File:Triple-Goddess-Waxing-Full-Waning-Symbol.svg

[edit] Summary

Triple Goddess Symbol, composed of waxing crescent, full moon, and waning crescent (outlined version). Sometimes the crescents are tilted up a little to simulate the appearance of a young waxing moon above the horizon after just after sunset, and of an old waning moon above the horizon just before sunrise. The symbol is sometimes combined with a pentagram to express a more general Neopaganism. See also Image:Triple_Goddess_Symbol_Filled.svg for a monochromatic solid version, or Image:Triple-Goddess-Waxing-Full-Waning-Symbol-multicolored.svg for a version using symbolic colors. See Image:Three-Crescents-Diane-Poitiers.svg for a different crescent symbol.

The crescents consist of a 120° arc inscribed within a 180° arc (i.e. what is left over when a Vesica piscis figure is inscribed within a circle). This shape is an approximation to the astronomically-correct crescent shown in blue in diagram Image:Gibbous-Crescent-half-ellipse-in-circle.svg (i.e. the average appearance of the illuminated area of the moon at the mid-point of the first third or the last third of a lunar month, measured from New Moon to New Moon), but is more aesthetic when used as a symbol. Of course, individual artistic renderings of the Triple Goddess symbol will very frequently not strictly follow these exact proportions, but the crescent shape shown here is more or less the "canonical" form.

For a version of the symbol based on moon photographs, see Image:Wiccan Triple Moon.png .

SVG version of image Image:Triple-Goddess-Waxing-Full-Waning-Symbol.png . Converted from the following PostScript code:

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This vector image was created with a text editor. Its source code might contain additional information or higher level semantics of the topic.

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