Bad hair day? Blame the Moon

A few days ago I had my hair cut. I was the only customer in the normally busy hairdresser’s and Evelyn said as she snipped away that January is normally a quiet month…”and then there is the moon calendar…but it’s too late for you now”.

The phases and positioning of the moon in conjunction with the star signs and the elements, as indicated on the Moon Calendar dictate which day is a good day for a hair cut and what is not. Hairdressers are busy or quiet according to this calendar.

There’s much more to it than just the hair. The moon calendar is used my many people here to choose appropriate days for many things from personal health and wellbeing, to farming and gardening, and on household activities and maintenance.

The principle is that, just as the moon creates the ocean tides, so it influences the rising sap in our plants and also the working of our bodies.

Every day on local radio, in newspapers and in a variety of calendars and diaries we are told that it is not a good day for, for example, removing warts, or drilling a well, that fattening foods work better on this day or that botox will last longer if applied today, that it is a good day for cleaning windows and for spreading manure on the garden.

Until I came to Austria I had never heard of the moon calendar and as a sophisticated former city dweller was pretty sceptical…in fact I thought it a bit of a joke like horoscopes. Before writing this I looked it up on Wikipedia – and even in that all-knowing corner of the internet, found no reference to the moon’s influence on haircuts or removing warts.

However, over the years I have come to greatly respect the farmers in Embach. They are all small family micro-businesses working on the steepest of hillsides often in harsh weather conditions. There is no room in their budgets for wastage and families with rakes and hand mowers help each time the hay has to be cut making sure nothing is lost. In winter the cows are cared for by hand in the stalls.

Working in such close harmony with nature, and with generations of experience behind them, I am now sure they know more about the influence of the moon on their work than Wikipedia does. If they have learned these lores from their ancestors and still apply this know-how today, then there must be something in it. And what works for one crop must also be relevant for house plants and when planting out in the garden.

On the day of writing this the moon calendar advised voice, speech, ears, nose and throat were vulnerable and should be protected. As it is 10 Celcius degrees below zero with an icy wind – that seems pretty sound. Whether I would ever notice whether it was a good or bad day for cleaning windows, I can’t say.

But my haircut on that “bad hair” day? Yes it really bears out the Moon Calendar advice, I should have stayed away. But then, as Evelyn said, it was too late by the time I found out.



Rising above Embach over the Baugkogerl - did the Moon really affect my haircut?