La Lune (the Moon) - how may it be read?

The phenomena of the eclipse is described in Biblical Hebrew by the word Qadar [Qoph, daleth, resh] which means to blacken or darken, as in phrases such as "the sun and the moon shall be darkened". It also means 'mourn'.

A word for dogs, jackals, hyenas is 'Ay' which literally means 'howling' from a hebrew root meaning to cry out in grief, lamentation and despair. This is parallelled in one of the latin words for 'dog' queror which also means to bewail in lamentation.

The word ay is used in Isiaih 13:22 and 34:14 when prophesying the destruction of Babylon:

"Jackals will howl in their fortified towers and wild dogs in their palaces."

The words 'wild dogs' in this passage is the word tannim in Hebrew, which has also been translated as dragons, which in connection with the ecliptic symbolism of this card might suggest that the two dogs also reference the dragons head and tail, the lunar nodes and their relationship to eclipses in the 19 year metonic cycle.

The pool in which diogenes dwells, whom we imagine telling the moon [Alexander the two horned?] to "move aside, your blocking the sun", may in Latin possibly be a lacuna or a lacus:

Lacuna = a hole, empty space / pond, pool / deficiency, loss
Lacus = a hollow / lake, pool, pond, trough, tank, tub.

The idea of a hole would fit in with the mystical concept of the eclipse forming a hole in space, a gateway to the heavens through which the mystic can ascend (or the divine drawn down); on the other hand the crafish in a tank or tub fits perhaps the idea of diogenes in his barrel.

Kwaw

Moon and the Immaculate Conception imagery

"Gateway to the heaven between two towers" is one of the symbols attributed to the Immaculate Conception imagery. Of course the Moon, both crescent and full, too. Though without hard evidence, I'd like to see much parts of Star-Moon-Sun cards derived from the IC imagery. The pureness of Mary was prefigured in the Song of Song, and its poetical imagery gave the basis of later development.

Recently I purchased an early 16th century leaf of printed Book of Hours which shows a typical IC image. This I scanned and uploaded in my website for the comparison purpose. Many Japanese guests loved the image. I forgot to share it with the friends here. My apology!

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/actr01.htm

You can see 15 images, including Tower, Gateway to the heaven, Sun, Star, Moon, closed garden, walled city etc. I believe it'll surely be quite interesting to you all!

Not quite but definite associateions with life and death

firemaiden said:

I wondered if the Moon card, with its twin pillars marking a narrow passage way, and the creature emerging from the pond, has ever been read as as childbirth.

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Isis and Osiris (from my net notes of uncertain origin)


The birth of Osiris and connection with Moon

In the beginning, there was the mighty god Ra and his wife Nut. Nut was in love with the god Geb. When Ra found out about this union he was furious. In his rage, he forbid Nut to have children on any of the 360 days that currently made up the year. Nut was very sad.

She called on her friend, Thoth, to help her. He knew that Ra's curse must be fulfilled, but he had an idea. Thoth engaged the moon goddess, Silene, in a wager. At the time, Silene's light (the moon) rivaled the light of Ra (the sun). Thoth was victorious, he was rewarded with one seventh of Silene's light. This is why the moon now wanes each month. Thoth took this light and added five days to the calender, bringing the year from 360 days to 365.

This gave Nut 5 days on which she could have children, while at the same time obeying Ra's commandment. On the first of these days, Nut gave birth to Osiris. On the second day Horus was born, Seth on the third, Isis the fourth, and Nephthys on the fifth day. At the time of Osiris' birth, a loud voice was heard all over the world, saying, "The lord of all the Earth is born."

Osiris grew and became a mighty king. He went about the job of civilizing his people. He taught them agriculture and animal husbandry. He gave them a code of laws to live by and showed them the proper ways in which to worship the gods. Egypt became a mighty land under his kind and gentle rule. His subjects gladly worshiped the ground on which he walked. When Egypt was civilized, Osiris left to bring his teachings to other lands. While Osiris was away, he left his wife, Isis, in charge. She ruled the country in the same fashion. But Osiris had an enemy, his bitter and jealous brother, Seth. ……and the story goes on............

Death of Osiris and connection with Moon. Power of Isis

Plutarch connects the death-day of Osiris, the seventeenth of Hathor, with the seventeenth day of the Moon's revolution, when she begins to wane. The age of Osiris, twenty-eight years, suggests the comparison with the twenty-eight days of the Moon's revolution. The tree-trunk which is made into the shape of a crescent at the funeral of Osiris refers to the crescent moon when she wanes. The fourteen pieces into which Osiris was broken refer to the fourteen days in which the moon wanes.

The height of the Nile in flood at Elephantine is twenty-eight cubits, at Mendes and Xoïs low Nile is seven cubits, and at Memphis middle Nile is fourteen cubits; these figures are to be compared with the twenty-eight days of the Moon's revolution, the seven-day phase of the Moon, and the fourteen days' Moon, or full moon.

Apis was begotten by a ray of light from the Moon, and on the fourteenth day of the month Phamenoth 2 Osiris entered the Moon.

Osiris is the power of the Moon, Isis the productive faculty in it.

These plates are beautiful, roppo! Thank you for sharing them.

When Christianity took off as a religion in the Roman Empire, the Virgin Mary gradually replaced the old goddesses as a focus for adoration (this took some centuries). Some goddesses were simply abandoned (Venus ) but some were reappropriated - such as Diana, another Virgin. It's natural, then, that the Virgin Mary should have been associated - by inference - to Diana's symbol, the Moon, who is also supposed to be "Virgin". The two towers were also associated to Isis, another goddess closely linked to the Moon, and whose cult (in intention if not in form!) was not unlike that later reserved for the Virgin Mary.

Isn't it wonderful how this thread is throwing up so much art, poetry, ancient myths and strange correspondences! But the, it is the Moon...

And Fulgour - thank you for the Shakespeare, always a pleasure!

The Man in the Moon

If moon is woman then the Man-In-the-Moon takes on an obvious sexual connotation that was found in literature and plays:

Anon. Arden (IV.2.22-29):
FERRYMAN: Then for this once let it be . midsummer moon,
but yet my wife has another moon.
FRANKLIN: Another moon?
FERRYMAN: Aye, and it has influences and eclipses.
ARDEN: Why then, by this reckoning you sometimes play the man / in the moon.
FERRYMAN: Aye, but you had not best to meddle with that moon
lest I scratch you by the face with my bramble-bush.

Shakes Midsummer Nights Dream: (V.1.250-252)
MOON: All that I have to say, is,
to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man i' the moon;
this thornbush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

Munday Huntington (VIII.173-74)
FITZ: By this construction,
she should be the Moon, / And you would be the man within the Moon.

There are several different images of the man in the moon, would you say this one recalls our favourite lunatic, ill matto?

http://www.inconstantmoon.com/map_near_mans.htm

Kwaw

the sound of the moon

On this thread, I have read so many interesting thoughts on the visual image of the moon. What is the sound of the moon?

Are the dogs howling, barking, whimpering, singing?
The water on the pond-lake. Is it quiet or moving?
The towers -- are they creaking, settling?
The crayfish-lobster -- clacking their claws?

Pocono Platypus said:

On this thread, I have read so many interesting thoughts on the visual image of the moon. What is the sound of the moon?

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A deep male voice from the right tower sings - muffled by time or many doors - a long and yearning ballad , answered, from the left, by a savage comic song sung by a voice - female or fairy? that pipes like a flute. The lower one tower sings, the higher the other. The slower the one, the quicker the other. Disoriented, at the the highest note the dogs howl, at the lowest, they growl. Meanwhile, a crayfish rises to seek the moon's glow: the soft creeking of its shell mingles with the undulating laps of the lake, whose voice is heard in whisper in the breaths taken between each phrases of the tower songs.

The moon is silent. Its face seems to move sometimes, as though it wanted to tell a story. Only the crayfish notices and strains its whole receptive antennae to hear.

I've always found it interesting that the moon is masculine in germanic languages - Der Mond, but femine in romance languages - La Lune.

It must be a roman goddess and a norse God...

Another view

Walt Whitman - from Look Down Fair Moon said:

Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;
Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;
On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss’d wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.

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I think the Moon is silent. All is silent in this picture. The dogs are silent. In the most horrendous nightmares one can have the entities scream silently.

This thread commenced with the question How may we read La Lune? It’s been a fascinating discussion and I’ve been thinking about it on and off for days. The Moon is very important symbolically to me. Look at my screen name.

I think this La Lune is a ghastly card. It typifies all that is most horrible in man’s projections of fear and irresponsibility on to the Moon. I love this short poem by Whitman. He reverses the projection. He asks Moon to bathe the ugliness in sacred light. To me the Moon is absolutely beautiful. I have never felt afraid in her presence. Laugh at me if you like but I had the most poignant sense of mystery I’ve ever had one night when, at the age of 14, I looked up at the golden Moon from a quiet street in a little bush town. Moon literally stopped me in the street and compelled me to regard her. I have never forgotten that moment and I’ve been entranced by her since. I see her to be creator and reflector of beauty, not of darkness, horror, madness and uncertainty.

I don’t accept without question the negative associations around Moon. They come from a European culture dark with the smoke of burning witches, politically chauvinist Christianity and smouldering patriarchy in many other forms. I could expand on this but won’t now. Pardon the full blown language! The image itself is full blown so perhaps it's warranted.

As I looked at La Lune I the question came back time and again: Is La Lune really the reflection of ancient and predominantly male projections? Or were the Marseille designers being witty when they painted her face male? Were they simply saying Hey guys! This is you!…. Maybe the original artists were the 17th century version of social satirists stating a reality in an occluded form? This is possible closer to current interpretations of this image. It may be that when we walk through the portal of projections we discover La Papesse? Or is this merely the interpretation of 20th century angst ridden nomads of mysticism?

I am still not sure how I will read this card. There is a conflict in feeling something against the weight of other interpretations.

I thought it would be interesting to consider some other Moon myths and print a common Australian aboriginal one in the next thread. It is as far away from the Tarot de Marseille as you can get.

Moon myths

How The Moon Came To Be

One of the best known stories of Moon creation,
this tale comes from the Northern Territory

Japara lived in the Dreamtime and was an excellent hunter. He had a wife and a little son whom he loved dearly. One day, when Japara was out on the plains hunting, a man called Parukapoli visited Japara's wife. He was a lazy man who preferred telling stories to hunting. That day he told many stories to Japara's wife and told them so cleverly that she forgot everything else as she listened and laughed. She even forgot her baby son who crawled out to a nearby stream and toppled in to the water. Japara's wife heared the splash and ran to the water, pulling the boy out, but it was too late, the child had drowned.

For many hours she sat by the stream, holding the little dead body in her arms and sobbing as she waited for Japara to return home. When Japara at last arrived and heard the story he was at first very sad but then he became extremely angry with his wife, blaming her for the loss of his precious boy. He took up his hunting weapons and in a blaze of anger, killed his wife. Then he had a fierce fight with Parukapoli. They fought for a long time but at last Parukapoli was also killed.

Japara was left with many painful wounds from his fight and a great sadness for the death of his child. The rest of the tribe saw that Japara was badly wounded and distressed but they were very angry with him. They gathered around shouting "You should not have killed your wife. She loved your boy very much and did not mean for such a terrible accident to happen."

Despite his great distress, Japara slowly began to listen to his people and realised that was they said was true. He became very sorry for what he had done. He hurried to where he had left his poor dead wife and son but their bodies had disappeared. Immediately he understood that kind spirits had taken them away to finish their lives in some better place. He called to the spirits to forgive him for being so cruel and told them that he really loved his wife and wanted nothing more than to be with her and their little boy again.

The spirits heard his pleas and they knew he was telling the truth. They assured him that his wife and boy were safe with them in the sky world. They would allow Japara to leave the earth world too but as punishment for his cruel deeds he must search the lonely sky world until he found his family.


The story tellers say that the moon is the reflection of Japara's camp fire. The lines that are visible on the moon are the reminder of his scars. Some say the moon changes because Japara is forever changing camp as he moves across the dark sky world still searching for his family. Others believe that he has now found his wife and son and that they are exploring the mysterious sky world together.