Local writer, astrologer and publisher Iris Detenhoff, discovered her ‘calling’ to publish the ever-popular Moontime Diary in a somewhat unusual way. Verandah Magazine has three copies of the 2016 Moontime Diary to give away – just write in the box below the story why you would like to win a copy to go in the draw.
“It was in February 2006 and a wisdom tooth was playing up big time,” she tells me, as we chat about this year’s diary. “It was very acute and painful and I was feeling lousy. I consulted my Moon Bible, a book written in German by Johanna Paungger and Thomas Poppe. My mother had given this book to me years ago because of my interest in Astrology and also because the publishers name is IRISIANA. I looked up tooth extractions and found out it was best to have an extraction in the waning phase and avoid waxing and full moon. So that’s what I did and there were no further complications.”
The book, her experience with her tooth, and her background in astrology which she’s studied since the birth of her son in 1991, gave her the idea to create a diary based on the phases of the moon. “At that time not much was known about this traditional knowledge, which originally comes from Bavaria and Austria,” she says, “but many people in our area were curious about it.
When I started playing around with a format I became quite obsessed, I hardly slept. I worked on an old second-hand laptop with a tiny screen that needed support so the screen could stand up. I worked in Word and tried to get astrological fonts into tables and then tried to convert it to a pdf…It was a huge learning curve!”
Iris grew grew up in the country in Bavaria and the Alps. She was an outdoors child, but always had an interest in art and sport. After school she studied nursing in Munich, before emigrating to Australia in 1987 with her then boyfriend. “We traveled for nine months throughout the country, got married, lived and worked in Melbourne for two years and then came up here in 1989,” she says. “Since then I’ve been living in the Northern Rivers Area, mostly in Mullumbimby. After my was born, I studied herbal medicine with Doug Whitlen in Lismore, Iris Diagnostic with QUINS, computer tafe courses – all the kinds of things I was interested in, but I wasn’t sure how to put them all together. A few years later I was by then a single mother, I did a teacher training at the Byron Steiner School and worked there as a relief teacher until 2004.”
When Iris hit on the idea of the diary she was working at Byron architectural firm and doing her astrology on the side. “I experimented getting my hair cut, cleaning my windows, having dentist appointments and with other activities all aligned to the moon phases and positions and I found it was really helpful,” she says, “I began to realize that there might be a market for like-minded people. The people who were interested were often Germans, Austrians and the Swiss. I guess people in the alpine areas have to be more on the ball in the extreme seasons to make sure they have enough energy to get through another cold winter. Farmers, forestry workers and builders all traditionally used the lunar cycles for their farming, animal husbandry, building and maintenance work – and many of them still do today.”
Iris Detenhoff, creator of the popular Moontime Diary.
The Moon Calendars Iris had always used personally were from Germany, but of course being from the northern hemisphere the times and seasons weren’t in tune with Australia. “Hence this Moontime Diary,” she says. “Here in the Northern Rivers area where many people are quite open and interested in different ways of doing things, the Moontime Diary instantly found an audience and over the years it has established a lovely bunch friends who swear by it.”
The diary has now been going for ten years, which is a phenomenon in itself when traditional publishing is doing it so hard, and has become one of the most loved moon diaries on the Australian market with sales of around 3000 – 3500 a year. It sells in approximately 140 New Age book and gift shops and health food stores throughout Australia, and many online sites including Iris’s own site: www.moontimediary.com.au
For Iris, the most exciting aspect of the process, is the cyclical nature of the project. “From December to April I collate and work on the upcoming diary. April proof reading and editing, May it goes to pre press, June press. That’s the time when I can take off overseas. Visiting friends and family and discovering a new city with my mum,” she says. “In July I come back and get ready for the delivery of the diaries, advertising and promotion. From September till December the diary is available for wholesale, retail and online. So my year really has this cycle and on one hand it’s comforting, because I know the cycle and on the other hand it never is monotonous or boring because it’s always different.”
As a one-woman business Iris is no slouch: “I’m on my toes all the time, learning about all aspects of writing, business, website, marketing,” she says. “In the past three years I’ve translated and published Dr. Erwin Thoma’s bestseller A Future with Natural Wood, into English and it is now available on Amazon https://amzn.to/1McGVp7 Dr. Thoma reveals a wealth of knowledge regarding trees, forests, wood and the moon – and I’ve spoken about these things at quite a few conferences I was thrilled to meet Erwin on one of my overseas trips. We’re good friends now and Moontime Diary has just published his first translation into English. I also hold talks about the Moon and how it all works and I’ve been invited by Architectural conferences, Philosophical and Astrological Societies, Radio (ABC, Bay FM, Radio Out There), Adult Education centres as well.” On top of all that, just in case the grass is trying to grow under her feet, she continues to do Astrological Consultations as well.
These days Iris lives by herself, outside Mullumbimby. “Well,” she says, “not quite by myself – I live with Monty, my Poodle cross. I love publishing the diary and I love being creative in my home – which I call my sandpit.
Over the past few years she has expanded the Moontime range considerably. “I do a Birthday Gift Calendar – which suggests gifts aligned to zodiac signs; Moontime Calendar charts which are now available as a downloadable product, Erwin’s book, and slowly I am adding other products which are aligned to the Sun, Moon and Stars.”
The Moontime Diary is RRP $ 34, contact Iris Detenhoff, PO Box 1200, Mullumbimby, NSW 2482, 02 6684 2770
The Moontime Diary is available in New Age book and gift shops and health food stores throughout Australia and on online
