Living Irish Witchcraft: Does the Moon Set the Time?
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[00:00:00] On a clear night at this time of the year, you can stand out the back here in the garden and see the moon as plain as anything shining brightly over Waterford. And I'll often go and have a look at what it's doing, whether it's filling out towards the full or worn down thin toward the dark.
And that's a habit with a long tail on it in Ireland because there was a time not so far back when people wouldn't dream of setting a hen, or sowing a drill of spuds, or even cutting their own hair or nails without first knowing where the moon was in its round.
The moon in our tradition set the time for the work, and that idea, that timing, is part of the doing. And it's not an afterthought. It's one that our tradition has always taken very, very seriously. So for anyone meeting me here for the first time, I'm Lora O'Brien. I'm an Irish draoi and a priest of The [00:01:00] Morrigan since 2004, with guts of about 30 years practice behind me, and a master's in Irish history as well.
I read the sources the way a historian has to. I make this podcast for the Irish Pagan School, and the whole of what I do here is Irish tradition from the people who actually live it, rather than the pan-Celtic version that's sold by folk who really don't. So here in the Irish folk record, when you did a thing
So here in the Irish folk record, when you did a thing counted for as much as how you did it. And the clearest keeper of the time was the moon. The rule that you're gonna meet again and again if you're looking through the records or the folklore or any of the academic work, is that the waxing moon filling out towards the full is for bringing a thing on and growing it, and the waning moon [00:02:00] thinning down toward the dark is for lessening a thing and sending it away.
That's very basic, but that's how it works, right? So the school's collection on DĂșchas is absolutely thick with moon lore. A lot about the new moon not so much about the dark moon. The full moon we tended to avoid 'cause that was when the fairy host ride out. It's a bit of a dodgy time.
But you look through the folklore, and you get the old advice that you should sow your plants between the new moon and the full moon so they'd come on early. And right alongside it, the firm warning that anything sown at the full moon would grow wild for reasons aforementioned. A lot of energy going around.
For example, that cabbage set at the full would run to nothing, and oats sown at the full would blacken. The same round of the moon governed a good deal more than the sowing as well. A pig killed with the growth of the moon was said to give meat that [00:03:00] swelled well in the pot. And there's a lovely small detail that eggs set under a hen to hatch with the full moon were held to come out cocks, while eggs set with the old waning moon came out pullets.
So that's male and female versions of the hens, obviously Now, the folk record isn't a rule book, mind you, right? And you'll find that it argues with itself a little bit from one parish to the next because, again, it's a living tradition, and it's not a system that somebody sat down and drew up, making perfect sense.
It's something that grew organically over time. And in different areas, different things became relevant and, different stories were being told. But you will see a thread through that holds across the whole of it, honestly, that, the filling moon, the waxing moon, is for increase, and the emptying moon, or the waning moon, [00:04:00] is for decrease, and that the full moon itself is a poor time to start anything that you want to grow true.
Now, the new moon is a great time, right? But the full moon, not so much. So the moon in our tradition sits inside this wider question of when and where you work, and it sits alongside these great turning points of the year at Bealtaine and Samhain and at Imbolc and LĂșnasa. And one of our folklorists, Kevin Danaher, he wrote The Year in Ireland, and he'd say that the closest record we have of the Irish calendar customs shows the same habit the whole way through.
So the practitioner the witch, the user of magic, the draoi, read the time that they were in and then set the work to suit it rather than forcing it against the grain Now, we do explore a lot in a five-day boot camp that we do. It's a [00:05:00] free five-day boot camp that we run before we start a bigger eight-week program.
We want to run something for free before we start any paid program. That's just what we do, we want to give. Because a lot of people can't afford the paid work, and we're all about making sure that people have what they need, the resources that they need, right? Our five-day moon boot camp really goes into a lot of detail on this, and especially this concept of looking at where the moon is and fitting the work that you're doing to work with the energies rather than against them,
now, if you would like to sign up, don't know when you're listening to this as I record it and publish it, we do have a free boot camp coming up in the next week or two. So definitely sign up for it. You can find it at irishpaganschool.ie/return.
That's the waiting list for the program. But if you're on that program waiting [00:06:00] list, you will get access to the free boot camp enrollment as well. So definitely go and sign up if you're interested in five free days of live meetings around the moon and what it does and what it doesn't do within the Irish tradition and how you can practically work with it, right?
That's a little aside, but here on the podcast, I wanted to give you one way to put that to use right now, and what I want you to do is take one thing that you actually mean to do, whether it's a thing that you want to bring on and grow a piece of work that you're starting, a habit you want to build up, a plan you want to swell and put energy into, or a thing that you want to lessen and be rid of, a habit you want to reduce and get smaller, a worry that you'd like to shrink down.
I think you see where I'm going with this. And then go out and look at the actual moon and read it [00:07:00] with your own two eyes. The moon is available to us all, people. So look at it and see, is it filling out towards the full or worn down and thinning toward the dark? You can check your calendar, obviously. Some people have phases of the moon on their calendar. You can also Google it if you really want to. But I do suggest actually going out and seeing the moon, even if you do those things as well.
Get it in your eyeballs, and Once you figure that out if your thing is one that you want to grow and the moon is waxing, then that's your night. So take the first step of it there and then and say as you do that you're setting this to the rising moon. And if your thing is one that you want gone and the moon is waning, you begin the sending away of it as the moon thins away.
Whatever it is you want to grow up true and strong, don't be starting it at the full moon. You need to wait for the new moon, the way the old [00:08:00] people wouldn't sow at the full moon for the fear of a wild and useless crop. So if the moon's wrong for your work tonight, you wait for it to turn, and the waiting is part of the spell, . Moonset's a good time but it doesn't do the work for you. So you've still got to do the actual thing, the real first step, the real sending. And you can do it by, writing it on a little piece of paper and burning it if you want to banish it or get rid of it.
Or you can do it by, again, writing it on a little piece of paper and, keeping it close to you and having it as an affirmation or something like that where you're gonna see it every day until the moon turns, right? So time it well and then follow it through because a well-chosen moon with nothing done under it is only moon gazing, which is lovely as well, in fairness.
It's lovely to go out and just look at the moon. But we also like to be doing a bit of work too. [00:09:00] So if you'd like a grounded Irish practice like this one coming to you every month with the source and the story behind it, that is exactly what Simple Irish Spells is for. It is my newsletter over on the Irish Pagan School site, and when you sign up, you'll get my Magic for Social Change PDF toolkit for free as well.
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Love the podcast, love doing the podcast, but it's nice [00:10:00] to have something right in front of you as well that you can actually go through it step by step. You will find the Simple Irish Spells newsletter at irishpagan.school/spells. And again, it's down in the show notes. SlĂĄn.
