How Important Are Void of Course Moons?

on course with the Moon

I write a lot about the Moon, work with the Moon's energy as best I can, and yet you've not seen anything in my recent posts about void of course Moons. Why?

First, an explanation: Void of course Moons raise almost as much dread as mercury retrograde, in some circles. "Nothing will come of it" the saying goes ... anything new started under a void of course Moon.

Second, a definition: When is the Moon void of course? The most common definition is, the Moon is void of course when she doesn't make any more major aspects within a sign, until she enters the next sign. For example, the Moon went void of course around 10:40 pm EST on Valentine's evening, and stayed void of course until 5:00 am the next morning, which might sound like a really lucky thing to some people.

The problem is, this happens a lot. The Moon goes void of course almost every couple of days, sometimes for just a few minutes and sometimes for a day or more. Tracking this is complicated, and  really, can we choose not to start anything new that frequently?

In my life, I must admit, I simply don't pay much attention to void of course Moons.

I tried to, for major events, and the results were unclear: When I put my house on the market, the Moon was going void of course around 5:20 pm. I tried to get the contract signed beforehand, and didn't quite make it, although I made sure we had a firm verbal agreement earlier in the day. In fact, the house sold much more slowly than anticipated. There was a major ice storm right after it was listed, and the winter overall was horrible. I had to drop the price. But it did sell, I got what I needed, and I moved on ... did I dodge a void of course disaster or not? Hard to tell.

I also adjusted my own definition, to reduce the number and length of voids. In this post from 2010, I began using the inconjunct aspect, as well as aspects to Chiron. But over time, tracking void of course periods didn't engage my interest as much as what the Moon was up to by sign and phase.

So, yesterday I listened to two podcast episodes which offered new perspectives on the void of course Moon. (I should clarify, the perspectives offered are new to me... since they come from Hellenistic astrology, they are actually really old. Classic, even.)

The fourth and fifth episodes of Chris Brennan's The Astrology Podcast focused on political astrology, and because Obama was nominated under a void of course Moon, the conversation turned to this dread phenomenon and what it portended.

The technical details are thoroughly explored in this article at The Political Astrology Blog, also by Chris Brennan. In brief, it turns out there are alternative, stricter definitions of when the Moon is void of course, the obsessive focus on the dread nature of Moon voids is fairly recent (early 1900's), and the justification for it may not be too solid.

Based on Chris Brennan's analysis and Barrack Obama's winning campaigns, it seems we can get a whole lot more relaxed about the whole void of course thing.

I'm actually finding, though, that my interest in this topic is piqued. Now I'm curious about these various definitions, and what they imply about the Moon and about us. I'm also curious about Chris Brennan's argument that Obama himself needn't worry about void of course Moons because he seems to do well with them.

Not only is there more to the void of course concept than I realized, it's also a "your mileage may vary" kind of thing. Now I'm curious. Maybe all voids are not equal, or not equal for all of us.

Do you pay attention to void of course times? Has it seemed to make a different for you? More to learn about the Moon!