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by catherineyronwode » Fri Sep 27, 2019 10:20 am
musclequeen378 --
First, i am not sure what you mean by "prepare my love materials." What do you need to do to them before you do your work?
Second, let's talk about Lunar calendar timing. This is something that many folks bring to their practice of hoodoo, but like all other forms of timing (week day timing, yearly seasonal timing, menstrual cycle timing, Sun timing, clock hand timing, and so forth), it is an ornament to our practice and not the essential core of the work.
But, having said you want to work by the "waxing" or "growing' Moon, i would like to tell you how to get that one thing right.
Please forgive me for being dogmatic, but i hold to thousands of years of Lunar calendar-making, and bring with me a clear understanding of the differences betwen a secular calendar and a spiritual calendar.
Please bear with me. If i do not convince you, feel free to disagree. It is not worth fighting over. Just hear me out:
What you are calling the New Moon -- which, in this case you say falls on Saturday, September 28, 2019 -- is not the beginning of a Lunar Month, not the NEW Moon, not what in folkloric, ancient, or rural calendars is called the "First New Moon Sighting" or "First Crescent," and not the beginning of the waxing Moon.
This is a conflict of terminology that confuses a lot of city people, or those who work by astronomical calendars.
According to their astronomical information, "September 28 will be the new Moon, when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from the Earth.'
Note the term "NOT VISIBLE."
Folk magical and Lunar religious calendar-makers (for instance Jewish, Islamic, Sabbath-Keeping Christian, and Native American Indigenous calendar-makers) do not consider the "NOT VISIBLE" Moon phase to be the "NEW" Moon. Rather, it is called "the DARK of the Moon." The Moon is NOT THERE.
Furthermore, the precise timing of when the Moon is NOT VISIBLE is not a time that can be calculated by OBSERVING the Moon in the night sky. This DARKNESS lasts about 3 days, and during that time, the Moon is GONE. The center-point of the GONE period can only be calculated mathematically -- because the Moon is invisible.
I will bet you dollars to donuts that you got that September 28 date by looking it up in an astronomical calendar.
However, in folkloric and indigenous religions and magical practice -- that is, in any calendar system in which the Moon is OBSERVED -- we would wait until we saw the First Crescent Moon, the tiny sliver of actual "NEW" Moon, at sunset, just above the horizon. This is when the Moon is approximately 3% lighted. It is also called the "fingernail Moon" (because it looks like a fingernail trimming) or "Siva's Moon" (because the Hindu god Siva wears the First Crescent Moon in his hair as an token).
All around the world (except in the offices of urban "witches" and their publishers who use math rather than observation to find out where the Moon is at) the Sighting of the First Crescent -- not the calculation of the Invisible Dark Moon -- marks the beginning of each Lunar month. The sighting may be celebrated and special prayers, and songs may be sung.
Truth to tell, because it is the time when the Moon is approximately 3% lit at sunset, the Sighting of the First Crescent Waxing Moon can be mathematically calculated, but all calendars based on the First Crescent Moon sightings refer to the calculated time as the "Expected Sighting." That's how respectful they are of the actual Moon. The Moon alone sets the time. We only EXPECT to see the Waxing Crescent, based on historical record keeping that goes back more than 5,700 years of observation.
The secular calendar date of the "Expected" sighting will depend, of course, on where on the globe we stand. Because of time zones, the sighting proceeds around the world, from East to West, taking 24 hours to be seen by all of Earth's inhabitants.
According to one good online calculator, the TRUE New Moon or "First Sighted Crescent" of the Waxing Moon will be sighted after sunset in Jerusalem the night of September 29, 2019. This particular date happens to be sighted as the beginning of not only the waxing Jewish Lunar month of Tishrei, but it also happens to be Rosh Hashanah, the First Sighted Crescent of the Jewish New Year.
Rosh Hashanah is celebrated by most (but not all) Jews for two days. On the first full day (this would be September 30, 2019) many wish to hear the shofar (ram's horn) blown to signify that the New Year has begun. Many will hold a simple Tashlich ceremony -- throwing bread crumbs into a stream of naturally running water to signify casting off the sins and errors of the past year. On the second night many will eat a new-picked fruit, to symbolize a new start. Some people dip crisp apple slices into honey and eat them as a wish that the New Year will be sweet. Others, especially those who live in farther Northern climates, may prepare tzimmes for the evening meal, a sweet dish that can be made with carrots or sweet potatoes plus dried apples, prunes, or raisins, simmered in a brown sugar sauce.
Wouldn't THAT be a fine time to do a love spell -- after sighting the "fingernail Moon," trimming your fingernails, casting off the sins and errors of the past year as bread crumbs into running water, and preparing a sweet meal of fruit for a whole year of love work!
Of course, if you also want to work by the days of the week, according to the deities or angels of those days, the Friday after the First Sighted Crescent will be a day of Venus -- still well within the Waxing Moon phase, and the also first Venus Day of the New Lunar Year -- October 4, 2019.
Happy Days!
catherine yronwode
teacher - author - LMCCo owner - HP and AIRR member - MISC pastor - forum admin
