Astrology and the Moon

by Jessica Girija Jewell

With electricity at our fingertips, it’s easy to drift out of conversation with the Moon. We stay up late, wake too early, and lose the wise counsel of the ancient night sky. Let’s pause now for a moment and return to our relationship with Mother Nature — remembering that she has her own moods, her own intelligence, her own sacred potential, and that her currents move through us as well.

As I write this, the New Moon in Scorpio has just passed and is now brightening toward the coming Full Moon in Taurus. Each year, within each 12-month cycle, a New and Full Moon occur in every rāshi, or Sun sign.

Because the Moon moves quickly, this union of Sun and Moon is brief — like the pause between an exhale and an inhale. You may notice a subtle (or not-so-subtle) ending paired with a potential for new direction in some area of your life as the celestial cycles illuminate the soul’s next step.

When we watch the night sky, we see the Moon change dramatically over the course of a month — as Hart de Fouw and Robert Svoboda write, she is “sometimes full-bodied and sometimes thin.” Just like the rest of us. 😉 

The ancient rishis noted these changes by describing 30 phases in the lunar cycle. They called these phases tithis:

• 15 belonging to the waxing cycle (śukla pakṣa) 

• 15 belonging to the waning cycle (kṛṣṇa pakṣa)

Each tithi is a step either toward or away from the Sun — a daily measure of the relationship between solar essence and lunar mind.

The first step away from the Sun — the step after the New Moon — is Śukla Pratipadā, the beginning of the Moon’s journey toward fullness. 

The first step toward the Sun — the step after the Full Moon — begins Kṛṣṇa Pratipadā, the start of the Moon’s return to the soul’s seat. 

The second steps are Śukla Dvitīyā and Kṛṣṇa Dvitīyā; the third are Śukla Tṛtīyā and Kṛṣṇa Tṛtīyā — and so on throughout the month.

Each tithi is imbued with its own hue of energy, woven into the fabric of creation. These energies are revealed through the personalities of deities who care for each tithi and their stories.

In service to humanity, the tithi-deities divide themselves in two: one half remains in luminous eternity while the other steps into the world to walk beside us, guarding the soul as it grows. Remember that even in our darkest hours, the deities, the unseen help, are with us, and we are not left alone to face our karma.

We are each born on a specific tithi — and this lunar phase imprints mental and emotional patterns onto the subtle body. These patterns reveal themselves in how we think, how we speak, how we act, and how we experience the people and events of our lives.

Our birth tithi isn’t our whole story — every astrology chart is layered and complex — but it is a significant theme worth exploring, a key that unlocks one of the inner rooms of the psyche.

Here are two examples that hint at how the tithi deities suffuse time with their qualities and cast a gentle light on the tithis we’ve just crossed.

🌑 Amāvasyā — the New Moon Tithi

Amāvasyā tithi is the end of a cycle: the mystic pause at the bottom of an exhale before the next breath arrives. Its ruling deity is the Pitṛs — the ancestors who protect humanity and guide us when their wisdom is sought.

Amāvasyā is the darkest phase of the lunar month. And right now, in late November, that darkness is deepened by long nights as we slide toward the winter solstice. If you’re more tired than usual, craving stillness or early bedtimes, remember: rest is best. Fatigue is not failure — it is alignment.

Living harmoniously with Mother Nature — which is to say, with ourselves — means slowing our pace during this season. The Pitṛs in late autumn counsel, “Rest now. The light will return soon enough, and you’ll want to be ready.”

🔥 Pratipadā — the First Tithi of Śukla Pakṣa

After the darkness comes the spark.

Pratipadā tithi is the moment when something new flickers to life — often small, understated, but unmistakably alive. It is the first step toward the Sun, ruled by Agni, the sacred fire.

Fire allows us to see and to be seen. It orients us in the dark, warms what is cold, and reveals what is true. Agni is the divine made visible — the element that invites us to gather, to act, to speak with care and intention.

📿 Your Birth Tithi: A Tool for Svadhyāya

Because it can be difficult to see ourselves clearly — and because the reflections we receive from others are often filtered through their own conditioning — it is a blessing to have tools that reveal our inner patterns with honesty and compassion.

Studying the tithi of your birth is one such tool.

This is svadhyāya, self-study: a call to notice our wholesome patterns and our challenging ones. When the patterns that cause suffering arise, we can choose change — we can step into the transforming fire of yoga practice and emerge a little kinder, a little steadier, and a little more useful to the world.

Remember, we are not here merely to do our work (dharma) so we can earn money (artha) and seek pleasure (kāma). Perhaps a truer purpose is that we are here to remember that Creation is our primary relationship — to talk with our Beloved universe and to say, “I am one with you.”

And the Moon — forever waxing and waning — serves as a guide, friend, and companion on this path of remembrance.