You absolutely do not have to do any lunar work with your Wildwood Tarot, but if you enjoy using your tarot work to move closer to the rhythms of nature, then it can be a lovely addition to your regular study work.
There are as many ways to do a lunar reading as there are phases of the moon! In fact, if you enjoy lunar connection – you could do a reading at each of the recognised moon phases
Dark Moon (New Moon)
Waxing Crescent
First Quarter
Waxing Gibbous
Full Moon
Waning Gibbous
Third Quarter
Waning Crescent
If you’ve not done any lunar work before, these words might sound a bit baffling. The Dark Moon or New Moon is when the sky is dark and the moon is not illuminated by the sun at all (Moonlight is actually just reflected sunlight).
Waxing refers to the growing moon and Waning refers to the moon reducing in size. It’s the same size, obviously, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes, so the gleaming white section seems to change in size 🙂
Gibbous is a word that refers to the humped shape of the moon – comes from latin (gibbous – hump) and then ‘gibbosus’ (which means hump-backed) and into Middle-English. Mostly used these days in connection to that humpy moon that isn’t quite full!
When she is half-full-half-in-darkness, she is at the First Quarter stage (waxing) or the Third Quarter stage (waning). But when she is half-way through the recognised cycle of phases (taking the Dark Moon or New Moon as our starting point) she is full 🙂
How to tell if the moon is waxing or waning? If the white side of the moon is on the right, then she is waxing or growing. If the white side of the moon is on the left, she is waning, or decreasing.
Another interesting thing about the moon is that it rotates at the same speed as the earth, this means that we always see the same ‘face’ of the moon, despite the fact that both she and ourselves are spinning on our own axes and we are both orbiting the sun.
I know, it’s a bit mind-melting, isn’t it?
How can we use moon phases in our Tarot work?
For me, a Dark Moon reading will be about something that I want to grow – so something I want to achieve in some respect – because the moon is starting to grow.
A Full Moon reading will about something that I want to lessen in my life – perhaps a difficult situation, a troublesome set of thoughts, a bad habit etc.
You could also check to see which astrological house the Full Moon appears in and then create a reading based upon the common characteristics of that sign.
You could have a Dark Moon reading that would last until the Full Moon and a Full Moon reading which would last until the Dark Moon. Or a Dark Moon reading that lasts until the next Dark Moon, or Full Moon to Full Moon …. the possibilities are endless lol!
In The Wildwood each of the eight festivals on the Wheel of The Year have an association with either a Lunar cycle or a Solar cycle.
The festivals associated with the Wildwood’s Lunar cycle are Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas (Lughnasa) and Samhain.
What kind of lunar readings do you like to do with your Tarot work?
