Full Moon
The whole lit face turned toward us, and the only phase most people can identify at a glance. Traditionally read as culmination and as visibility — including the visibility of whatever was being avoided.
What This Phase Suits
Finishing, saying the true thing, seeing the situation plainly
Everything Lit
At full moon the Earth sits roughly between the Sun and the Moon, so the entire lit face is turned toward us. It rises as the Sun sets and sets as the Sun rises, and it is the only phase visible all night.
It is also the only phase most people can identify with certainty, which turns out to explain a great deal about the folklore attached to it.
Full moon is an instant rather than a night. The Moon looks full for two or three evenings either side, but the exact opposition happens at a computable minute.
Culmination and Visibility
The traditional reading is completion and exposure — something reaching its point, and whatever was being avoided becoming difficult to avoid.
It is associated with emotions running closer to the surface and with conversations that have been deferred arriving anyway. The reading follows the image directly: everything is lit, including what was in shadow.
As a monthly prompt it is well placed. Two weeks after deciding something is a reasonable moment to look at it honestly.
The Folklore Does Not Hold
More births, more crime, more emergency admissions, more disturbance — all studied, repeatedly, and consistently not found. The analyses are large and the result is robust.
The persistence of the belief is a case study in confirmation. The full moon is identifiable, so it is available as an explanation, and unusual nights get sorted into it while ordinary ones do not get counted.
The one survivor is sleep. Several controlled studies have found slightly delayed onset and shorter duration around the full moon, including without light cues. The effect is small and real enough not to dismiss.
Eclipses and Supermoons
A lunar eclipse can only happen at full moon, and only when the alignment is close enough to the orbital plane for the Earth's shadow to reach the Moon. That is why they are occasional rather than monthly.
A supermoon is a full moon near the closest point of its orbit — genuinely larger by about fourteen per cent against the smallest, and effectively impossible to notice without a comparison photograph.
The famous size of a moon low on the horizon is an optical illusion and not a supermoon effect. It is the same disc, measurably.