Alluring, mystifying, magnetic, there she hangs in the night sky as she has always done, since before there were humans to observe her. The Moon, Queen of the night, Mistress of the tides, Overseer of romance, Lady of myth and magic. Men have walked on her and orbited right ’round her. Powerful telescopes have charted her mountains and seas. We know all about her, right down to her mass and volume, her distance from the Earth, the composition of the rocks on her surface. And yet we know so little about her. So powerful is the mystical hold the Moon has over people, that not even the cold voice of science can quell our sense of her divinity and majesty. She has the power to move our moods, to inspire and perplex us, to fire our magic with her ebbing. flowing, ever-changing energy. Shakespeare and Byron, among other poets and writers, have praised her with verse; music has been written to honor her; artists have depicted her with paint and paper and canvas, and she is at the heart of many a love story. Above all, from the perspective of witches and many other pagans, spells, meditations, and initiations are often timed to take advantage of her fluctuating monthly passage through the sky.

Illuminate Your Craft
Along with the eight seasonal festivals, the lunar cycle is the heart of Witchcraft and Wicca. Centuries of civilization have not diminished our instinctive responses to the waxing and waning Moon, nor the power of her light in the nocturnal sky.

Lyrical and literate, Praise to the Moon explores each Moon phase, its relevant deities and inherent qualities. With this guidebook, you can learn how to gain greater harmony in your daily life and more power in your magical work by aligning your activities with the Moon’s energy.

This indispensable book features many lunar goddesses, along with rituals, invocations, and spells for each Moon phase, and instructions on Moon gardening and circle casting. You will get essential information, such as the Moon’s expression in each astrological sign and the impact of eclipses, along with less familiar Moon lore, including male lunar deities, the Celtic Tree Calendar, and the Indian Lunar Zodiac.

From the Introduction:
Along with celebrating the eight seasonal festivals, working with the Moon’s cycle is at the heart of witchcraft. We watch the Moon grow from a thin crescent to a large glowing circle, then fade away into darkness once more.We time events so that they commence with the waxing Moon, just as our ancestors did; we work our magic for increase as the Moon grows toward full, and we decrease or banish with the Moon’s waning.

Some of us may sow seeds, either symbolic ones representing new projects or real ones in the soil of our gardens, with the new to waxing Moon, and most of us will want to reap our harvest or push for fillfilment of some kind at Full Moon, when the lunar force is strongest. There is a pattern to all this, a marking of celestial events that is ancient, though often disregarded by the inhabitants of our busy modern world with its restless outward activity, but the pattern is natural to ourselves and the other species on the planet, and can bring harmony and balance to our existence if acknowledged and followed.

The Ancient Cycles
This book is about observing those ancient cycles, and understanding their place in our lives and their relevance to witches practicing in a world that has forgotten many of the old ways of being. It is a world where for many of us the night sky is lit by a yellow sodium glare against which the heavenly bodies are dim; we time our lives by clocks and watches and urgent schedules-even the shops are often open 24 hours a day now. It is as though we have created a condition of perpetual daylight, constant busyness, which serves our solar selves at the expense of peace and reflection and the inward listening that we need if we would heed our instinctive promptings.

We are in servitude to the Father and have forgotten the Mother. Even our patterns of menstruation and fertility have suffered.We need to discover and connect with the Moon and her patterns once more if we are to find serenity and inner peace.

Within this book I focus on each Moon’s phase in turn, exploring its inherent qualities and the relevant deities, and giving examples of pertinent rituals and magic. I hope this work will help witches and other pagans to better understand the lunar qualities that are at the heart of their practice.