Today, Monday November 16, is the day the moon reappears again after being invisible for a couple of days. So ironically, this time around, New "Moon Day" happens to coincide with a new "Monday" (Moon Day) in our schedule of never-ending, back-to-back-to-back, 7-day cycles.
This weekly cycle has not always been disconnected from the lunar cycle or "month". Ancient Babylonian astronomers selected two men who were dedicated to watch for the first sliver of crescent moon just above the sunset. Every 29 or 30 days, they would see the "new moon" after it had been hidden in the brightness of the sun.
When the watchers saw the new moon they would blow loud trumpets throughout Babylon. This was to announce that the following day would be the New Moon festival. Seven days later marked the waxing half moon (or close enough), so the 8th day of the month was the next festival. The 15th day was the Full Moon feast day, the 22nd day was the waning half moon celebration, and the 29th day was the Dark Moon holiday. About every other month there would be a 30th "between" day; otherwise, the new moon would be sighted on the evening of the Dark Moon holiday at sunset, and the following day would be a New Moon festival.
Jews "On Strike"
When the Jews were captured by the Babylonians, they integrated the Babylonian festivals into their religious ceremonies. The Torah (for which evidence points to having its origin during the Babylonian captivity), declared the New Moon a sacred day along with the seventh-day Sabbaths.
I imagine it was out of protest that the Jews declared the same festival days of the Babylonians to be religious holy days of rest from all work, refusing to serve their Babylonian slave masters on the feast days, and creating a cover story that their God had long ago commanded them to keep those days holy and not do any labor.
Reconciling the lunar cycle with the four seasons of the solar cycle has always been tricky work. The new year started with the first lunar cycle of spring, the equivalent of the month of March on our current Gregorian calendar, giving some years 13 months. The Gregorian calendar is only slightly different than the Julian calendar which took effect at the beginning of 45 BC during Julius Caesar's reign.
Dividing each year into four seasons of three months each, for a total of 12 months, has severed the relationship between the lunar cycle and the month. With that severing also came the separation of the week from the lunar cycle, and also from the solar cycle with its seasons.
The Jews followed the Babylonian pattern of lunar-based New Moons and Sabbaths until some time during the Roman rule. The Roman month was not tied to the lunar cycle, nor to the 7-day week. But at some point the Romans and the Jews agreed to a 7-day week to protect the Jewish Sabbath, which was also the early Christian Sabbath, because many of them of course were Jewish.
When Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion in the early 300's, the never-ending 7-day weekly cycle was officially associated with the Julian Calendar, but the week started at midnight (a Roman tradition) instead of at sunset (a Jewish tradition). The Romans also chose to celebrate the first day of the week as "holy" instead of the last day.
Some Jews, Christians and pagans have rediscovered the lunar-based week and have returned or at least tried to return to the ancient celebration of New Moons and lunar-based Sabbaths. However, since the New Moon can land on any day of the Gregorian week, celebrations are extremely difficult to practice without separating from mainstream society.
The current widespread loss of jobs and small businesses may actually lead to more freedom to choose one's own calendar. And the eventual disintegration of big agricultural corporations, which will lead to more and more people leaving the big cities and returning to the land to grow our own food, may also lead to a transition back to the lunar calendar. Or maybe each household or small community will decide for themselves which calendar they want to follow, rather than mindlessly inheriting a calendar created centuries ago by the Romans.
To prepare myself for this eventuality, and to get back in touch with nature, I enjoy looking up at the sky day or night as I get the chance, to check in on what phase of the moon we are in. This evening at sunset I plan to go to a hill I've located from which I can easily see the horizon in the direction of the setting sun, then locate that thin finger-nail clipping of a moon. Knowing it's an ancient ritual gives me a sense of connection with natural wisdom, Mother Earth, the vastness of the universe, and the eternal nature of All That Is.
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