A Black Moon and Earthshine

Tomorrow night, April 30, 2022, there will be a Black Moon. It won’t look different, in fact, it won’t look like anything at all since a Black Moon is a name for a second New Moon in a single calendar month.

Full and New Moons can occur at different times because of time zone differences. It can even be in a different month. 

Black Moons may hold special significance to people who practice certain forms of Pagan religions and who believe certain actions become more potent when performed on the night of a Black Moon.

There was no New Moon in February this year which only happens about once every 19 years. There will be no Blue Moon in New York in 2022. That is a third Full Moon in a season with four Full Moons.

A sliver of a Waning Crescent Moon

The Waning Crescent Moon is the final stage of the lunar cycle and it begins when the sun illuminates less than half of the moon. This phase continues until the New Moon phase. This phase “ends” when the Moon and the Sun both rise at the same time, which starts the lunar cycle over again with the New Moon.

During this time, you can see the effect of “Earthshine.” It’s a matter of perspective. The Moon is always half-illuminated by sunlight just like Earth. A crescent Moon seen in the west after sunset or in the east before dawn is a sliver of the Moon’s lighted half.

When we see a crescent moon, that means that a nearly “Full Earth” appears in the Moon’s night sky. The full Earth illuminates the lunar landscape and that ic “Earthshine” – light from the nearly full Earth shining on the Moon.

Looking at Earth from the perspective of the far side of the Moon || Photo: Chinese Chang’e 5 T1 spacecraft

No New Moon in February

First crescent New Moon

There was no New Moon in February. This happens (or is it that it doesn’t happen?) about once every 19 years. It only happens in February, as this is the only month that is shorter than a lunar month. When that happens, January and March have two New Moons, instead of just one. The New Moons on January 31 and March 31 are both considered Black Moons.

That term is used in several ways. It commonly is used to refer to a second New Moon in the same month. Those occur about once every 29 months. Time zones mess around with Moon phases. This year, Los Angeles has a Black Moon in March, while New York has a Black Moon in April.

The Black Moon is not the same as the Dark Moon. That is the last visible crescent of a waning Moon and in the Chinese calendar, it marks the beginning of the month.

When there is a third New Moon in a season of four New Moons, that is also called a Black Moon. Usually, each season has three months and three New Moons. When a season has four New Moons, the third New Moon is called a Black Moon and when there are four Full Moons it is called a Blue Moon.

The original meaning of the term New Moon is the first visible crescent of the Moon after conjunction with the Sun. (shown above) This is a thin waxing crescent and it is briefly and faintly visible as the Moon gets lower in the western sky after sunset.

The first crescent marks the beginning of the month in the Islamic calendar and some lunisolar calendars, such as the Hebrew calendar.

There is a longtime belief in many cultures that rituals performed at the time of the Full Moon and New Moon were more powerful. Neopagan and witchcraft systems such as Wicca follow this belief. Farmers once believed  (and might still believe) that planting during certain Moon phases will increase harvests.

 

Black Moon Today

There’s nothing to photograph for the New Moon, so photos often show the thinnest slice of the New Moon coming out of its Black Moon phase.

The New Moon, also known as a Black Moon, travels across the sky with the Sun today in the Western Hemisphere. It happens here on July 31 and on August 1 in other time zones.

For folks in Paradelle, this is the second of two July 2019 New Moons. Far east of here, it is the first of two for August.

Because you can’t see a Black Moon, you shouldn’t forget that it is there. It still has gravitational influence combined with the Sun that affects our mostly-water planet. If you live on a coastline or follow the tides, it matters more than to most of us.

That influence will be even greater now because this is a supermoon – a New Moon happening in close conjunction with the lunar perigee when our satellite is at its closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit.

Feel the pull?

It’s a Black Moon Day

A Romantic view of a Black Moon.

There is a  New Moon today and it is the closest (as in perigee which occurs 7.6 hours after the full part) New Moon of the year. That means that it can be considered a “supermoon. ” But it can also be considered a Black Moon which is a term we don’t hear as often. It sounds like something from the world of pagans and witchcraft.

A Black Moon is a seasonal name applied to the third of four new moons in the current season. What can you expect to see in the sky?  I’m sorry to say almost nothing. Though it might be artistically or Romantically portrayed as a literal black moon, that’s not the true view.

When a Full Moon supermoon is out all night, it looks brighter than your average full moon. Unfortunately for viewing purposes, a New Moon supermoon is only out during the daytime hours and so is hidden by the sunlight.

But now YOU know that it’s there today. Take a look up in the sky and say hello anyway. The Moon gets lonely too.

A Trapper’s Full Moon (and maybe even a Moon pillar)

February 3rd is the Full Moon for 2015.  For the Cherokee, it is the Bone Moon or “month when the stars and moon are fixed in the heavens” – even though we know that they are not fixed. On this site, I have called it by some of its other names: the Snow, Storm, Ice Moon, and the Hunger Moon.

It is a tough month of winter for most of the United States. This month’s Full Moon names were most associated with the harsh weather or depleting stores of food. It makes sense for a Hunger Moon, maybe even a Bone Moon, as the food and meat is gone and only the bones remain. When I am hiking in the woods, I sometimes come across the bones of animals that did not make it through the winter. White bones, picked clean by hungry animals, white on the snow and even more so in the light of the Full Moon.

Our Colonial ancestors called this simply the Winter Moon or the Trapper’s Moon, a name that came from eastern Algonquin Indian traditions. Though the tradition is (thankfully) not as common today, this would be the time when it was optimal for trapping beaver, fox, and mink as their fur would be at the fullest.

This is a good time to witness the phenomena of “Moon pillars.” I have never seen Moon pillars which are optical phenomena that are most likely to occur when the Moon is low to the horizon, the air is cold, and ice crystals are angled in a position in the atmosphere where there is direct light in a straight column directly above or below the moon.

A light pillar is created by the reflection of light from ice crystals with nearly horizontal parallel planar surfaces. The light can come from the Sun (usually at or low to the horizon) in which case the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. It can also appear to come from the Moon or even from terrestrial sources such as streetlights.

There are billions of micro-sized ice crystals in clouds (even in warmer weather) or in minute snow crystals, and as these column-shaped ice crystals drift earthward, they tip and tilt. There are “upper pillars” that are formed when light is reflected downward toward our eyes and “lower pillars” when light is reflected upward from the topmost crystal faces.

I have read that the best time to see them is at sunset when a storm front is approaching (there might be a veil of cirrus clouds in the west). If those crystals happen to be nearly perfectly horizontal, a narrow column is a result. If they are tilted at various angles to the horizontal, then a pillar of light spreads into what might look more like broad feathers to the Moon’s sides.

“Light pillars over Laramie Wyoming in winter night” by Christoph Geisler / Wikimedia Commons

Black Moon Rising

I wrote earlier about the idea that a New Moon is sometimes called a Black Moon.  The Black Moon dates for 2014 included January when a  new moon occurred on both Jan 1st and the 30th. The same is true this month with a new moon on both the 1st and again on the 30th. That second new moon is considered a Black Moon.

In some aspects of Paganism, particularly amongst Wiccans, the Black Moon is considered to be a special time when any rituals, spells, or other workings are considered to be more powerful and effective. This doesn’t seem to be universally true and some groups seem to only consider it a normal occurrence of a dark moon. I have even seen some posts online that say that no rituals should be conducted at these times.

Whatever your beliefs, these are dark nights and it has an odd feeling, especially on a clear night, to not see the Moon in the sky.