In some years, as your tribe watched the Sun setting in the southwest at the Winter Solstice, they would also see the Full Moon rising in the northeast exactly at its maximum extreme, which was indeed ideal. And if the Moon eclipsed then as well, they might be inspired to enlarge the temple, or to seek more profound ceremonies, or to give precedence to specific deities.
Here are the years for the next few sets of lunar standstills:
Minimum extremes: 2014-2015-2016
Maximum extremes: 2023-2024-2025
Minimum extremes: 2033-2034-2035
Maximum extremes: 2042-2043-2044
Moon Temples and Lunar Architecture
The solstice and equinox points are so steady that observing the skies for even a decade will make clear the regularity of the Sun's pattern.
The Moon, however, is different. With an 18.6-year path as variable as its monthly shapes, how many cycles must be observed before the pattern appears clearly? If the Sun is planetary pop music in 4/4 time, the Moon is planetary bebop jazz. An underlying tempo exists, but can you find it?
A Hopi saying calls the Moon "The Foolish Man Who Runs around with No Home."65 People have built complex Moon-markers in many locations, as if trying to create some stable mooring for the poor homeless Moon. The Moon's maximum extremes seem to get more attention, probably because these exceed even the Sun's reach from north to south. To mark the Sun's solstice and equinox points, we need six markers: three east-facing positions for sunrises, and another three west-facing for sunsets (see figure 84). To mark all of the Moon's positions—maximum and minimum extremes, north and south, rising and setting—we need to mark eight different positions. Or even ten positions: another two markers are needed for lunar midpoints, rising and setting, unless there were solar equinox markers to share.
Stonehenge, England (51º 11' N, 1º 49' W; c. 3150-1950 BCE)
Stonehenge has the full set of Moon-alignment markers. They are as prominently placed as its solar lines, although, with the 18.6-year cycle, we'll never experience all their views within a single year (see figure 85). This was always true with Moon-marking sites. Extreme sightlines were only functional—accuracy appreciated, cycles duly noted, appropriate rituals observed—gradually, over the long 18.6-year cycle. But people marked them anyway.
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA (36º 3' N, 107º 57' W; c. 850-1140 CE)
The same markers used on Fajada Butte for the solstice/equinox cycle also mark the lunar cycle. Rather than noon sunlight entering between the rock slabs, the rising Moon's light enters from the side, illuminating different portions of the carved spiral (see figure 86).
According to Anna Sofaer, long-time Chaco Sun-and-Moon chronicler, this is the "only culture known in the world to align their buildings to the Moon's cycle."66 Many cultures built observatories with sightlines. The Chacoans constructed entire buildings with either doors and windows or outer walls aligned. And these buildings align with others within the canyon, including sites miles away behind intervening buttes.
Visiting Chaco Canyon now, you often have much of it to yourself—just the buttes, the chamisa, the exquisite stonework, the sky, and lonely little you. But consider that the canyon contains the remains of fifteen Great Kivas that had a capacity of four hundred or more people each and over one hundred smaller kivas with a capacity of fifty to one hundred people each. Even a conservative calculation yields a potential eleven thousand people in kivas, in ceremony.
Eleven thousand. It's a good number to remember if you ever feel lonely in your Moon-watching. In Moon rites, in spirit, I'm often private, but never alone.
Chimney Rock, Southern Colorado, USA (37º 13' N, 107º 2' W;
c. 850-1125 CE)
Chimney Rock is a Chaco Canyon outlier about ninety miles to the north (145 km). It is culturally associated with, but geographically distinct from, Chaco itself. In about 1050 CE, Chaco immigrants arrived, joining—or taking over?—the established settlement. Advanced-grade sky watchers? They built a Great House on the highest practical land, in the most prominent and defensible position.
From their new digs above the main village, they had an excellent view of Chimney Rock's two rock formations. The stone pillars form a close pair with a gap between them, and the Moon's northern maximum standstill occurs in this natural gateway (see figure 87).
The Great House at Chimney Rock is tree-ring dated to 1076 CE, the year of a major northern standstill. It was expanded in 1093-1094 CE, when the Moon returned to its extreme position.
Octagon, Newark, Ohio, USA (40º 3' N, 82º 27' W) and High Banks, near Chillicoathe, Ohio, USA (39º 20' N, 82º 59' W)
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