decline at the beginning of the harvest season.

The Mabon Glyph: A stylized cornucopia overflowing with plenty, also perhaps a stylized stang.

When are the Sabbats celebrated?

The Cross Sabbats are observed on fixed dates throughout the year - through you might find discrepancies between texts on what dates they should be fixed to. Some books for example will say that Lughnasadh is on August 2 while others will say it is August 1. What's happening here is that for the Celts the start of a new day began at sunset - so the sunset of August 1 to the sunset of August 2 would be a day within a Celtic calendar. Hence, Lughnasadh can be celebrated from sundown on August 1 to sundown on August 2 or on just one of those days.

The Quarter Sabbats are celebrated at the solstices and equinoxes which are astronomical events that have slight variation from year to year. Yule, for example, might be on December 19 one year and December 21 the next year depending on when the earth's pole tilts furthest away from the Sun.

The dates for each Sabbat (Northern Hemisphere):

• Samhain : October 31

• Yule: On the day of the Winter Solstice usually around December 19 - 23

• Imbolc: February 1 - 2

• Ostara: On the day of the Spring Equinox usually around March 19 - 23

• Beltane: May 1 - 2

• Litha: On the day of the Summer Solstice usually around June 19 - 23

• Lughnasadh: August 1 - 2

• Mabon: On the day of the Autumn Equinox usually around September 19 - 23

The dates for each Sabbat (Southern Hemisphere):

• Samhain : May 1 - 2

• Yule: On the day of the Winter Solstice usually around June 19 - 23

• Imbolc: August 1 - 2

• Ostara: On the day of the Spring Equinox usually around Septmeber 19 - 23

• Beltane: October 1 - 2

• Litha: On the day of the Summer Solstice usually around December 19 - 23

• Lughnasadh: February 1 - 2

• Mabon: On the day of the Autumn Equinox usually around March 19 - 23

While the dates I just listed are the most common observational times for each Sabbat, there is also the astrological timing of each Sabbat. For the Quarter Festivals, the above and below dates align (i.e. the Winter Solstice happens when the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn at 0 degrees). It is with the Cross Quarter Sabbats that you find variation of dates. You can reference an ephemeris or your favorite astrological calendar for these dates. While celebrating the Sabbats on the above dates are most common, there are a number of Pagans, especially those with an affinity for astrological work, that celebrate the astrological dates Sabbats, too.

The astrological timing for each Sabbat (Northern Hemisphere):

• Samhain: Sun at 15° Scorpio

• Yule: Sun at 0° Capricorn

• Imbolc: Sun at 15° Aquarius

• Ostara: Sun at 0° Aries

• Beltane: Sun at 15° Taurus

• Litha: Sun at 0° Cancer

• Lughnasadh: Sun at 15° Leo

• Mabon: Sun at 0° Libra

The astrological timing for each Sabbat (Southern Hemisphere):

• Beltane: Sun at 15° Scorpio

• Litha: Sun at 0° Capricorn

• Lughnasadh: Sun at 15° Aquarius

• Mabon: Sun at 0° Aries

• Samhain: Sun at 15° Taurus

• Yule: Sun at 0° Cancer

• Imbolc: Sun at 15° Leo

• Ostara: Sun at 0° Libra

Each season of a Sabbat lasts for one and a half signs of the zodiac. So Yule lasts all 30 degrees of Capricorn and 15 degrees of Aquarius. Then Imbolc begins on 15 degrees Aquarius and moves through the last 15 degrees of Aquarius and then all thirty degrees of Pisces. And so the wheel turns and turns through all of the signs of the zodiac.

You may have noticed that the Wheel of the Year is shown moving counter-clockwise - this is to match the Wheel with the zodiac. The planets move through the zodiac in a counter-clockwise motion so the zodiac is drawn to reflect that. To match the Wheel of the Year with the zodiac it moves in a counter-clockwise motion, too.

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What are the Lunar Sabbats?

I've been seeing Lunar Sabbats showing up more and more in recent years where before they were mostly known to folks who purchased We'Moons - which makes sense because it was the folks at We'Moon (according to email conversations with them) who partially developed the practice. I love celebrating Lunar Sabbats and was lucky to be introduced to them early on in my practice of shifting time away from a measurement that is capitalistic and consumption based to one that is cyclical and reverent to bodies, places, and spaces beyond commodification. I've written about Lunar Samhain before, but here is a brief summary from my personal practice of what a Lunar Sabbat is.

Lunar Sabbats are different than Esbats - a term introduced by Margaret Murray and popularized within Wiccan tradition - as the celebration of different lunar phases (primarily New and Full Moons). Esbats are another beautiful tradition and deserve their own post, but Lunar Sabbats are tied to the solar based Wheel of the Year and serve as Moon-based equivalents to the Cross Quarter Sabbats or the Fire Festivals of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain. Why not the Quarter Sabbats, too? Because the Quarter Sabbats, marked at the solstices and equinoxes are already celebrations of both solar and lunar movements.

Because of their origin partially within the We’Moon community, the Lunar Sabbats are tied to womxn's culture and feminist spirituality, connecting to a powerful thread of revolutionary and transformative magick. (3) For me, I love celebrating the Lunar Sabbats as a more quiet, more intense, and more personal Sabbat celebration. When I’m able to, after attending a public and community-oriented Sabbat celebration, I love being able to gather together with close witch kin for a Lunar Sabbat celebration. If the Sabbats are a bright mirror reflecting the energy of the season in our lives, the Lunar Sabbats are the black mirror of scrying, where we draw energy up from our depths and are guided by the turning of our inner compass.

The Lunar Sabbats can be measured in different ways, the simplest being the Full or New Moon closest to the solar date of a Sabbat (i.e. the New Moon closest to October 31 to mark Lunar Samhain) with New Moons for the dark half of the year (Samhain and Imbolc) and Full Moons observed for the bright half of the year (Beltane and Lughnasadh).

Then there are two different ways to measure the astrological timing to the Lunar Sabbats. The first is how the Sabbats are measured via the We'Moon calendar system.

In the Northern Hemisphere:

• Lunar Samhain: New Moon in Scorpio

• Lunar Imbolc: New Moon in Aquarius

• Lunar Beltane: Full Moon in Scorpio

• Lunar Lughnasadh: Full Moon in Aquarius

In the Southern Hemisphere:

• Lunar Samhain: Full Moon in Scorpio

• Lunar Imbolc: Full Moon in Aquarius

• Lunar Beltane: New Moon in Scorpio

• Lunar Lughnasadh: New Moon in Aquarius

The above system has a beautiful and purposeful symmetry to it. The dark half of the year at Samhain marked with a New Moon Lunar Sabbat is reflected in the bright half of the year with a Full Moon Lunar Sabbat at Beltane. The same symmetry is found at Imbolc and Lughnasadh. This is the system you’ll find in your We’Moon planner.

The second way of calculating the Lunar Sabbats is:

Northern Hemisphere:

• Lunar Samhain: New Moon in Scorpio

• Lunar Imbolc: New Moon in Aquarius

• Lunar Beltane: New Moon in Taurus

• Lunar Lughnasadh: New Moon in Leo

Southern Hemisphere:

• Lunar Samhain: New Moon in Taurus

• Lunar Imbolc: New Moon in Leo

• Lunar Beltane: New Moon in Scorpio

• Lunar Lughnasadh: New Moon in Aquarius

With this system, all four dates for the Lunar Sabbat are more directly tied to the solar astrological timing of the season (i.e. Beltane happens when the Sun is at 15° Taurus so the New Moon in Taurus becomes Lunar Beltane). Which is the better system? There’s no better system - it’s completely a matter of personal preference and whatever way gets you showing up to the work of knowing yourself and holy community. I’ll be writing about each of the Lunar Sabbats in the future, so if you want to know when those posts will be published you can sign-up for my newsletter.

Is the Wheel of the Year an exclusively Celtic, pre-Celtic, Anglo-Saxon thing?

A little bit yes but mostly no. Yes, in the sense that these are seasonal festivals based on practices from these specific cultures. I think it's important and really enlightening to know the origins of the Sabbats (as much as we can) and give honor to the ancestors who helped their descendants to dream of them again. It is no small feat after centuries of forced conversion and propaganda against Pagan ways that the Wheel of the Year, a Pagan and earth-honoring system of experiencing time and toppling oppressive nature-denigrating institutions of power, is part of one of the most rapidly growing religions (at least in the United States of America). (4)

And also no, in the sense that the Wheel of the Year has grown far beyond the confines of a tiny island nation and the people like Gerald Gardner, Ross Nichols, Margaret Murray, Doreen Valiente, and Robert Graves who were attempting to revive a cultural inheritance at danger of being lost. It's important to remember that we don't know exactly how or why Celtic, pre-Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon peoples celebrated seasonal changes and even if we did have exact details of these festivities, we are not our ancestors, but their miraculous descendants who live in a different time though connected through the land, sea, and sky. In that spirit I see the Wheel of the Year as a living, breathing, and adaptable tradition, meant to be celebrated by a wide and diverse network of people committed to earth-based spiritual practice.

The beauty of the Wheel of the Year and the fact that its celebrations are rooted to seasonal changes means that it’s a framework that can be applied to any part of the world by the Pagans who live there. I think that the Wheel of the Year works for so many Pagans around the globe because of this flexibility of application and I find this vastness of shared seasonal philosophy to be beautifully unifying amongst a people who have no central leadership (with the exception of a few tradition-specific groups) or singular holy book and pride themselves on being both community-oriented and idiosyncratic.

What is the spiritual meaning of the Wheel of the Year?

That, my friends, is what we'll be exploring in our next post. 

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The title for this post was inspired by a beautiful Pagan chant written by Beverly Frederick, from her album Into the Arms of the Wild, which goes as follows:

Spiraling into the Center,
the Center of the Wheel.
Spiraling into the Center,
the Center of the Wheel.

We are the Weavers, we are the woven ones
We are the Dreamers, we are the Dream.
We are the Weavers, we are the woven ones
We are the Dreamers, we are the Dream.

It’s a lovely song that I’ve sung dancing around Maypoles, journeying with community between the worlds at Samhain celebrations, and in hopeful revery during the longest night of the year. I hope it brings you a lot of joy, too. It can be especially beautiful to alternate “the Center of the Wheel” with the line “the Center of us All.”

If you're wanting to dive into more inspiration about the Wheel of the Year, check out my series of might-do lists for the Sabbats. I’ll be writing two more posts on the Wheel of the Year in the coming months as well as a series on the Lunar Sabbats a little after that, too. If you’re looking for more seasonal magick and healing, check out my Witchcraft + Weeds series.

Wherever the turning wheel finds you, I hope that you’re coming ever closer to home.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

Footnotes

(1) The Wheel of the Year. The whole relationship between Nichols and Gardner is a really interesting and influential one in the development of modern Paganism as Nichols was a covenmate of Gardner's and he would later go on to create the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD) which is a supremely lovely community of magickal folk. Phillip Carr-Gomm, former head of OBOD, and who was a student of Nichols talks more about the relationship between Gardner and Nicholas if you're wanting to learn more - I believe in a Druidcast episode. And then if you're going to read about Gardner, please read everything you can about Doreen Valiente who rescued Wicca more or less (from innumerable (mostly) menfolk who couldn't seem to see beyond their own noses and were constantly embroiled in conflict with one another), infused it with incredible Goddess-led inspiration, and she was herself by all accounts a delightful and kind weirdo (and maybe a spy for the British government!).

(2) From The Wheel of the Year: "Aidan Kelly gave names to the summer solstice (Litha) and equinox holidays (Ostara and Mabon) of Wicca in 1974, and these were popularized by Timothy Zell through his Green Egg magazine." You can read more about Kelly’s thoughts behind the choices here.

(3) To be abundantly trans-inclusive, non-binary loving, genderweird, and gender atheist affirming (a few of those ways which I identify as, just fyi): Womxn's culture is inherently trans and nonbinary inclusive, open to all of those who in some way, shape or form identify as a womxn, and are participating in the long and varied tradition of being seen in the world as womxn and shaping culture from that perspective and experience.

(4) Growth of Religion. The United States also has a growing population of “Nothing. The United States is not the only place where modern Paganism is on the rise - it’s just the place I’m most familiar with Pagan demographics. Iceland, for example, has had a rapid rise of Ásatrú, which in some ways can be seen as a re-indigenization of a population.

The watercolors that I used to paint the illustrations used throughout this post were created by Ojibwe artist, Anong Beam. Please join me in supporting her indigenous, female-led, watercolor company, Beam Paints.

Budding: New Moon Ritual & Healing Practices

The heat has arrived and I am seeking shade and water like many of the creatures and plants I share this garden with. With the variation of sun and shade, different plants come to bloom in the yard throughout the spring and early summer. Right now I'm watching birds and squirrels nibble on the flowering fruits of the Pineapple Guava Tree (Acca sellowiana or Feijoa sellowiana) that sits outside my office window. This tree is an energetic spot throughout the year whether as a resting point for multiple varieties of birds as they fly past our house or host to the amusing antics of squirrels who mostly keep their balance while traversing the branches.

Since it sits outside the window where I often write, it's budding, flowering, fruiting, and the different animals that come to visit it have come to mark energetic starting points throughout the year for me. And so it feels appropriate to be writing about the New Moon during this time of heat and energy as it represents the point of new beginnings and often sharp and swift energetic shifts in the lunar calendar.

After a long period of waning and eventual darkness, the Moon reappears in the sky as a silver crescent, marking the beginning of the next lunar cycle. It is a time of newness and possibility, of budding hope, and the result of the hard work of setting boundaries and cutting away the unnecessary in our lives. Energy, possibility, hope, transformation, new beginnings, and swiftness are all key energies of the New Moon.

image via @tonelisa

Herbal Traditions

In Traditional Western Herbalism the New Moon is considered a time of hot and moist herbs. Continuing on the sacred structure metaphor started in the last post in our Moon healing and ritual series, the New Moon creates the heat and damp necessary to create the material needed to build the walls of the temple. The heat begins to "cook" the clay that will eventually harden, but it is still early in the process where moisture is present, allowing for the malleability needed to form foundations and walls. In the garden, the right balance of heat and moisture are essential to beginning the process of breaking down plant and food material into rich and nutritive soil.

This is just one approach to imagining the energies of the New Moon, inspired by Traditional Western Herbalism, and you're encouraged to create and seek out stories of the New Moon that work for you. The energies of the New Moon are often exciting and can feel like the first step across the precipice of something new. When I think about herbs of the New Moon I'm drawn to more stimulating remedies, ones that nourish the internal fires of life and digestion (like warming bitters), and those remedies that might have a bit of sharpness to them (whether in the form of heat, bitterness or energetically such as thorn medicine). Remedies that call to me at this time are ones that help me to wake up to my dreams or new possibilities, that help to start a new project or release an old habit or way of thinking that no longer serves me, and almost all of them help me to shift my perspective. But this is from my personal experience and I encourage you to trust your intuition when seeking out plant allies for different phases of the Moon.

Examples of New Moon Herbs: Peppermint (Mentha piperita), Coffee (Coffee arabica), Tea (Camellia sinensis), Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), Ginger (Zingiber officinalis), Licorice (Glycyrrhiza spp), Ginseng (Panax ginseng), Lavender (Lavandula officinalis), Milky Oats (Avena sativa), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). 

Basil (Ocimum spp.)

Basil embodies the heat and energy-moving signature of the New Moon. Unlike other hot herbs, the heat of Basil is often more accessible and easily tolerated by a wide variety of folks. While it can be more drying, it's ability to move energy and accompanying fluid (for fluid is the primary mover of energy in our water-filled bodies) brings in the moist aspect of New Moon herbs. As a nervine and adaptogen, Basil adapts to the body’s needs, relaxing us when we need to rest and invigorating us when it is time to rise. The herb supports both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system helping guide us through the cycle of fight or flight back to rest and digest.

The variety of Basil I use most often in my practice is Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum, tenuiflorum) also known as Sacred or Holy Basil. Sacred Basil is well studied as an adaptogenic herb and is a highly regarded herb within Ayurvedic tradition - it is a holy panacea. The plant itself is an embodiment of the Goddess Lakshmi and growing one in the home is considered a sacred act. I find the living herb to bring on a reverential meditative state in many who spend any amount of time with them. I have personally found the plant to be a generous teacher, pouring out an abundance of wisdom to those who would take the time to sit and be with them. There is a popular quote by herbalist David Hoffman that goes, "When in doubt, choose nettles" and while I definitely choose Nettles (Urtica dioica) often, my personal "in doubt" herb is Tulsi, with her broad and expansive healing gifts. 

Within Traditional Western Herbalism, Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum) is named for the dragons or mighty basilisks that haunt mountains and caves. The herb not only moves heat through our body, but Basil also stokes our inner fires, helping us to digest our food and move waste from our bodies. Connecting with plants associated with dragons is to connect with the energy moving and coursing through the land we live on as well as the landscape of our bodies. It is to connect with very old energies in order to bring about very new change. Basil helps us, in a New Moon fashion, direct our will, manifest our dreams with life-giving heat, and protect the fire of our hearts.

Basil features in one of my favorite teas, I love it for breathwork, and it is an herb I use often for empaths and highly sensitive folks.

Altars + Rituals

Decorate your altar with shiny and reflective items and items and images that bring a sense of energy and emerging brightness to your life. Symbols of scythes and swords, or your athames herb cutting blade or kitchen knives carry New Moon energy and fit well on the altar. Add bells and other musical instruments to stir up energy with sound. Before you begin any ritual, clap your hands, move your body, and participate in energy raising practices. Spells of fire and water, wax divination, herbal oils and hydrosols to anoint the body and scent the air. As an offering consider the habits that you can nudge towards a more value-aligned way of living such as choosing more zero waste options in your personal life while agitating for more corporate responsibility for the climate crisis (living more zero waste is great and the worst polluters are not individuals but massive, unresponsive corporations and capitalist greed - let us hold them responsible and dismantle them as necessary with the double-blade of justice-oriented legislation and reform). Learn about the sign that the Moon is in for more specific ideas and recommendations.

image via @mohamadaz

A Simple New Moon Ritual

To clear out old energy and make way for the new

Using pins and needles in spellcraft is an old form of witchery found in multiple cultures around the world. Within western esotericism and traditional witchcraft, pins and needles can act like little swords or daggers to direct energy. I recommend using quilting pins with glass heads, but sewing needles or thorns can be used, too. We'll be using a candle to represent you and your energy and the needles will work as both energetic massage and scythe, helping to work out knotted energy and release it.

Begin by creating sacred space in whatever way is meaningful to you.

Place two candles and the pins before you on your altar. Wake up the energy in your body, whether this is through clapping, dancing, swaying, breathwork - do whatever works for you. When you feel like you've raised enough energy, hold one of the candles between your hands and leave the other candle on the altar. Connect your energy to the candle in your hands by saying:

Candle body
My body bright
Holy body
Candle alight

Speak the charm repeatedly, a speedy murmuration, as you visualize it glowing bright with your energy. Place it back on your altar. Take a moment to scan your body, seeking out where energy may be stuck and holding you back from moving on into the next cycle of the Moon. When you find a stuck spot, pick up a needle and hold it over the area, pulling the knotted energy into the needle while saying:

Knot and needle
Needle and knot
In the needle
The knot I've caught

Then poke the needle into the side of the candle, near the top, so that it stays there on its own. Repeat this process until all knotted energy has been caught up in the needles. 

All is whole, the way made clear -
What is stuck, disappears,
What is knotted, comes undone, 
As needles fall one by one.

Now it is time to light your candle. Let it burn so that one by one the needles fall and the knotted energy is undone, clearing the path for you. During the candles' burning you can sing and move and dance or meditate quietly - whatever you are feeling called to. 

Just before that candle completely burns down, light the other candle on your altar. Here is the light of your energy burning bright and unhindered. You can let this burn out completely or light it periodically throughout the lunar cycle to help energize your ritual work.

Once the candle with needles has completely burned, you might choose to read the patterns of the needles and the shape of any residual wax as a form of divination (sort of like tasseomancy) as some Witchfolk do. Once the spell is done, you can cleanse the needles in salt water to use them again in future spells. For particularly tough and tangled energy, take the needles to the crossroads and bury them deep in the earth, walking away from them without looking back.

A Simple New Moon Tarot Spread

To understand what needs releasing and what needs nurturing

Card 1 · Fire

What needs to be offered to the fire so that you can burn bright unhindered? This card highlights the energy in your life that needs clearing out and releasing as you begin the next lunar cycle. 

Card 2 · Blade

How can I offer up what is no longer needed in my life? Calling on the scythe-like energy of the New Moon, this card gives suggestions on how to release stagnant, unneeded or hindering energy in your life.

Card 3 · Water

What needs to be nurtured so that I can flow unhindered? This card highlights the energy in your life that needs a bit more tenderness and care as you begin the next lunar cycle.

Card 4 · Cauldron

How can I nurture what needs extra care in my life? Calling on the hope-expanding energy of the New Moon, this card gives suggestions on how to nurture the part of your life that needs comfort, strength or extra love so that you can move forward with greater ease.

Card 5 · Story

The overall message of the New Moon in your life. If you are familiar with your birth chart and how to find the transiting Moon in your chart this card can help you to understand the message of the Waxing Quarter Moon in the context of where it lands in your chart.

These posts are part of a series on the lunar cycle that was inspired by my patrons who help me keep the majority of my work free to access. You can find the posts for the other phases here:

• Waxing Quarter Moon

• Full Moon

• Waning Quarter Moon

• Dark Moon

A few years back I did a year long dive into the energy of the New Moon for healers through each of the twelve signs of the zodiac. If that sounds like your cup of, come this way. For a deeper dive into the intersections of lunar herbalism and sacred self inquiry, I have a course for you.

If you’ve been feeling a lot of tenderness lately and are looking for a bit more care after the work of releasing unwanted energy at the New Moon, you might like this.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

In All Our Brightness: Calendula Plant Profile

It feels appropriate that just before Beltane, the start of the summer season in the wheel of the year, I’m writing about a plant with a common name of Summer’s Bride. Calendula is a celebrated in traditional western herbalism as a reliable, inexpensive, and easy to grow plant ally.

For me, the magick of Calendula is in the way that the blossoms seem to chatter amongst each other, encouraging each other to shine brighter, to unfold just a bit further, to scatter seeds wider across the landscape. The plant has a community energy to it and to sit amongst a Calendula plant in bloom is to be privy to a steady energy of encouragement. “Who said you shouldn’t shine so bright?!” Calendula will ask you, shocked. “Better shine brighter then!”

I hope you find a bit of bright inspiration reading about Calendula!

image by author

Calendula
(Calendula officinalis)

Common + Folk Names : Pot marigold, ruggles, holigold, gowan, bull's eye, Mary bud, ringelblume, summer's bride, spousa solis

Element : Fire, Earth

Zodiac Signs : Sagittarius, Leo, Taurus

Planets : Sun, Venus

Moon Phase : Full Moon

Tarot Cards : Temperance (sacredness of balanced incarnation), Judgement (consciousness raising), Four of Wands (celebrations), the Sevens (healing of all wounds). Learn more about the intersections of herbalism and the tarot.

Parts used : Flower

Habitat : Native to Eurasia but found worldwide.

Growing conditions : Full sun and thrives in a variety of soil types. 

Collection : Collect the flowers as they bloom. Deadheading the plant will guarantee flowers for much of the growing season.

Flavor : Bitter, pungent

Temperature : Slightly Cool to Cold. Alternatively, the Greeks classified Calendula as Warm.

Moisture : Dry

Tissue State : Cold/Depression, Heat/Excitation

Constituents : Iodine, manganese, potassium, saponins, caretonoids, flavonoids, polysaccharides, mucilage, bitters, phytosterols, polysaccharides, resin.

Actions : Alterative, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, antiviral, astringent, calmative, choleretic, demulcent, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, immunostimulant, probiotic, vulnerary.

Main Uses : I love Calendula. It's one of the first flowers to bloom on the land I live with and it's endlessly interesting in the variety of colors and shapes a single plant can produce. And Calendula will continue to flower for months if you continue to pick the blooms, being sure, of course, to leave plenty to go to seed so they can pop up again next year.

Calendula is prized as a healer of wounds and many herbal students, myself included, made batches of sunny colored salve from its flowers to use on all variety of skin healing needs from simple cuts to recovery from surgical procedures. Calendula assists in the healing of skin through promoting the formation of granulation tissues and in addition to its tissue repairing qualities, the herb protects against infections like E. coli and staph by stimulating the production of white blood cells. The plant brings restorative sunlight to the body and spirit after a period of damp and unwanted darkness. 

image via @myriamzilles

Use Calendula in helping to clear congestion both from the lymph nodes and from the gut. As a cleansing herb and digestive aid, Calendula helps to eliminate worms and parasites while clearing out accumulations of toxins in the gut. An indication for Calendula is excess heat in the gut which causes gastritis and inflammation. Anne McIntyre points out that Calendula is helpful in reducing excess pitta and kapha from the body - while not a perfect comparison, in TWH we would say that excess heat and inflammation (pitta) combined with damp stagnation (kapha).¹ Some of the signs of damp heat are swollen glands, congestion both digestive and in the upper respiratory system, a feeling of over-fullness, and thirst but not a strong impulse to drink. Another general indication for Calendula for damp heat is yellowishness to the skin, eyes, and in mucous.

Notice how your fingers are sticky after picking Calendula? That's from the plants' rich resin content which is why it is such a prized topical treatment for the skin. Topically the herb is used for wound care in a variety of forms including as an oil, compress, liniment, herbal wash, and hydrosol. It is a well-loved and effective vulnerary, helping skin and tissue to heal after wounding and bruising. Use as a gargle for gingivitis and mouth sores, in nasal washes for sinus infections and nosebleeds, as well as an eyewash for conjunctivitis as well as tired, irritated or scratched eyes. Useful as a compress for eye strain from staring at screens too long. Helpful in clearing up acne.

It is useful in treating varicose veins, leg ulcers and abscesses, ringworm, as well as aiding the skin after exposure to the elements including sun and wind burn and general air pollution. For animal and insect bites, it can be used topically and internally to help prevent infections. Those who are suffering from sore nipples because of nursing can find relief through Calendula compresses followed by application of the herbal oil. Include the herb in sitz baths for hemorrhoid relief and postpartum care. Use as a douche for vaginal infections.

Many herbalists I know, myself included, add the bright petals of Calendula, carefully preserved from spring and summer, into autumn and winter tea blends, The brightness of these petals bring a certain warmth and magick to the tea cup and help to enliven weary spirits who perhaps struggle with the darker half of the year.

One more note on the astrological correspondences of Calendula. You'll usually find Calendula categorized as a herb of Leo given its color and that it is an herb of the Sun, Leo's Guardian Planet. Or it is classified as a Sagittarian herb because of its deep connection with the skin. While there are certainly a number of ways that Calendula embodies Leonine and Sagittarian energies, I also use it as a Taurean and Venusian herb. As already discussed, within Traditional Western Herbalism it is primarily used for topical skin complaints (especially wound care), general inflammation, and as a digestive aid, all of which are associated with Venus' healing powers. The plant self-seeds, grows abundantly and is beautiful and cheering to see, qualities found amongst Taurean and Venusian plants. So I use Calendula for Leo to help balance their leonine energies and effectively direct solar power, as well as a Taurean plant and Venusian ally.

Magickal Uses : Calendula makes it appearances on altars from India to Mexico and is a beautiful plant of offering and devotion. Scott Cunningham recommends picking the flowers in the middle of the day under bright sunlight to create charms to strengthen and gladden the heart.² Albertus Magnus has further recommendations for the gathering of Calendula including picking it in August when the Sun is in Leo while wearing a crown of Bay leaves and then adding a tooth of a wolf to what you've gathered to create a charm where only peaceful words will be spoken to and about you.³ These days just a Bay leaf with Calendula petals and perhaps the photo or drawing of a wolf would suffice in making a similar charm.

In more ways than one the plant is protective and garlands can be hung throughout the home to keep out unwanted energies and spirits. Use the plant in incense and infusions to help you find a thief and to locate your stolen goods. Add the petals to dream bundles to aid you in your night visions and psychic dreaming. Cunningham describes a curious tradition whereby if a girl walks barefoot on Calendula she'll be able to understand the language of birds - useful for witchfolk and those with avian familiars.

image via @yoksel

The Calendula Personality : Admittedly, it was a bit hard to try and succinctly sum up the Calendula personality. The plant and its accompanying spirit have a wide light cast with ease and abundance - it reminds me of Mustard Flower Essence but with more diffusion and broader application. It's a great essence for most folks and you really feel that when sitting amongst a wild spreading bush of Calendula blooms. As I continued to sit with Calendula one message that came through was that they were an essence that helped folks who have been told that they are a bit much - whether repeatedly since they were a child or situationally such as women frequently being dismissed as "a bit much" by male colleagues. Leonine energies of the essence can help support us in the work of confronting microaggressions brought on by misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. Calendula helps us to take up space instead of bending ourselves into that were never big enough to hold us.

Calendula also offers lessons in learning to live with the abundance of self-expression for those who live with greater intensity than the general population. It helps folks to learn moderation when necessary but more importantly the essences helps folks to open back up to the warmth and light of close relationships after being shut-down by their peers for being "too much." Calendula helps us to make wise decisions on who we relate to through accepting the beauty of our intensity and sensitivity and finding others who are ready to do the same.

Contraindications : Generally regarded as safe, but avoid during pregnancy because of emmenagogue qualities.

Drug interactions : None known. Caution with sedatives and insulin/hypoglycaemic medications.

Dosage : Dry before tincture for a more potent extract. Standard dosage.

Bright Calendula is a plant that I carefully preserve for my winter apothecary and it’s been making an appearance in my winter solstice recipes for years and years. For other summer inspired magick, here’s my guide to weeds and witchcraft of the hottest season. Calendula is part of The Plant Ally Library where you can find all of my plant ally profiles from all of my courses in one easy to access and download space.

Calendula is a great herb for herbal baths and is an all around friendly and easy to grow herb to get to know. I hope you find yourself amongst their blooms one of these days.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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Footnotes

1. Anne McIntyre, Dispensing with Tradition: A Practitioner's Guide to using Indian and Western Herbs the Ayurvedic Way (Cheltenham: Artemis House, 2012), 34.

2. Scott Cunningham, Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 2001), 169.

3. Paul Beyerl, A Compendium of Herbal Magick (Custer, WA: Phoenix Publishing, 1998), 239.