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The awaited return of the most obvious seasonal signal
The "brilliant" sectors of the sky
An assembly of sacred images


Figures portrayed
by stars in the night,
by nature "dramatic" figures


Why make reference to
seasonal stars.
Measuring time in "moons"


When lunar imagery is combined
with stellar imagery to compose a "mythical cinema"


The human condition
and its development
in the collective memory


More

French version

The moon, a master computer

The "measure" of the lunar cycle is 28, 29 nights, sometimes 30, generally rounded off to 28, which for the human mind is a number particularly easy to use.


The successive phases divide the lunar cycle (the unity = 1) into three different images (Waxing, Full and Waning); theme of Unity in Triplicity. The importance of this number 3 is strengthened by the fact that when full, the Moon maintains its luminous roundness 3 consecutive nights, when new the Moon disappears for 3 consecutive nights. After complete disappearance of the moon (the black circle on our calendars), there is a metamorphosis in three distinct phases. Counting the absence that gives 4 successive appearances of the Moon. These 4 appearances divide the 28 nights into 4 periods of 7 (the "week" or in Latin "septimana", denoting the number 7, the number of stars in portentous Pleiades, a number that becomes sacred and fundamental). If considered before and after the Full Moon, these 4 periods of 7 can broken down into two periods of 14 (hence the term "fortnight"). It should be added that ancient civilizations thought 9 nights of "gestation" were needed for the new crescent moon to be reborn as the full moon (the "Nones" of the Roman calendar, which preceded the full visibility of the "Ides" (Vid, Id = to see).

Also traking into consideration that 9 solar months bring a normal pregnancy to term, the moon’s number 9, so rich in mathematical possibilities, is still considered as the key-number in the development of any embryo ("Hera’s number" for the followers of Pythagoras, Isis’ number in Egypt, the number of Gwan Yin, the "giver of children" in China, the number symbol of incarnation of cosmic energy in an earthly creature).


Mistress of computing time, mistress of thought

To cite Mircéa Eliade (Images et Symboles):
"The moon measures Time. Lunar rhythms always mark a ‘creation’ (new moons), followed by ‘growth’ (full moon), waning and death (the three nights with no moon).
It is very probably the image of this unceasing birth and death of the moon that helped to crystallize the intuitions of the first men on the periodicity of life and death, and which subsequently resulted in the myth of the periodic creation and destruction of the world…
This lunar symbolism of ‘birth-death-rebirth’ is manifested in a large number of myths and rites."

And more (The sacred and the profane) ;

We can speak of a "metaphysics of the moon"…

This Mistress of thought is located in an intermediate position, orbiting between the Earth and the starry sky. In the construction of myths, the Moon is the Representative, the Messenger (MSh, Mes, Mis: Her-Mes, Arte-Mis) delegated by the creative celestial power(s) to teach creatures of the sub-lunar world how to decode the Universe. When the higher, creative power is seen as a cosmic feminine matrix, the Representative is masculine: Sin the Mesopotamian, Ptah the Egyptian, master of computation, discoverer of the Law of Proportionality, Menuo the slave. After the "shift in religions" where the higher creative power became masculine, the messenger star became the Moon as Ritamish, Artemis (RT, rhythm, arithm: number, +MS).