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.

 

A Waxing Crescent Moon to Start a Lunar Month

Full Moons get the most attention when it comes to lunar phases. But the New Moon (or Dark Moon) is also important in some cultures, and the waxing and waning phases and the two Crescent Moons also have beliefs attached to them.

In Cornwall, if a boy was born during a waning Moon, they said that the next birth would be a girl and both would be blessed.

In the lore of the Moon, it was said that to see the crescent Moon over the right shoulder was considered lucky, but seeing it over the left shoulder was unlucky. Since tonight’s Moon phase is a Waxing Crescent, be sure to look over your right shoulder tonight.

A Waxing Crescent is the first phase after the New Moon. This is actually an optimal time to see the features of the moon’s surface. During this phase, the Moon can be seen in the western sky after the Sun goes below the horizon. Right now, the Moon is close to the sun in the sky and mostly dark except for the right edge which becomes brighter as the days pass. The next phase is the First Quarter when it is  50% illuminated.

Muslims around the globe are observing the holy month of Ramadan, which begins for most on either around  April 12 or 13 in 2021 when it was a Waxing Crescent Moon phase. That is the phase that looks like a  )  while the Waning Crescent looks like a  (  .

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting to commemorate the first revelation of their holy book, the Quran, to Muhammad according to Islamic belief.

Since the Islamic calendar adheres to the lunar calendar of 12 months rather than the Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar used in the Western part of the globe, every month starts as the new crescent moon emerges. It continues for 29 or 30 days. Each year, this makes Ramadan start 10 to 12 days earlier. Their 12-month lunar year has a total of 354 or 355 days or is 11 days shorter than the seasonal year on which the Gregorian calendar is based.

Lunar New Year 2019

The Lunar New Year begins on (using our Western Gregorian calendar) Tuesday, February 5, 2019. For most Westerners, this is known as the Chinese New Year and this year is the Year of the Pig. The date changes from year to year because it’s based on a lunar calendar, but it usually falls somewhere between mid-January and mid-to-late February.

But the Lunar New Year is also celebrated by other countries in East Asia, such as the celebration of Tet (in Vietnam) and Seollal (in South Korea).

In China, this is a time when many people return to their hometown to visit family. But in the United States, there are also festivities that many people – Asian and not – are aware of and may participate in, such as special foods and fireworks. Families will often give “lucky money” to young people, making offerings to ancestors and decorating and dressing in red color of the holiday.

The Pig is the last, the twelfth, of all zodiac animals. One myth is that the Jade Emperor said the order would be decided by the order in which they arrived to his party, and Pig was late because he overslept. Another myth story says that a wolf destroyed his house and he had to rebuild his home before he could go to the party and so had to take twelfth place. So, the last Year of the Pig was 2007.

The Pig is associated with the Earthly Branch (地支—dì zhī) hài (亥), and the hours 9–11 pm. In terms of yin and yang (阴阳—yīn yáng), the Pig is yin. In Chinese culture, pigs are the symbol of wealth, and their chubby faces and big ears are signs of fortune as well.

People born in the Year of the Pig are said to have similar personalities and characteristics:

Pigs might not stand out in a crowd. But they are very realistic. Others may be all talk and no action. Pigs are the opposite.

Though not wasteful spenders, they will let themselves enjoy life. They love entertainment and will occasionally treat themselves. They are a bit materialistic, but this is motivation for them to work hard. Being able to hold solid objects in their hands gives them security.

They are energetic and are always enthusiastic, even for boring jobs. If given the chance, they will take positions of power and status. They believe that only those people have the right to speak, and that’s what they want.

There are cities in America that host large Lunar New Year celebrations. The only one that I have ever attended is in New York City. The city has one of the largest populations of ethnic Chinese people outside of Asia. If you visit the main “Chinatown” section of Manhattan tomorrow it will be a crowded party (despite cold weather) with parades and restaurants crowded with diners of all backgrounds ordering special holiday dishes. Actually, there are about ten “Chinatowns” in the New York City metro area. The Chinatown in Flushing, Queens has its own parade, and there are Lunar New Year celebrations in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

MORE  ChineseNewYear.net

 

Marking the Longest Lunar Month of This Century

You might know that before calendars and clocks,  days and nights were marked by the rising and setting of the Sun and”months” were marked by the Moon phases. You could measure the time between Full Moons, or the time between New Moons. A lunar month (more scientific names are a lunation or synodic month) is the period of time between successive New Moons.

Lunar months vary slightly in length but we can be quite precise about them now. The New Moon today starts the longest lunar month of the 21st century. (That’s 2001 to 2100.)

The mean length of the lunar month lasts 29.53059 days. But the lunar month starting December 18, 2017 and ending January 17, 2018 will be more than 7 hours longer than the mean, having a duration of 29 days 19 hours 47 minutes.

This won’t change your life in any noticeable way, and you’ll probably still consider the month to be from December 1 to the 31st, but it is one of those celestial once-in-a-lifetime things.

A New Moon photo should be just black. By the modern definition, a New Moon occurs when the Moon and Sun are at the same geocentric ecliptic longitude and the part of the Moon facing us is completely in shadow. Pictured here is the traditional New Moon, actually the earliest visible waxing crescent, which signals the start of a new month in many lunar and lunisolar calendars.

Although the Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar, is in common and legal use in most countries, traditional lunar and lunisolar calendars continue to be used throughout the Old World to determine religious festivals and national holidays. Such holidays include Ramadan (Islamic calendar); the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian New Year (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Mongolian calendars); the Nepali New Year (Nepali calendar); the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chuseok (Chinese and Korean calendars); Loi Krathong (Thai calendar); Sunuwar calendar; Diwali (Hindu calendars) and Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew calendar).

Calendars: Solar and Lunar

I do a lot of posts that touch upon the calendar – seasons, celebrations, holidays, the Moon, astronomical occurrences. Most of the time I am in “our calendar” – the Gregorian calendar. Today, it is the internationally accepted civil calendar and is also known as the “Western calendar” or “Christian calendar”. It was named after the man who first introduced it in February 1582: Pope Gregory XIII.

It is a solar calendar based on a 365-day common year divided into 12 months of irregular lengths. 11 months have either 30 or 31 days, while February has only 28 days during the common year. (Nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year, when one extra – or intercalary – day is added on 29 February.)

The Gregorian calendar reformed the Julian calendar because the Julian calendar introduced an error of 1 day every 128 years. The introduction of the Gregorian calendar allowed for a realignment with astronomical events like equinoxes and solstices.

However this switch from Julian to Gregorian probably was pretty odd to folks back in 1582 in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain where it was first adopted. This “Gregorian reform” meant a number of days had to be dropped. They dropped 10 days in October 1582. It changed the rules to determine the date of Easter, and for calculating Leap Years.

Still, the Gregorian calendar is not the only one.

The Hebrew calendar has months that change with the new Moon, and the full Moons fall in the middle of the month.

A solar year is about 11 days longer than twelve lunar months, so to keep holidays tied to their seasons, the Hebrew calendar occasionally repeats the month of Adar.

The Islāmic calendar is also lunar. The months start with the first sighting of the waxing crescent Moon, a few days after the New Moon.

Unlike the Gregorian and the Hebrew calendars, the Islāmic calendar has no leap days or leap months to stay in sync with the seasons, so Islāmic holidays occur approximately 11 days earlier each solar year.

The waxing crescent Moon

Chinese New Year: Sheep or Goat?

The Google Doodle decided it is the Year of the Sheep

Today is Chinese New Year which is the longest and most important holiday in the Chinese calendar. It is estimated that almost 3 billion trips will be made across China as people make the journey home to celebrate with their families.

This celebration, known as chun yun, is the longest national holiday in China, spanning a total of fifteen days. Day one is the most important day but the first three days of the new year are a statutory holiday and many people will be off for the first 6 days.

Yes, China has been using the same Gregorian calendar we use here in Paradelle since 1912, but the ancient Chinese lunar calendar is what creates this New Year.

In that lunar calendar, the New Year is changeable and  falls on the second New Moon after winter solstice. That puts it somewhere between January 21 and  February 19.

2014 was the Year of the Horse (though the lunar year is not always comparable to our January-December calendar year) and that has ended but this new year is a bit unusual because you may see it named the Year of the Goat or the Year of the Sheep. The confusion is because the Chinese character “yang” can be translated in colloquial Chinese as either sheep or goat.  I’m reading that in France, it is being called the Year of the Goat. In America, sheep has favor. In China, they are less concerned with the distinction.

I read at the end of 2014 that some people in China were concerned about births and marriages occurring in a sheep year as it was a “bad year.” The common impression is that sheep are meek, doltish “followers.”  Some of this seems to come from the late Qing dynasty (late 19th century)  when the Empress Dowager Cixi and several other high officials were despised. They all happened to be born in the Year of the Sheep/Goat and so it becamse associated with a negative spin. Followers of the Chinese zodiac say that all 12 signs are auspicious, so don’t worry.