Moon positivity

The Moon is often seen as a card of illusions, deception, fantasies and dreams where nothing is real. The associations are largely negative, implying fear, nightmares, eerieness, and journeys into the unknown: the walk into the dark forest, or towards the spooky house at the end of the street. The light from the Moon creates more shadows than it illuminates.

However many people find the actual moon inspiring, and the face on the moon sometimes brings to mind the friendly Man in the Moon from Mother Goose. Some people think or work better at night, during the quieter, cooler hours. Cards that reinforce this might be 4 of Swords and 4 of Cups, that encourage quiet reflection, and the Star, being serene, untroubled, appreciating something beautiful.

But have you ever drawn the Moon in a single-card reading and had it stand for positive feelings, rather than foreboding illusions?

Remember that your'e entering a land of illusion....

Aeric said:

But have you ever drawn the Moon in a single-card reading and had it stand for positive feelings, rather than foreboding illusions?

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Certainly. The Moon can stand for creativity and romance and a night of "illusion" that is fun, as at a circus. It can indicate increased psychic powers and spot on intuition as well.

The main warning of the Moon, however, isn't that you're going to get jumped by bandits in the dark. It's that your emotions and intuition are going to be highly sensitive, and you're going to be easier to "trick." Which means that you have to be on your guard not to let the creativity and illusion and, yes, romance be seen as reality rather than enjoyed as fantasy.

So the Moon card isn't about negatives so much as it's about a state of mind/emotions that can be negative if you aren't careful. Rather like remembering that "it's only a movie." If you remain aware of the fact that you're entering into a land of illusion and fantasy, it can be very positive. If not, then it will lead you to lunacy.

What about the Moon standing for objective reality? That's usually the domain of the Sun card on revelations and clarity, but can the Moon represent truth instead of illusion?

So much of it seems wrapped in the idea of "falsehood" that I see it as more a card of deception and lies than something to enjoy, however entertaining like a circus or film. What about a softly glowing light in the darkness, a night light or lamp, rather than the total unrelenting blaze of the Sun or the flickering Star? Could it be the guiding light on peripheral vision, the sign on the path out of illusion?

In Tarotbear's book his interpretation of the Moon really interested me. He talks about how the moon has always had a negative connotation in history and the negative imagery that things are not as they are and the sort of fear elements, lunatics, people going crazy, etc.

A modern interpretation might be more about dreams and imagination and a lot about cycles. I never thought of the Moon and cycles before and think about that now. I try to give it a more balanced chance these days. There is also a positive creative and psychic elements to it as well.

We have to have cards that cover all aspects of life, life is so much more than rainbows and butterflies. . The way we see things are sometimes shaded,or our emotions color how we see things. This is not positive or negative, it is life the ying and yang keeping balance. It is not falsehood persay, it is about not being able to see through the fog, like when someone is in love, all they can see are the good things about a person, when the fog of love lifts they will tell you the person has changed, but in reality they didnt change at all, they just could not see it.

It's funny you ask that, Aeric, because I do see the Moon as objective reality, though different than the reality represented by the Sun. I don't think the Moon really represents anything false (I think of the seven of cups in that respect), I think the Moon represents the objective world within.

So you know how the Priestess is this card about your own internal landscape of symbols, dreams, beliefs, ideals, and myths, where we all make up stories to make sense of everything and characterize everything we encounter? I think the Moon is the other side of that, the things we encounter within ourselves that are mysterious, strange, and confusing. Things that are *not us*. The weird instincts and urges enshrined from our human minds and bodies and our evolutionary past: the part of us that seeks revenge, the part of us that seeks war, the part of us that wants entrapment, that looks for danger, that rejects abstract thought, that disbelieves in the existence of others, that seeks to survive, that seeks to die.

I think that human beings put just as much effort into making sense of these (internal) elements of objective reality as we do into figuring out the outer world and why it is the way it is. Our minds and bodies, after all, are just as mysterious as just as unavoidable an experience as the world around us.

As a card that represents objective inner reality, I find that the Moon often indicates a source of inspiration just as often as it indicates confusion. It's as true as what happens in the external world, and can relate to dreams, to mental and physical health, to visionary experiences and the outer limits of human mental ingenuity.

I think many of the positive lunar aspects are evident in the Priestess card (ruled by the Moon), here the two pillars fulfil a function of polarity with the Priestess sitting between them. In the actual Moon card ( ruled by Pisces), the pillars CAN be a fluctuation ... one is either 'in' one pillar or the other ( a bit like the Pisces problem of one fish pulling the Piscean one way and the other fish pulling the opposite - as a Pisces once explained it to me) and one can not be sure at times what is the Moon and what is its reflection in the 'water'.

The Moon represents the inner landscape of awareness, that part of the consciousness that is in polarity with the Sun ... without the link to the Sun through Mercury the consciousness is 'at the mercy of' the lower part of the inner planet triangle in the psyche; Mars and Venus, and these 'drives', without Mercury regulating this 'underworld' and linking with the Sun can certainly lead one towards illusion and madness.

When I do readings about psychic awareness, and the Moon shows up, it is the best card I can hope for. I see it as very positive. It means that the person is developing at an alarming speed and is sensitive to everything.

If I get the Moon for "feelings" in a relationship, um, not so much a positive card. The person is scared of things that do not really exist.

It's positive for me when timing an event -- it means by the next full moon.

When I ask, "What kind of job will X have?" If the Moon comes up (sometimes with 7 of Swords), it means a night job.

The Moon is also a very feminine card, in more ways than one. There are of course a woman's cycles of fecundity, of fertility, of the greatest "magical power" humans have, which is to make something from nothing. All that comes from within, it is unseen and hidden. Humans are among the only species in which the female ovulation is hidden. In ages past this was seen as meaning all women are deceitful, today I take it, in connection with the Moon, that the true landscapes of our being, our essence, reside inside, where no one can see them.

The Silmarillion tells of the creation of the Sun and the Moon. The Moon was made first, created from the light of Telperion the Elder Tree, and was the first to contest the absolute darkness of Morgoth. While the Moon is reflected light, it still shines a light without which we would be completely blind. Care must be taken, but our inner stirrings that wake most often in our dreams (another aspect of the Moon) are vital to us, and allow for flights of fancy, imagination, ingenuity and genius. The Elves revered it above the Sun.

I'll have more tomorrow, but yes, the Moon is a beautiful card taken in the right context. I feel it is often as unfairly maligned as the Devil.

What Waite has to say....

Aeric said:

Could it be the guiding light on peripheral vision, the sign on the path out of illusion?

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Funny you should ask that. Here is what Waite had to say about the Moon:

"...the moon is increasing on what is called the side of mercy, to the right of the observer...The card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit..."

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So, in spite of what the little white book says about this being a card of deception (and that little white book is NOT the end-all and be-all when it comes to interpreting this card), even Waite (who had a downer view of things) has a positive spin on the Moon. The moon is "waxing" (increasing) on the side of "mercy" (meaning kind and generous feelings). It represents a "Life of imagination." Hm. That doesn't sound to bad, does it?

Here is more from Waite:

"The intellectual light...illuminates our animal nature, types of which are represented below--the dog, the wolf and that which comes up out of the deeps...It [our animal nature] strives to attain manifestation, symbolized by crawling from the abyss of water to the land, but as a rule it sinks back whence it came. The face of the mind directs a calm gaze upon the unrest below; the dew of thought falls; the message is: Peace, be still; and it may be that there shall come a calm upon the animal nature...."

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In other words, the light of the Moon (the face) can indicate the "mind" there in the dark, the thing that keeps the night, and all its fears and shadows and beasts from taking over. Our animal nature tries to take form in the dark, but the light of the Moon keeps it succeeding. It offers us a illumination, a guiding light so that we may walk that path between the beasts. Putting it another way, if not for the light of the Moon, we'd be giving into animal natures rather than being romantic.

I think that's pretty positive, don't you?