Folklore #175
Rituals & practice
A row of eight little moons, new through full and back, is one of the most common tattoos of the last decade, and the row is very often in the wrong order for the hemisphere it is on.
In the northern hemisphere the Moon lights up on the right and empties from the right; south of the equator it is the other way round. Copied from a phone screen, the row usually comes out northern. Nobody minds, and it is a nice illustration of how much of what we assume about the Moon is really an assumption about where we are standing.
Tradition: Modern popular practice · checked Sep 2026
🔭 Meanwhile, in astronomy: A crescent's horns are a compass