Timing and cycles

Full Moon

Direct answer

Full Moon is the lunar phase when the Moon is opposite the Sun and appears fully illuminated from Earth.

Full Moon is the lunar peak of illumination, culmination, visibility, and release.

Transits & CyclesThe Great Almanac DictionaryUpdated 2026-09-26

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At a glance

In astrology: A Full Moon is a Sun-Moon opposition.
Found in: Transits & Cycles
Related: Birth Chart, Zodiac, Transit

The planets on their engraved orbits before a brass armillary sphere — Celestial motion · visual guide **Full Moon**
Full Moon is the lunar peak of illumination, culmination, visibility, and release.
The orbit map distinguishes physical bodies, calculated points, and symbolic cycles where possible.

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What sets Full Moon apart

At the Full Moon the Moon stands exactly opposite the Sun, so she rises as the Sun sets and sets as it rises, and she always stands in the sign opposite the Sun's. That makes every Full Moon fall on an axis of two opposite signs. A lunar eclipse can occur only at a Full Moon, when she is near a lunar node.

Angle: 180 degrees from the Sun, an opposition in longitude
Sign rule: the Moon is in the sign opposite the Sun, so a Sun in Aries gives a Full Moon in Libra
Rises and sets: rises near sunset and sets near sunrise
Easter: the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon on or after 21 March
Passover: begins on the 15th of Nisan, at the month's Full Moon

Often mistaken for something else: The Full Moon is the opposition, which has an exact time. The disc looks full for about a night on either side, so the shape in the sky is not the same as the astronomical moment.

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The Wandering Stars

How the moving planets were watched, named and found, and what a transit is.

The story behind Full Moon

Full Moons have anchored calendars, festivals, agricultural timing, and night travel across many cultures.

The spiritual meaning of Full Moon

Spiritually, Full Moon asks what truth is now bright enough to acknowledge.

Full Moon in astrology

A Full Moon is a Sun-Moon opposition. If it occurs near the lunar nodes, it may become a lunar eclipse.

Why Full Moon matters

Full Moon matters because it brings a cycle to visibility and often heightens feeling, awareness, completion, or contrast.

How to read Full Moon

Full Moon timing speaks to culmination, reflection, release, visibility, emotional honesty, and reading the house axis being activated.

Full Moon in practice: an example

A Full Moon across the Fourth and Tenth Houses may highlight home-career tension, public pressure, or private needs.

Where readings of Full Moon go wrong

A common error is to treat every Full Moon as crisis. It is a light-bearing moment, not automatically chaos.

Sources and editorial method

This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.

Source: The Great Almanac Dictionary
Category: Transits & Cycles
Last updated: 2026-09-26

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Full Moon in a book is one thing; Full Moon in your own birth chart is your life. The Oracle casts your real chart and tells you what it means for your love, your work, and your year ahead, in conversation. It opens with the 7-day Seeker trial.

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Birth ChartA Birth Chart is a personal astrology map built from birth date, time, and place. ZodiacThe Zodiac is the twelve-sign wheel used as astrology's core sign language. TransitTransit means current planetary movement activating a chart.

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