Who is Selene Tides?
Selene Tides is the lunar cycles guide at CrystalStones.com, a working ritualist weaving the Celtic Wheel of the Year, Demetra George's lunar return work, and Yasmin Boland's Moonology. The moon's rhythm asks us to listen; the cycle kept its time long before any calendar was drawn to name it.
About Selene
I grew up on the coast, which is where I learned the moon. Tide charts pinned to the kitchen wall, the difference between a spring tide and a neap, the way a full moon at the right time of year could pull water up under the porch and make the dog nervous. The cosmic happened in the body of the bay. The body of the bay was the place we lived. I didn't have words for what that taught me until I was much older, but the rhythm got into me first.
Years later, when I encountered lunar ritual work, both contemporary and ancient, it didn't feel mystical. It felt obvious. Of course the moon's phases ask something different of us. Of course we feel them. According to Yasmin Boland in Moonology (2016), the eight phases of the lunar cycle each ask something different of a practitioner, a framing I now use in every guide I write. Demetra George in Mysteries of the Dark Moon (1992) describes the dark-moon phase as the part most modern lunar writing skips, and I cite her on every dark-moon page. In the Pagan Wheel-of-the-Year tradition, Janet and Stewart Farrar trace the eight sabbats as a year-shaped lunar-solar rhythm. The deeper I went into the literature, the more contemporary circadian science started to overlap. We have always been bodies inside a cosmos that has rhythm. The wisdom traditions noticed. So did chronobiology.
My work at CrystalStones.com is to translate that long rhythm into something a modern reader can actually use. What to do on a New Moon. What a Full Moon in Scorpio is actually asking. According to the Western lunar tradition Boland and George describe, the phase frames the intention; the sign frames the texture. How to plan a year of intentions around the lunar calendar without making it another performance demand. Lunar practice should be slow, embodied, and forgiving. That's the only kind I write.
What Selene writes about
The subjects Selene returns to most often in writing and consultation.
Moon Phases and Their Meaning
The eight phases of the lunar cycle, New, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full, Waning Gibbous, Last Quarter, Waning Crescent, and what each one traditionally asks of us.
New and Full Moon Rituals
Intention-setting at the New Moon, release at the Full Moon, gentle, embodied practices grounded in the lunar tradition.
The Lunar Calendar
Tracking the moon across a year, eclipse seasons, the thirteen lunations, and how to plan slowly with them.
Moon in the Zodiac
How the moon's transit through each sign colors the emotional weather of a few days at a time.
Seasonal and Circadian Rhythms
The deeper rhythms underneath the lunar cycle, solstice and equinox, dawn and dusk, the body's own clock.
Crystal Charging by Moonlight
Which stones can safely sit out under a full moon, which prefer earth, and the simple ritual that links the practice together.
How Selene works
I write from the body outward. Before I publish any lunar practice, I sit through at least one full cycle with it myself. If a ritual doesn't survive contact with a hard week, a missed period of sleep, or a flat-out forgotten moon, it isn't worth writing about. Embodied means it has to fit a real life.
I cite my traditions carefully. Contemporary lunar work, Yasmin Boland's Moonology, the broad New Moon manifestation tradition, is one thread. Indigenous earth-based and lunar traditions are another, but they're not mine, and I credit specific practitioners and lineages whenever I'm drawing on them rather than appropriating them as 'ancient wisdom.' Astronomical accuracy is non-negotiable; the moon's actual phase, position, and timing all come from the same ephemeris a working astronomer would use.
And I refuse the catastrophic. 'Most powerful moon ever!' is not language you'll find on this site. Every full moon is, in fact, a full moon, the recurring liturgy of a planet in orbit. The work is to notice it, not to inflate it.
One more thing, named plainly, because trust is part of the practice: Selene Tides is an editorial persona, a composite voice carrying the lunar traditions this site draws on, and every source behind the writing, from Boland to George to the chronobiology literature, is real, published, and checkable. The voice is a vessel. The rhythm is the moon's.
Sources and Influences
The traditions, books, and teachers that inform Selene's work.
M. Esther Harding, Woman's Mysteries (1935)
A Jungian analyst's classic study of lunar symbolism and the moon's place in the inner life. Harding wrote decades before the modern moon-ritual revival, and her rigor still sets the bar.
Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon (1992)
The definitive modern treatment of the dark-moon phase, the part of the cycle most contemporary lunar writing skips. I cite George on every dark-moon page.
Yasmin Boland, Moonology (2016)
Boland popularized the modern New Moon intention practice. I differ from her in tone, gentler, less manifestation-focused, but her sign-by-sign lunation work is the cleanest in print.
Indigenous earth-based traditions
Many cultures have rich lunar and seasonal practices that predate any of the modern Western work. I do not represent these traditions and I cite specific practitioners when I draw on them. The respect is structural.
Modern circadian science
Till Roenneberg, Satchin Panda, and the broader chronobiology literature have documented how deeply our bodies entrain to light, dark, and cycle. The science doesn't replace the tradition, it confirms what the tradition already knew.
Tools by Selene
Free tools and calculators authored and reviewed by Selene.
Recent Articles by Selene
Selected recent writing. See the full archive →
Moon Phases, A Complete Guide
The eight phases of the lunar cycle and what each one traditionally invites.
Full Moon in Aries, Meaning and Ritual
Fire-sign full moons: the work of clean anger, decisive release, and beginnings.
Full Moon in Scorpio, Meaning and Ritual
Deep-water full moons: shadow work, what wants to surface, what wants to die.
Full Moon in Cancer, Meaning and Ritual
Lunar-ruled full moons: home, family, the bodies we belong to.
Full Moon in Capricorn, Meaning and Ritual
Earth-sign full moons: structure, ambition, and what's been built honestly.
New Moon in Taurus, Meaning and Intention
Slow earth beginnings, the seed planted in patient ground.
New Moon in Libra, Meaning and Intention
Air-cardinal new moons, partnership, beauty, the work of fair scales.
New Moon in Pisces, Meaning and Intention
Dream-water new moons, the soft beginning that already knows itself.
Readings and Products by Selene Tides
The paid readings and tools Selene has authored, each computed from your own details.
“In the Celtic Wheel of the Year, Imbolc honors the first stirring of spring beneath the snow, Brigid's light returning to the dark half of the year. Many Pagan traditions mark this between February 1 and 2, though the astronomical cross-quarter (the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox) falls slightly later. Your next lunar return, the moment the Moon arrives back at the degree it held when you were born, is the cycle's monthly Imbolc, the quiet reset the calendar keeps whether you mark it or not.”
Explore More Tools
Moon Phase Today
Live lunar phase, illumination, and sign.
Open →Annual Moon Calendar
Every lunation, eclipse, and void window for the year.
Open →Wheel of the Year
The eight sabbats and their seasonal rhythm.
Open →Personal Lunar Return
When the Moon arrives back at its natal degree.
Open →Full Moon Ritual Library
Sign-by-sign full and new moon practices.
Open →The CrystalStones.com Team
Meet the rest of the editorial team. Each persona authors content within their own area of expertise.
Selene Tides is the editorial pen name of CrystalStones.com's moon cycles, lunar returns, the wheel of the year (celtic/pagan sabbats), void of course moon, medical astrology framing (historical, not medical), moon-phase ritual practice, and seasonal rhythm desk. All content is researched against traditional sources including M. Esther Harding and is written for self-reflection and educational purposes. CrystalStones.com content is not a substitute for medical, legal, financial, or psychological advice.