What the observance is
For two or three nights in every lunation the moon cannot be seen at all. It rises and sets with the sun and turns its unlit face to the earth. Astronomers call the middle of that period the new moon. The House calls it the dark moon, and keeps it as the one fixed observance in its calendar.
The link between Lilith and the moon is modern, as our symbols page explains. We keep the night anyway, for a practical reason. A practice of self-examination needs a regular date that you do not choose, or it gets put off whenever it would be uncomfortable. The moon supplies one every twenty-nine and a half days and cannot be rescheduled.
Tonight's moon
Upcoming dark moons
The dates below are calculated in your browser from the average length of the lunar month, and can differ from an almanac by up to a day. The observance may be kept on the night before, the night of, or the night after.
- Dates appear here when JavaScript is available. Any almanac lists the new moons for the year.
Preparation
- Choose a room where you can be alone and undisturbed for forty minutes. Silence your phone and leave it elsewhere.
- Set out your notebook, a pen, and one candle. Have a glass of water and something small to eat waiting in another room.
- Before you start, read through the last month of your night journal, if you keep one.
The order of the observance
- Darken the room Put out every light. Sit for a minute in the dark and let your eyes adjust. Nothing needs to happen.
- Light the one candle and open the office Say the opening words below, or your own.
- The review By candlelight, write answers to three questions. What did I refuse this month, and was it mine to refuse? What did I agree to that I did not mean? What did I avoid looking at?
- The naming Choose one item from what you have written and say it aloud, in one plain sentence, as a statement of fact. Do not justify it.
- The empty time Put out the candle. Sit in complete darkness for ten minutes. You are not trying to think or to stop thinking. You are keeping the night company. If the mind produces images or words, let them go by, and write nothing yet.
- The return of the light Relight the candle. Write down anything that asks to be kept, in as few words as possible.
- The closing Say the closing words, then put out the candle.
- The return Turn on the ordinary lights. Drink the water and eat. Do something plain, such as washing a dish, before you speak to anyone or look at a screen.
The text of the Night Office
This wording was settled by the keepers in 2023. It addresses Lilith by her older name. Readers who do not address anyone may treat the lines as spoken to the night, or to themselves.
At the lighting of the candle
Lilitu, wind at the window,
you who were made from the same earth,
I keep the empty night as you kept the wilderness.
I have not come to ask for anything.
I have come to see what is here when nothing is reflected.
After the naming
This is mine. I said it and it is said.
I do not send it into the waste.
I do not let it rule the house.
At the closing
The door of this house has no lock, and I am not held.
What I refused, I refused.
What I owe, I will pay.
The light returns because I light it.
Notes on keeping it
If you miss it
Then you missed it. There is no penance and no making up. The next one arrives in a month.
If the empty time is unbearable
Shorten it to three minutes and lengthen it by a minute each month. If darkness itself is distressing for you, keep the candle lit and lower your eyes. The point is stillness without distraction, not an ordeal.
If you keep it with others
Some of the keepers observe the night with a friend or partner. Each person writes and names privately, and the empty time is shared in silence. No one leads, and nothing written is read aloud unless its author chooses.
The keeper who maintains this page has written about why the House chose this night in Why We Keep the Empty Night. The next practice is Mirror Work.