The Influence of the Moon

Moon in English and its equivalent in other languages are rooted in the base me meaning measure (1) and this of course is the result of the moon’s service to mankind as the first universal measurer of time. And since the ancient Babylonians started following a lunar calendar so do, still, many parts of the world like those of Islam and Judaism.

The moon has always captured our imagination as the only great light in the night sky and this has led to such words as moonstruck, moonshine and of course lunacy, or the lunatic, which concerns the effect the moons gravity has on our brains and the rise in madness that a full moon brings about. (2) Thoth was connected with the moon and so were Isis, Virgin Mary and Buddha. Traits of the moon represent truth, dreams, imagination, justice, psychology, astral travel, spirituality and its colour affiliation is white.

In alchemy it’s associated with silver and the final step of transmutation known as coagulation, which incarnates the Ultima Materia of the soul that the Emerald Tablet describes as Glory of the Whole Universe. (3) The realization of the eternal spirit body can result in an out-of-body experience. This mobile state of consciousness is the Greater Stone, or Philosopher’s Stone from which flows the red elixir.

Apart from all this the eerie correspondence with the cycles of the moon and the menstrual cycle has contributed to a lot of mystical interpretations and put the heavenly body in connection with Women’s Mysteries and it’s seen as the Mother (the Sun being the Father). Humans, also, used to hunt by the moonlight and when the ice age ended animals died and humans turned to farming, which led to private property followed by centuries of wars, and sun worship. There has also been some interesting aspects of sowing seeds during the full moon and collecting dew (more on this will be added later on).

The moon’s orbit is elliptical (or oval) and departs by an angle of five degrees from the earth’s orbit about the sun, explaining why an eclipse of the sun does not occur every month. The Egyptians showed no special genius in mathematics and their astronomy was basic compared to that of the Greeks, and they had no astronomical instruments not already known by the ancient world. Yet they were the first to discover and calculate the solar year. (4)

In 4241 B.C.E. the Nile Year began being used. It was the result of a nilometer, which was a simple vertical scale on which the flood level was yearly marked. It showed it did not match the phases of the moon and since the rising of the Nile was as regular and as essential as the rising of the sun the ancient Egyptians saw this as the guide to go by.

Once a year the Dog Star, Sirius, rises in the morning in direct line with the rising sun. This heliacal rising of Sirius became the beginning of the Egyptian year marked by five days of celebrating the birth of Osiris, his son Horus, his wife and sister Isis and his enemy Set and his wife Nephthys. These five epagomenal days are the five days outside the twelve months that were used to even the year out.

Now we know that a solar year is 365 1/4 days but the discrepancy was so small that it took many years for the error to disturb daily life and in comparison with the lunar calendar it was a much better system thus Julius Caesar adopted it for his Julian Calendar. It survived to the Middle Ages and was used in the planetary tables of Copernicus as late as the 16th century.

In 2500 B.C.E. the Egyptians had managed to calculate and predict when the rising, or setting, sun would gild the tip of any particular obelisk which helped them add a glow to their ceremonies and anniversaries.

At the end of the 4th century C.E. they formally divided their day into two parts: before midday, ante meridiem, and after midday, post meridiem.

Footnotes:
(1) In Greek metron and in English measure and meter.
(2) The origin of such myths as the werewolf.
(3) In more non-spiritual terms coagulation means the conversion of a thin liquid into a solid mixture through some inner change, as with the curdling of milk. This can be accomplished by a variety of means: by the addition of a substance, by heating or cooling.
(4) The measure of time in which our lives are guided by to this day.

© deviadah