Waning crescent moon

In the sky

The Moon is nearly back between Earth and the Sun, so most of its sunlit side faces away. In the Northern Hemisphere the crescent's lit edge is on the left, the mirror image of the evening crescent. Each morning it rises closer to the Sun until it disappears at the new moon.

Earthshine shows up again at this end of the cycle as a faint glow on the dark part of the disc. And with the Moon out of the evening sky, nights are at their darkest, which is why stargazers plan around this part of the month.

There's an old way to tell the phases apart in the Northern Hemisphere: a moon shaped like a D is growing, one shaped like a C is shrinking, and an O is full. In the last days the crescent can be so thin and so close to the Sun that it's only visible for a few minutes before sunrise.

In tradition

Dane Rudhyar called this the balsamic moon, after balsam, a soothing resin: a name meant to suggest rest and recovery before the next start. In many moon practices it's treated as a time to slow down and let the old cycle finish.

Moon journaling often uses it for looking back: a short review of the month before the next set of intentions.