THE CYCLES OF LIFE AROUND US

There are four principal lunar phases: the new moon, first quarter, full moon, and last quarter.

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Each of these phases appears at slightly different times at different locations on Earth. During the intervals between principal phases are intermediate phases, during which the Moon's apparent shape is either crescent or gibbous. The descriptor waxing is used for an intermediate phase when the Moon's apparent shape is thickening, from new to a full moon, and waning when the shape is thinning.

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- A new moon appears highest on the summer solstice and lowest on the winter solstice.

- A first quarter moon appears highest on the spring equinox and lowest on the autumn equinox.

- A full moon appears highest on the winter solstice and lowest on the summer solstice.

- A last quarter moon appears highest on the autumn equinox and lowest on the spring equinox.

The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern pagans, consisting of the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them.

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- Winter Solstice (Yule): 20-23 December

- Imbolic: 1 February

- Spring Equinox (Ostara): 19-22 March

- Beltane: 1 May

- Summer Solstice (Litha) 19-23 June

- Lughnasadh: 1 August

- Autumn Equinox (Mabon): 21-24 September

- Samhain: 1 November

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These 8 festivals are synchronised with solar events and are mapped across the beginning and middle of the four seasons, which were tied to agriculture and society’s ability to grow food to sustain itself, as well as druidic traditions celebrating the cycles of ‘increase, decay, rebirth and renewal’, and the balance between lightness and darkness, solar and lunar.