Lunation #1 “The symbols of moon and sun, which unite and distinguish them in the true way of complementary opposites: forever connected and forever different.” Sara

Lunation #2 “We grew up in the city, but you enjoy the moon more in the village. Because there’s no electricity, the moonlight gathers everybody and it creates that environment of peace and joy, like a lullaby. Stories are told and the lessons that are drawn from them intrigue children. My people always say know whose child you are and that’s one of the reasons that they tell you stories. Because we believe that your surname, you don’t own it, it is a generational name and that is why these tales must be told by moonlight, because the moon is always there. So in your own generation you must show good example – don’t do anything to soil your name.” Felica

Lunation #3 “My family tells me that in Bangladesh the night of seeing the new moon is known as chaand raat, which means ‘the night of the moon’. It’s a massive festival: all the shops are open, and they put out lights because the moon represents the return of light. People eat street food and they buy jewellery, especially bangles. So the new moon is wrapped up in festivity, community, food and clothes for everybody. My first new moon sighting was at Oxford University with an astronomer tutor who took us to the Radcliffe Observatory. Seeing that very thin sliver was an incredible experience. That indirectly inspired the formation of the New Crescent Society to revive the practice of moon sighting. I want there to be space for every single Muslim, and non-Muslim to be able to go out and sight the moon – connecting the community with the cosmos.” Imad

Lunation #4 “For me, God created the Earth and everything involved with it. It started off with ‘let there be light’ and there was the sun, and then ‘we need darkness’ and there was the moon. The moon and the sun to separate night and day. As a child I was convinced that the moon moved. Just looking at something so big and how it appears in the sky, I’d think it was moving but it wasn’t moving – it’s in one position. Amazing how in all the world it’s just this one thing.” Margaret

Lunation #5 “I think the Americans were a bit annoyed about not being the first in space, but I do remember the moon landing. They were sending out rockets regularly to whatever satellites and that was the big one. In the shots they took the earth seemed so small compared to the vastness of space. However, what I associate most with the moon is moonlight; during the war, that’s when the German airplanes came over because they could see clearly at the time of blackouts. Where I lived in Sheffield, we had four bombs all around and one day when I got up and out there was a massive crater in the road very near and when I talk about a crater it was very deep, big as a double-decker bus. We were lucky. So that’s what I associate with the moon, the air raids.” Raymond

Lunation #6 “I think of the moon as a close object, compared to the rest what’s out there in space, the solar system. Like a month ago, the image was captured of the first black hole – something that’s like billions of light years away versus something that’s right there. You remember just looking up in the sky in the evening as a little kid on a full moon – just imagining. Now, my daughter goes to sleep before she can see the moon, but sometimes during the day you can see it too, right, so she’s obviously noticed, you know, that there’s something out there. In Japan, on a full moon, we say there’s a rabbit making, you know, sticky rice. But in the US, you literally say it’s a man on the moon, like you see a face. Cultural differences. It would be good to kind of teach my daughter about the moon when she’s ready.” Kenei

Lunation #7 I remember my first eclipse. I was outside playing and I ran in saying ‘mummy, mum, what’s happened, the world’s ending’. I was crying and everything! And it was weird because when I went back out it was all light again. I suppose I’m interested in the moon because it lights up the sky and it can make you feel happy. In 2015, when I got told I had breast cancer, I used to have a room that had a skylight and the moon used to shine through. I’ve always liked the moon. Whether it has any healing qualities, I don’t know, but I’m still in remission with breast cancer and that helped, I find, just looking up and seeing the moon. I often think of how it made me feel to look up and see it peeping through.” Jill

Lunation #8 “I always look at the moon as part of nature and part of wellbeing. You know certain moons deal with mental health so on a full moon I am more irritated and more possessive. Then on a quarter moon or a half moon less active. When I was a kid my grandad would call us to the yard and he would tell us stories because at those times the full moon was bright so we’d have light to tell stories. I loved those times with my grandad. As a teenager you’d go walking with your boyfriend in the full moon because and you’d look at the moon and it’d be a happy time, a lovely time.” Debra

Lunation #9 “We’re not the centre of the universe like we think we are. When the first men were sent to the moon, the first images that were sent back of planet earth actually changed our concept of our place in the universe. We could see ourselves objectified – just a planet floating in space in a vast void. It changed our relationship with ourselves. It helped us objectify ourselves on this lonely planet orbiting the sun. That the moon happens to be the same size as the sun given the same distance in relation to the earth – whether that’s by chance or design – you can get a perfect lunar eclipse. And you get that glow, the corona. The Eclipses are quite profound. Just how they encourage us to look upwards instead of downwards and force us to realise our place in the universe.” Niall

Lunation #11 “My biggest memory of the moon, my relationship with the moon, is 21st July 1969, which was my 21st birthday. Of course, for a lot of people in my generation, it’s the date of the first men landing on the moon. We had a party the night before so we just stayed up. At about 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning UK time, when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, we were all gathered around a very small black and white television watching it. At that time I was working in Fleet Street in London; I remember going straight to work at about 5 o’clock in the morning and a couple of the newspapers actually ran a special edition with a picture of Neil Armstrong on the moon. I just thought it was absolutely amazing.” Steve

Lunation #12 “Cheese! Space, adventure, rockets, moon walk, the man on the moon. My mum used to tell me stories about him. She used to tell me if we weren’t very good, someone would come down in a net from the moon. That’s what my overarching memory of the moon is! There’s a face, and there’s a man up there. My own sons love the moon. They have been looking at it for a long time and they understand the different phases of the moon and the different shapes, the crescents. Just by looking at it. It’s quite amazing isn’t it? The moon at night and all the different shapes of it, it’s beautiful. The fact that it changes, it’s kind of magical for them.” Kathryn

Lunation #13 ” When the moon is at its brightest it’s when a new month is starting. For example, in Saudi Arabia it’s when people sight the moon and they mark it. In the UK and other places you cannot see it as much. Muslims basically take their calendar from the moon so that’s why we’re based on lunar months whereas in the West it’s solar. For me, the moon is serenity, calmness, beauty, the halo… Sometimes when it’s night, especially when I’m lying down, I open the curtains, I see the full moon and I just drift away. My mother named my daughter Halla – in English it means halo: it’s when the moon is full and it’s at its brightest the glow that seems to illuminate behind it. Sometimes, when I’m on the bus or driving, I see it and remember my daughter.” Amal