Buddhist Feast Days and the Lunar Calendar
The choice of the 23rd of August was not an arbitrary one. The day is the 25th day of the lunar calendar, the day and evening dedicated to the divine feminine aspect of enlightenment, and the tenth day of each lunar calendar is dedicated to celebrating the masculine aspect of enlightened awareness. The tenth is but five days away from the full moon, which marks the completion of the moon's waxing or masculine phase. The twenty-fifth is but five days away from the new moon, which marks the end of the moon's waning or feminine phase. So these celebration days mark pivot points within the cycle of creativity and release or opening in the monthly cycles of our lives.
These feast events are usually celebrations that are held specifically to realign one's intention and reconnect with the spiritual community in celebration of the "wheel of joy," the source of all blessings.
It is interesting to note that we in the West have somehow forgotten our sister planet, the moon, other than to notice it when it is conspicuously present or absent. There was a time when most everyone probably knew what phase the moon was in as a natural part of their experience of the passage of time. Likewise, most could automatically tell by what part was visible whether the moon was waxing or waning. But our present reliance on artificial light at night and our use of clocks has divorced us from such an intimate ralationship now. Now women in artificial light menstruate at varying times, rather than those who continue to feel her pull and radiance far from the orange glow of city lights.
In Buddhist iconography, the sun and moon represent the two polarities of psychic energies that flank the central channel; hermetic iconography shares this same model: the cadesus, used by the medical community depicts the same model, where the snakes flanking the central staff are these polar energies.