Lunar rituals
Ancient stillness for a fast-paced life. Read the Moon, read yourself.
People have been keeping time by the Moon for as long as there has been anyone to keep time. Long before anyone needed a self-care practice, the full moon was a fast day, a festival, a story about a goddess who was broken apart and put in the sky.
What follows is three of those traditions, each said plainly first and then adapted. The adaptations are ours, and they are labelled so, because a practice someone still observes on a Tuesday is not a technique and should not be handed over as one.
The Hindu calendar
The Hindu lunisolar calendar counts by the Moon, and the full moon day, Purnima, carries weight in it. Many Purnimas are festivals in their own right, and observant Hindus keep a vrat, a vow that usually includes fasting, on them. The Moon itself is Chandra, also called Soma, a name that belongs at once to the Moon, to a deity and to the ritual drink of the Vedas.
These are observances, not exercises. What is below says what each one is, and then offers our own version of it.
Purnima
What it is
The full moon day of each lunar month, and a marker of the Hindu calendar. Several of the year’s largest festivals fall on one, and many people keep a vrat on it: a vow, frequently a fast held from sunrise until the moon is sighted.
Our adaptation
Take the full moon as a fixed monthly appointment rather than a mood. Put the date in the calendar for the year ahead, and give up one specific thing for that day, chosen because you will notice its absence. The point is not the going without. It is that a self-imposed edge makes a day distinguishable from the days on either side of it.
Arghya
What it is
An offering of water, poured from the hands or from a vessel towards a celestial body. It is made to the Sun at Chhath, and to the Moon at Karva Chauth, where the fast is broken only after the moon has been seen and the water offered.
Our adaptation
Go outside and find the Moon before you do anything else that evening. Pour a glass of water out onto the ground, or onto a plant, while you are looking at her. It is a small deliberate loss, made in front of a witness, and it is remarkably hard to do absent-mindedly, which is the whole use of it.
Soma
What it is
A name for the Moon, for the deity of the Moon, and for the pressed ritual drink of the Vedic hymns. The three meanings are not kept separate in the texts: the drink is the god, the god is the Moon, and the Moon is the cup that empties and fills.
Our adaptation
Drink something warm, slowly, without a screen, on the night of the full moon. That is all. What is worth carrying over from the older meaning is the emptying and refilling, so let the drink take as long as it takes rather than being finished.
The Mexica story
In Mexica (Aztec) telling, Coyolxauhqui is the moon. She led her four hundred siblings against their mother Coatlicue, and her brother Huitzilopochtli was born fully armed, struck her down and dismembered her, and her head was thrown into the sky to become the Moon. The great carved disc showing her broken body was found at the foot of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City, where it sat below the shrine so that anything falling from above landed on her.
The reading that has grown up around her in the last decades, most influentially in the writing of Gloria Anzaldúa, is the one worth taking: the Coyolxauhqui imperative, the ongoing work of being pulled apart and putting yourself back together, over and over, as the actual shape of a life rather than a failure of it.
Coyolxauhqui
What it is
The moon goddess of the Mexica, shown on the Templo Mayor disc in pieces. Her story is not a story about a defeat that gets undone. She stays in fragments, and she is also the Moon, which comes back whole every month.
Our adaptation
On the waning moon, name one thing that came apart this cycle: a plan, a version of yourself, an idea about someone. Write it down in pieces rather than as a tidy account of what happened, one line per piece, no ordering. Leave it until the new moon, then read it and see what you want to put back and what you would rather leave where it fell. Not everything needs reassembling, and knowing which is which is the skill.
The modern cycle
The contemporary practices have no single origin and do not pretend to. They are built on the one thing everybody can see: the Moon gets brighter for about two weeks and dimmer for about two, and doing different things in the two halves gives a month a shape.
For a fuller set of moon-phase practices, including the Venus and body work that sits alongside them, the astrology rituals page carries the whole sequence.
The four questions
What it is
The LoveSigns moon-timing practice, and the one thing on this page that is ours rather than inherited. One question per quarter of the cycle, asked in the same order every month so that the answers can be compared with last month’s.
Our adaptation
At the new moon: what am I ready to begin? Through the waxing half: what needs steady attention? At the full moon: what has become visible? Through the waning half: what am I ready to release? Seven slow breaths, one honest sentence written down, one small conscious choice to close. The comparing is the part that works, so keep the sentences somewhere you will find them again.
Moon bathing
What it is
Sitting or lying out under the Moon, deliberately and without a task. It has no lineage to claim and needs none: it is being outside, at night, on purpose.
Our adaptation
Fifteen minutes outdoors after dark, with the phone left indoors, on any night you can see her. Cold is fine and often better. If you take nothing else from this page, take this one, because it is the only item here that puts you under the actual sky.
The waxing half
What it is
From new moon to full, the lit part grows. In practice this is the stretch of the month when starting things is less effortful and momentum is easier to find.
Our adaptation
Pick one thing at the new moon and do a visible piece of it in the first week. Small and visible beats large and internal: the aim is to have something you can point at by the time she is full.
Release rituals
What it is
From full moon to new, the lit part shrinks. The waning half is where most modern practice puts letting go, ending, and clearing.
Our adaptation
On the waning moon, finish one thing that is 80 per cent done, or formally abandon it. Both count as release. What does not count is leaving it open for another month, which is the thing the ritual exists to interrupt.
Rituals by moon phase
The full moon-timing sequence, alongside the Venus, breath, crystal and movement practices, lives on the astrology rituals page.
Astrology ritualsFrequently asked questions
What is Purnima?
The full moon day of each month in the Hindu lunisolar calendar. Several major festivals fall on a Purnima, and many people observe a vrat, a vow that often includes fasting from sunrise until the moon is sighted.
Who is Coyolxauhqui?
The moon goddess of the Mexica. In the story she is struck down and dismembered by her brother Huitzilopochtli and her head is thrown into the sky to become the Moon. The carved disc showing her in pieces was found at the foot of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City.
Do I need to belong to a tradition to use these?
The adaptations on this page are ours and are meant for anyone. The observances they came from belong to the people who keep them, and are described here so that the difference is clear rather than blurred.
What is the difference between this page and the astrology rituals page?
This one is about how different traditions have marked the lunar cycle. The astrology rituals page is the practical sequence: what to do at each moon phase, plus the Venus, breath, crystal and movement practices.
Last updated . Dates calculated with the Swiss Ephemeris.