NOTES ON: THE MOON
(Guiding Shadows)
Artist’s Notes:
In this card, Diana’s Full figure and a shadow animal to guide us on the path. You look out at the waters and all manner of illusions can be seen half-cloaked in shadow. Yet still, if you trust your guide you will learn things from this night’s journey. The funny thing is that we can learn as much from the appearance that things take as we can from what they actually are, perhaps even more. After all, are they not cloaked in the guise of our own inner symbolism and language? If we do not understand the language of our unconscious, then how can we learn how to manipulate it? This key to inner knowledge may be the greatest gift of the Moon archetype.
About the Archetype:
At night, by the light of the Moon (particularly when it’s waning), we can see a lot less of our external surroundings than we can by daylight. Things appear shadowed and hazy and any light may seem blinding. Our imaginations have full play and we try to fill in the darkened spaces with a combination of intuition and imagination. What we see and how we interpret it can tell us a lot about ourselves if we are open to it. The Moon in this way illuminates our interior selves.
The Moon trump shows us our fears and dark desires. It can give us a deep understanding of our hidden longings or it can send us reeling into insanity, beset by fears and emotional demons that we have repressed and refused to face. When we find ourselves least able to cope with this psychic and emotional shitstorm, the best that we can do is endure, knowing that night inevitably gives way today.
When talking about the greater cycle of the Fool’s Journey or the Great Work, the Moon comes at a time when we have bravely made it through most of our shadow work, and what’s left is some of the really dark repressed stuff that we were not yet ready to face. Under the influence of the Moon it becomes revealed and with courage, will, and endurance we will survive.
Astrological Correspondent:
Pisces(♓︎)-Pisces is an inward-dwelling intuitive energy. It lives in its dreams and then brings them to the surface. Like an iceberg, three-quarters of what Pisces feels is hidden and it prefers it that way. Pisces is sensitive and compassionate and feels things deeply both for himself and others. This can sometimes lead to self-pity or an over-sympathetic approach.
Pisces would rather face happy dreams than unhappy reality. When it sees external life falling short of its dreams it tends to withdraw or may indulge in self-destructive behaviour. It looks for direction from other more self-directed energies. The Piscean energy can all too easily lose its identity as it takes on the characteristics of those it admires or who can get them through the stormy seas. It is self-sacrificing in the extreme and this can lead to loss of self as well. Pisces is ruled by Neptune and is mutable in its ways.
In a Reading:
When the Moon shows up in a reading it may indicate that the querent cannot see the way ahead clearly and needs to trust their intuition rather than logic to find their way. The card may mean that the querent is beset by fears and imagining the worst in everything and everyone. Everything that once seemed bright may seem dark now. This is what many refer to as the dark night of the soul. When one is going through this, the best advice may be to just endure it until it’s over. There is value in seeing what one’s fears are and daylight will come eventually. Sometimes one has to feel the feelings until they stop and then move forward.
The Moon may also be telling the querent that they need to trust their intuition even if they don’t feel that they can see things clearly. They need to accept what their perceptions are and move beyond them, as difficult as that may sound. When one has lost their way in the woods, it is not what they imagine that matters but what signposts they can find that will lead them out.
The card may also mean that the querent is dealing with emotional issues that they have been repressing.
The reversed or badly aspected Moon may be telling us that we need to learn how to better discern between our intuition and our imagination. Things may be seeming a bit brighter and they may be seeing things more as they are and less how they fear them to be. It may mean that they are struggling against integrating recent lessons about themselves into their life and regressing a bit. The Reversed Moon may indicate that the querent is caught up in a frenzy of day-to-day activity to avoid taking a good look at emotions and thoughts that they are repressing. The card may also mean that someone has their psychic channels activated but due to their own lack of clarity is unable to distinguish between what’s real and what’s an illusion.
–GAR
Fate’s Whisper:
Vicious echos assault our minds every moment we live. These can be traumas, fears, and many other things. These can manifest horrors that mean tearing us down from the inside where no one can help us. These forces were made to empower us by breaking away the parts we no longer need. This process, very rarely, can be pleasant but most of the time it will tear us down.
Many will only realize this year if not decades after the fact. The idea we shed our skin to grow into our greater selves is very important. It is this realization that we are that much stronger that empowers us up to unfathomable heights. Who are you to your shadow? Master or slave?
–NF
