The Moon: Association with Pisces?

Richard

I promise not to ridicule you too much :D By all means, please explain; I'm totally interested and don't know enough to mock. However, as I am a novice when it comes to the Hebrew alphabet and its connection to tarot, you will need to take baby steps. :)

In the ordering of the Trumps, the Golden Dawn considered the Fool to be the 1st Trump, the Magician the 2nd, and so on to the last (22nd) Trump the World. In this order the Trumps are paired with the Hebrew alphabet taken in alphabetical order. Thus, the Fool is paired with the first letter Aleph, the Magician with the second, Beyt, and so on to the World with final letter Tav.

The Moon happens to be paired with Qoph, the 19th letter of the alphabet.

Correlating the Trumps with the Hebrew alphabet provides a connection between Tarot and Qabalah. The Hebrew alphabet is divided into three categories: the 3 Mother Letters (which are associated with the Elements Air, Water, and Fire), the 7 Double Letters (associated with the 7 classical Planets), and the 12 Simple Letters (for the 12 signs of the Zodiac). The 1st Simple Letter, Heh, is Aries. The 2nd, Vav, is Taurus. It continues thus through the Zodiac until we reach the 12th and final Simple letter, Qoph, which is Pisces. Thus we have the correlations Moon ~ Qoph ~ Pisces.

All this may seem quite complex and somewhat farfetched, but the system becomes more and more natural the more one works with it.

ETA. The Elemental, Planetary, and Zodiacal correlations of the alphabet are given in the Sefer Yetzirah, an early Kabbalistic document.
 

Richard

I don't know if this will help. but here is a chart showing the correlations of the Trumps with the Hebrew alphabet, and the Zodiac signs associated with the 12 Simple Letters.

ETA. Apologies to the Thelemites, for whom the Hebrew letter correlations of the Emperor and the Star would be incorrect, but let's pretend that this thread is in the Golden Dawn subforum.
 

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ravenest

Ah-hah! Well, that cleared it up the how/why quite nicely. Thank you so much for that link.

It doesn't quite solve my problem—which is to make the connection easier for beginners to see, understand, and feel comfortable about. :) It's all well and good explaining this as the "why" but I think the card still needs more of a connection to Pisces. However, all this discussion here really is helping with that.

You're quite right. But perhaps it would be of more use to show, as in Waite (kinda), what's going on under the moon than make the moon the central feature. This might clue readers that the card is more about the wild night-life under the moon, than the moon itself.

And those cards are simply GORGEOUS! Thank you so much for those examples. I do think they get the reader's mind off the Moon card being about the Moon rather than being about the dark-of-the-moon (unconscious) aspect of the card. And, thus, make it easier to explain the Pisces connection. They certainly do this more effectively than cards where all that is pictured is a big, bright, full moon. That "moon for AT" card is just stunning! I love the use of the phrenology head to indicate the "back of the head" meaning. Brilliant.


Wait !


When I was reading this a .... *bing* went off in my head ,

are people thinking the Moon card is about the Moon itself and the things that happen at night 'under the Moon' ... and if even not about the Moon , but about the dark of the Moon ?

If so I can easily understand the confusion , in that case, yes, the Moon card should be pared with the Moon planet.

But the way I see it it isnt like that, the Moon card is about a process in self or a stage in the 'journey'. Environmental descriptions are another way of describing this process in an outward reflection. My 'map' creates a 3 in 1 of the elemental trumps, which is a basis for the Sun card, the zodiac cards mark out its journey and the planetary cards indicate helpers and hindrances ( but that maybe 'too astrological' for some ? ) .

(Of course , all this may be far removed from any original intentions about what the cards Sun Moon Star were supposed to represent, but we can only postulate what those might have been. )
 

ravenest

The dark moon doesn't show up high on the night sky. It's close to the sun and appears on the day sky (where we don't see it). The most "nightly" moon is the full moon. Waning and waxing moon appear closer to the sun, too. Many depictions get it wrong and show a thin moon in the middle of the night.

Yes, agreed , following you ....

But half of the moon is always lit, and half in the dark.

Yep.

It just depends which half is turned towards us.


Nope .... lost you . Maybe its the wording ?

THe light and dark sides dont turn towards us . Its about the angular relationship between the three celestial bodies.


Whenever we see the moon, we see a celestial body half lit and half in the dark.

Must be the wording again ?
 

ravenest

I don't know if this will help. but here is a chart showing the correlations of the Trumps with the Hebrew alphabet, and the Zodiac signs associated with the 12 Simple Letters.

ETA. Apologies to the Thelemites, for whom the Hebrew letter correlations of the Emperor and the Star would be incorrect, but let's pretend that this thread is in the Golden Dawn subforum.

I think its pretty neat, when we look at the hand we have been dealt. Here is the thing though (and I am not sure people have thought this through , I mean people that say the Moon should be the Moon ) if we just make the Moon card relate to the the Moon planet what do we do with the HPs and Pisces ? Link them together ? Start shifting everything else ?

The change the GD made to the attribution seems a logical and reasonable one, I think any other changes need to be equally reasonable .


[ This thread is reminding me of a song, whose lyrics I cant find ; its from a ridiculous show; 'Shane Warne - The Musical' , his wife (portrayed as a sports star's espousal bimbo ) sings in it 'Is the Moon the Sun ? ' - some great lines, that I cant remember ... one is

" Is the Moon the Sun ... and it just looks dimmer because now its night time ? " ]
 

Thirteen

are people thinking the Moon card is about the Moon itself and the things that happen at night 'under the Moon'
Yep. And those things are all good. Like walking hand-in-hand, romantic dinners, a first kiss, a summer's evening under the moon, etc. The dark of the moon doesn't enter into it at all, because the only images they see are ones that glorify the full moon (mostly). If you look at a lot of decks, there's super pretty images of a full moon. So the Moon card = the moon (astrologically) in their mind. And if not that, then Cancer the crab which is ruled by the moon. Pisces makes no sense to them--and this leads to further issues because they can't make their positive feelings about the moon connect to certain negative definitions of it.

If they would look at Pisces, the interpretations would make more sense, but they can't wrap their heads around the fishes and the card which shows the Moon. The Moon is "awake at night" time to most, not "asleep in bed" time :)
if we just make the Moon card relate to the the Moon planet what do we do with the HPs and Pisces ?
Well, new readers don't consider that sort of thing. It's why you get new readers saying, "I identify with the Queen/Swords, and I'm a Virgo, so Queen/Swords must be Virgo." Um, well, what happens to one of the Pentacle courts which is now without a sign? Do you give it the air sign that should have gone to the Queen/Swords? ;)

Likewise here. And I don't think they have, necessarily, an issue with the HPS as Pisces because they don't look at her and see "moon"--they look at the Moon and see "moon." We readers who are a bit more into the why's, wherefore's and rational behind these assignments are more likely to feel that the HPS couldn't be anything other than the Moon. Or the Chariot other than Cancer. But new readers have this very strong disconnect in regards to certain cards and their associations.

If the Sun gets the sun, they think, why doesn't the Moon get the moon? I certainly can't blame them given the typical imagery in a lot of decks which certainly does put the moon front and center, as a kind of romantic, illuminating orb, rather than as symbol for "nighttime."
 

Thirteen

Doesn't the Scarab = Cancer?

'aspect of the journey' relates more to Pisces than the Moon does - from Babylon; two fish ( Pisces / beetle) push ashore
And it is sort of a back door to the Sun, the card assigned the letter meaning the front and central of the head (Resh) which is why the scarab is often shown, the journey through the dark of midnight.
Just wanted to get back to this for a moment. From what I recall (and this one site backs me up: http://www.thealchemicaljourney.co.uk/uncategorized/cancer-the-crab-the-scarab), the scarab rolling its ball of dung was the Egyptian version of Cancer not Pisces. Because, of course, the beetle is armored like the crab, and moves across the sands like the crab. It also has little claw-like appendages to hold onto its "ball," again, like the crab.

This Thoth-based site also supports Cancer as being Kephera (the scarab god): http://www.corax.com/tarot/index.html?zodiac-signs

Is there a difference in tarot that the beetle gets equated with Pisces instead? And if so, why? Because, ironically, if the beetle is part of the Moon card, then we're back to asking why it doesn't get Cancer the crab as it's astrological sign instead of Pisces.
 

Babalon Jones

I think it has to do with the myth of the scarab as Khepri rolling the sun, pushing it into and through the underworld each night to be reborn each morning. More "dark night" symbolism. You can see the beetle holding the sun disk on the Thoth Moon card.
 

Babalon Jones

Curious I pulled out 777. It lists Khephra under both the Chariot/Cancer and Moon/Pisces cards. For the Chariot it just says Khephra but for the Moon card it says Khephra as Scarab.
Then under "animals real and imaginary" for Cancer/Chariot it lists "crab, turtle, sphinx, whale" and under Pisces/Moon it lists "Beetle, Crayfish, Fish, Jackal, Dog, Dolphin". I tried to look in trusty old Rex E Bills rulership book for beetle for the astrological assignments there, but have not found it yet.
 

Babalon Jones

There is so much overlap between Pisces and Cancer symbolism that perhaps Cancer/Chariot is the full phase of the Moon and the mother aspect of the trinity and not the Empress which is already Venus. Cancer is a very maternal sign so it is a thought.

I think it is fitting that pinning down ethereal Pisces is like trying to hold mist...lunar, looney, psychic Pisces is as slippery as a fish!