Moon tables

The void of course Moon: meaning and reading the listings

For years this address carried month-by-month Moon tables for the Pacific time zone. The tables have aged out, but the method has not. This page explains what a void of course Moon is, how a listing is written, and what people actually do with the information.

What "void of course" means

The Moon moves through a sign in about two and a half days. On the way it forms aspects to the Sun and the planets: conjunctions, sextiles, squares, trines, oppositions. After it makes the last of those aspects and before it enters the next sign, it is said to be void of course. Nothing new is being set in motion; the Moon is coasting out of the sign.

A void can last a few minutes or well over a day. The long ones happen when the Moon's last aspect falls early in a sign and the planets are clustered so that nothing waits for it in the final degrees.

How a listing is written

Moon listings follow a simple pattern. Each entry has a date, a time and one of two events. Here is a sample in the format this site used, with Pacific time:

• The line that ends in VOC gives the moment the Moon went void. It stays void until the next "Moon enters" line.
• The short note before VOC is the final aspect, for example "Moon square Venus". Students of astrology read it as how the matters of that Moon sign conclude; everyone else can ignore it.
• New and Full Moons and eclipses are highlighted where they fall, since they are the Moon events most people plan around.
• The time zone is printed at the top. This site's tables used Pacific time and switched between standard and daylight time with the calendar. If you are elsewhere, use the GMT version and the conversion notes.

What to do with a void Moon

The traditional rule is that nothing begun during a void comes to anything. The modern, less dramatic version: a void is a poor time for decisions you want to stick, and a fine time for everything else.

Some years bring extremely long void periods, a day or more at a stretch, and those are the ones worth marking on a calendar. A twenty-minute void between two aspects is not worth rearranging your life around.

Why the Moon sign matters at all

The Moon sets the ebb and flow of ordinary days. With the Moon in Aries everything is go, go, go; with the Moon in Gemini everyone is a little more talkative; a Cancer Moon sends people home early. Each of us has a personal rhythm inside that, and the quickest way to learn it is to note the Moon sign for a month and watch which days run smoothly for you and which do not. The void periods are the pauses in that rhythm.

Where to get current tables

We no longer publish yearly listings here. Any astrology program, most online ephemeris services and several free calendar apps will produce void of course times for your own location and time zone, which beats converting someone else's table. Ask for the "last aspect" to be shown if you want the full notation described above.

This address previously carried the Pacific-time Moon listings compiled for Astrologically Speaking. The explanatory text has been rewritten; the yearly tables are no longer maintained.