Each month the moon greets every planet out there among the stars, but it won’t always shed the same amount of light on these meetings from one month to the next, so it’s easy to imagine that the Moon is modulating our experience as it goes.
First the waxing crescent Moon met up with Venus on August 5, 2024. Then as waning gibbous, it swept past Saturn, overnight August 20th.
This week, the waning lunar crescent sheds the last vestiges of its reflected light into its final planetary meetings: first Jupiter (August 27), then Mars (August 28), and finally Mercury (September !).
In order of planetary moods, then, the Moon started the month inspired by love. This lasted for nearly two weeks before deep Saturnian memories were stirred. This week there is the expansive promise of Jupiter on Tuesday, that meets the need for decisive action when Moon meets Mars on Wednesday, followed by poetic communications when the last sliver of lunar crescent meets Mercury, god of communication on Sunday. Then the Moon tumbles into the arms of the Sun in Virgo ~ at New Phase on Monday, September 2nd. This Moon signals the transition from the shimmering outer brilliance of summer to the deep inner radiance of mysteries carried within.
Virgo is often depicted as the pregnant virgin, and in this aspect may be she to whom the poet Dante addressed his prayer in the Paradiso of his Divine Comedy when he wrote:
…fixed goal of the Eternal Wisdom; you are She who made human nature so noble…
From love to memory, from promise to action, from sweet words to an inner sense of what is noble in the human being, all this from our singular satellite as its weaves through our days and nights.
~Mary
This episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky will air on Interlochen Public Radio Monday, August 26th, and can be heard on podcasts everywhere. In the cover image, note that the Moon will complete its planetary encounters this week of August 26, 2024, meeting Jupiter Tuesday, Mars Wednesday, and Mercury Sunday. Image from Sky&Telescope.