PolarfatePhase 2 of 8
First light · Momentum · Small steps
Moon phase
Waxing crescent moon
A day or two after the new moon, a slim crescent shows up low in the western sky just after sunset. It's the first visible sign of the new cycle, and it gets a little thicker every evening.
In the sky
The Moon has moved a few days along its orbit, so a sliver of its sunlit side turns toward us. In the Northern Hemisphere the lit edge is on the right; south of the equator it's on the left. The crescent sets not long after the Sun, which makes early evening the time to look.
On a clear night you may see the rest of the disc glowing faintly. That's earthshine: sunlight bounced off Earth onto the Moon's dark side and back again. Leonardo da Vinci explained it in one of his notebooks more than five hundred years ago.
Near the equator the evening crescent often lies almost flat, horns up, a shape sometimes called a boat moon.
In tradition
For many communities the first sighting of the crescent is what officially begins a new month; people still gather to look for it at the end of Ramadan. Older folk customs greeted the young moon with a wish or by turning a coin in a pocket, which says more about hope than about the Moon.
Astrologers read this phase as the first push after the pause: the point where an intention starts to want a small, real step.
Things to notice
- Notice the smallest step that would move a new idea along.
- Notice what keeps pulling your attention, and what you avoid.
- Notice the crescent itself, low in the west after sunset.
A question to sit with
What's the smallest step that would make an idea feel real this week?
For entertainment and reflection.