Two degrees of Sagittarius, a waxing crescent, and the distance Lilly called under the beams.
The record for 14 October 2026
2° Sagittarius
Waxing crescent, newly clear of the Sun.
0h · 6h · 12h · 18h
Sign
Sagittarius, two degrees
Phase
Waxing crescent
Condition
Peregrine
The word to know today
Under the beams
A planet within seventeen degrees of the Sun, weakened by its light. Closer still, within about eight and a half degrees, it was called combust. The Moon passes through both every month around the new Moon.
Seventeen degrees was the line William Lilly drew. This morning the Moon stands at two degrees of Sagittarius, more than forty degrees from the Sun, well past that line.
Combustion is the older word. In Christian Astrology, published in London in 1647, a planet within about eight and a half degrees of the Sun was combust: burned, its significations hidden or ruined. Out to seventeen degrees it was under the Sun’s beams, weakened but not destroyed. The Moon passes through both conditions every month. The new Moon fell on 10 October, in Libra, and for the days around it she was combust, then under the beams, then free.
She crossed into Sagittarius at 00:59 UTC, ending a void of course that had run since the previous morning. Sagittarius gives her nothing. It is Jupiter’s sign, fire and mutable, and the Moon holds neither rulership nor exaltation here, nor is she in detriment or fall. She is peregrine, a traveler without office.
The young crescent, newly visible after the dark, carried its own weight in the old calendars. The Islamic calendar kept in ninth century Baghdad, where Abu Ma’shar wrote, began each month only when that first thin crescent was sighted. This evening it sets in the west a few hours after the Sun. By that reckoning, this month is a few days old.
From the shelf
William Lilly, Christian Astrology
Published in London in 1647, the text that set the distances for combustion and the Sun’s beams down in English.
Six short letters and one long one, every week
Read the record each morning.
Monday to Saturday, the Moon's sign today and what the old texts made of it. On Sunday, the week ahead for all twelve signs. Free.
