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Purnima is the fifteenth tithi of the waxing fortnight, the full moon, when the Moon stands opposite the Sun and its paksha bala is at its height. It is the Purna tithi of the bright fortnight and the day of the full-moon observances, and its adhidevata is Vishnu (with Chandra, the Moon, in some lists).

The Beaver Moon is the November full moon of autumn. Its themes are preparation, storage and boundaries.

The Blue Moon is the Variable full moon of variable. Its themes are rarity, second chance and extra.

The Buck Moon is the July full moon of summer. Its themes are antlers, growth and strength.

The Cold Moon is the December full moon of winter. Its themes are stillness, endurance and darkness.

The Flower Moon is the May full moon of spring. Its themes are flowering, fertility and abundance.

The Harvest Moon is the September full moon of autumn. Its themes are harvest, gratitude and completion.

The Hunter's Moon is the October full moon of autumn. Its themes are hunt, preparation and ancestors.

The Pink Moon is the April full moon of spring. Its themes are bloom, beauty and awakening.

The Snow Moon is the February full moon of winter. Its themes are rest, endurance and vision.

The Strawberry Moon is the June full moon of summer. Its themes are harvest, sweetness and pleasure.

The Sturgeon Moon is the August full moon of summer. Its themes are abundance, harvest and water.

The Wolf Moon is the January full moon of winter. Its themes are survival, protection and kinship.

The Worm Moon is the March full moon of spring. Its themes are thaw, emergence and new life.

The Moon governs the night, the tides, and the inner world. She reflects the Sun's light into darkness, illuminating what is hidden. Lunar deities across cultures embody mystery, intuition, cycles, and the feminine divine.

A graha is vakri when its apparent motion through the zodiac reverses. The Sun and Moon never retrograde, Rahu and Ketu are always retrograde (they are the nodes and move backwards by nature), and the other five do so for part of every year. In Jyotish retrogradation is a source of strength, not of weakness: it is the basis of cheshta bala, the strength of motion, one of the six components of shadbala.

Vimshottari allots a hundred and twenty years among the nine grahas, and the period in force at any moment is the one that colours everything else in the chart. The sequence is counted from the Moon's nakshatra at birth, so the balance of the first period depends on how far the Moon had travelled through its nakshatra; each period is then divided into sub-periods (antardasha or bhukti) in the same order beginning with the period lord, and those again into pratyantardashas.

The sacred marriage of goddess and god. Fire festival—cattle driven between two fires for purification. Night when faeries ride and the greenwood calls. Maypole represents union of masculine (pole) and feminine (ribbons, earth). Life force at peak. The Red Goddess walks.

Sun at peak power—longest day. Holly King begins overtaking Oak King (light begins to wane from here). Faeries at their most active. Traditional time for gathering magical herbs at peak potency. Bonfires lit on hilltops. Celebration before the long descent toward winter.

Rahu is the north lunar node, one of the two chaya grahas, the eclipse-demon of the Purana. It is read as the hunger that drives a life: ambition, foreignness, the appetite for what is forbidden or unknown, and the illusion that what is gained is what was wanted. Its gem is the hessonite (gomed), which is a grossular garnet and is carried here as the family head garnet; its metal is lead.