Calendars play an important role in our daily lives. We use them to not only keep track of the date and the day, but also to keep track of all of the important days that we encounter throughout the year. Many people use them to make sure they don’t miss appointments and even to visually see when they will be able to move things around in an emergency. However, there is no other calendar that dates as far back as the lunar calendar.

Everyone knows that we generally have one full moon per month and that it is nearly as illuminating as a setting sun on that day; few people realize how often we use the moon in our daily lives in science as well as mythology. For these reasons it’s important to be able to interpret the moon signs on a calendar.

When looking a lunar calendar it can be confusing with the terminology and the symbols assigned to mean a certain aspect of the lunar cycle. As is the case with the calendar above, there is usually a legend that will tell you what each part means. This eliminates some confusion and just leaves you responsible for interpreting the terminology.

During the beginning of the cycle the moon will be waxing, or becoming more visible, every day. This is signified by a dark semi-circle in one direction leaving the other direction open for the waning (shrinking) moon symbol. These two are very similar and it’s important to understand which each one is, even if you have to write it down on the calendar itself, so that you can interpret a lunar calendar. The full moon is generally signified by the darkest or most visible full circle on the calendar, as opposed to a new moon (when the moon isn’t visible at all) which will generally be the lightest and least visible full circle.