Moon phase

The Moon makes no light of its own. The Sun always lights one half of it, and as the Moon orbits Earth the angle between the three bodies keeps shifting, so we see more or less of that lit half. One full round of phases, new moon to new moon, takes about 29.5 days, a span called the synodic month. Astronomers count eight named phases along the way: new, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, last quarter and waning crescent. Waxing means the lit part is growing and waning means it is shrinking, and the two quarter moons look half lit because they fall a quarter and three quarters of the way through the cycle.

Tradition maps intentions onto the cycle. The new moon is for beginnings and quiet planning, the waxing weeks for building, the full moon for culmination and release when feelings run high, and the waning weeks for clearing and letting go. The sign the Moon is passing through tints the mood of each phase, so a full moon in Scorpio is read very differently from one in Libra.

Follow one loop through early 2026. A new moon fell in Capricorn on 18 January; set an intention there and, in the traditional rhythm, you watch it build as the Moon fattens. About two weeks later, on 1 February, the Moon reached full in Leo, the point where whatever you started is meant to ripen or come to a head. The February 2026 full moon page gives the exact time and what astrologers read into it.

A phase is not a sign. The phase is how lit the Moon is, while the sign is where it sits in the zodiac. A quarter moon looks half, which trips people up, because the name counts the cycle rather than the light. And there is no permanently dark side of the Moon; every part is lit at some point in the month, just not always facing us.

The NovaOracles lunar calendar shows the Moon's phase for any date, and the moon and eclipses guide walks through reading the cycle. The stretch when the Moon is void of course sits inside this same rhythm.