The Moon In Astrology
Welcome to the second blog in my series on the elements of astrology! Today we are diving into the Moon. If you prefer a video experience, please head over to my youtube for the video version of this blog!
Much like the Sun, the Moon is also not a planet; it is a satellite, but again we treat it as a planetary body in astrology as we are observing the correlation of the planetary bodies’ movements from our viewpoint. The 20th century brought a big focus on Sun sign astrology, but traditionally, the moon was given quite a lot of importance with many varied roles. In ancient times, before modern technology and electricity, the Sun and the Moon were considered the two royal luminaries that brought light, one by day and one by night. Before the age where we could get lost in our cell phones, we had a deeper appreciation for this light, where it came from and how to live with it. Humans have always looked to create and interpret meaning. The Sun giving light in the day was experienced as an outward, clearly visible shine. The Moon, however, comes out at night, while we sleep, retreat into our inner world of memories and dreams, and is interpreted as operating on a hidden level, the tether between astral and physical. The moon shines light on the subconscious, provides light in our darkness. It deals with the emotional realm and the mood of our dreams.
The moon is the only planet we have actual scientific evidence of having an effect on us. The moon controls the ebb and flow of the tides and the ocean and all water on the planet. Animals respond to the phases of the moon, and most hospital workers will tell you the Full Moon is often a notable night. We know the female human body cycles with the moon with the word “menstrual” coming from a root word for “month,” and the word “month” coming from the root “moon.” While the Sun controls the seasons, the moon controls the days and months.
The moon waxes and wanes, changes frequently, moves swiftly, changing signs every two-and-a-half days, and thus is treated as fickle and somewhat unstable, associated with fluctuation at times with good or bad fortune. The moon has four main phases each month, and each year it completes a lunation twelve times which may tie in with why we have twelve signs of the zodiac. But because it is the fastest planet from our perspective, moving around the entire zodiac in about 28 days, and the closest body to us, the moon in ancient astrology was said to collect the “effluences” of the other planets and stars and dispense them to us on Earth.
I find it necessary to discuss the Sun and Moon together because in ancient times the two luminaries looked about the same size in the sky from our vantage point and were considered King and Queen of the sky and of light, Father and Mother, masculine and feminine, day and night. The Moon is a much more personal planet as it is the closest body in our solar system to us, and it changes signs every two and a half days making a full lunation in a month, while the Sun changes signs every month, making a full cycle in a year, its sign at any given moment being a little bit less unique.
The Sun often is associated with mind, intellect, spirit, light, while the moon is associated with the body, the expression of spirit, the pulling down of the mind, the emoting of it. The Sun burns with heat and intense light, the yang principle, the parent or father archetype, while the Moon is soft and gentle and receptive, reflecting light, the yin principle, cold and moist, the child archetype. We can see the Sun as the light or the soul, and the moon as the body holding that soul, shaping it, navigating it and expressing it. The body needs the light for life. Without the Sun, the Moon is dead, and without the Moon, we have no physical embodiment of the Sun.
We can see this play out a bit through the doctrine of sect: the ancient distinction between day and night charts. During the daytime, the Sun luminary is in charge, and at night, the Moon is in charge. Those who have the Sun in the top part of their chart have daytime charts, and those with the Sun in the bottom half of their charts have nighttime charts. Those with nocturnal charts may respond to the moon in a different way, may have stronger emotional and physical responses, generally speaking. The Moon’s light is what is illuminating a bit more in a night chart, so the native of that chart might have a more lunar reaction or response to what is prominent in their life.
DIGNITIES
As mentioned in my previous blog on the Sun, each planetary body has a sign it rules or is at home in. The Moon rules or is in domicile the sign of Cancer. Cancer is a water sign, associated with home, nurturing, maternal experiences. It is the sign of the Crab, which can live on land or in the sea but is always dependent on the tides. Crabs have hard shells for protecting their sense of home and family, and pincers that grab and hold tightly just as the moon protects and values home and security and gathers and holds memories, feelings, and dreams. Cancer is a cardinal (initiator) sign and water sign (emotions and flow). Cancer is a place where it is easy to emote, feel, express. It is easy for the moon to gather, protect, remember and dream here.
The moon is in detriment in the sign opposite its domicile, Capricorn. Capricorn is a sign of structure, ambition, limitations, and exclusion. The symbol for Capricorn is the mountain goat or the sea-goat who mythologically evolved into the goat we know today. Mountain goats can climb anything and the sea-goat was known for diving into the deepest seas. Capricorn is somewhat the opposite energy of the moon’s natural inclinations. The moon nurtures and emotes, Capricorn has ambition sometimes to the dismissal of feelings. Capricorn, being ruled by Saturn, creates limitations and structures around the moon’s natural need to express and receive. The moon gathers, and Capricorn excludes. A positive of this position would be a proactive nature to life problems. Moon in Capricorn might not fall into emotional overwhelm, but rather take action to solve a problem externally.
The Moon is exalted in Taurus, a fixed (immovable) earth (material and stability) sign of the bull associated with steady determination, slow action, pleasure, security, and calm. The moon seeks security so Taurus is a lovely place for it. While it may not be at its most easeful emotional expression, it is safe, at ease, and secure here. This could imply steadiness to the reactive and responsive experience. It also may imply some strength or willful response. The Moon is known for pulling down celestial energies, so it makes sense for it’s strength to be exalted in the earthy sign of Taurus.
The Moon is in fall or depression in the sign opposite Taurus, Scorpio, the sign of the scorpion that also has a shell and pincers, but lacks the attachment to family and rather lives alone, in dark places, greedy to the point of even turning on its own kind, its own family, and even its own young. The “falling” dignity means the planet in question needs support and is lacking ease and strength. Scorpio is the sign of power, secrets, life and death, transformation, and desire. Not the most comfortable place for an emotional and security-oriented planetary body. There is more work needed here for inner security and trusting intuition while there might be an ease with having deep insight into people. Scorpio is a fixed (immovable) sign and a water sign (emotions and flow).
SIGNIFICATIONS
Significations of the Moon encompass the physical life, daily life, what we eat and nourish ourselves with, the maternal, the emotional or emoting experience, as the ebb and flow of our moods, instinctual reactions, domestic matters, security, home, fluctuating natures, the feminine, babyhood, one’s relationship with nature, that which senses, intuition, how we cope with emotional ups and downs. Archetypal astrology associates the moon with the underlying psychological character, parts hidden to one’s conscious ego, how one feels about one’s self before one thinks about one’s self. The moon shows us how we need, respond, care, relate, receive, adapt, and depend. It is the part of the self that has not always been consciously examined, experiences from very early in life before even our long term conscious memories started forming, and perspectives we learned from our parents in early childhood. It speaks to our dependence on the mother, the family, the nation, our need for others and for community.
Often the moon is associated with the mother archetype or the mother of the native. The 28 day moon cycle creates a baby through the female body’s 28 day menstrual cycle. These moon waters birth the baby from the waters of the womb into the nurturing arms of its mother. So the moon’s influence is actually quite relevant even before birth. Like the moon tethering celestial influences to the physical expression of them, our mother tethers us to the physical, literally with the umbilical cord, and then when that is cut, through her nurturing and feeding from her breasts. The mother does the very job the moon does in each of us individually. Collecting and gathering all of us and forming us into the physical.
While the Sun brings the vision of life, the Moon grounds it into the daily actions and physical world, the incarnation of the spirit and mind. The moon is the dark matter that reflects the light of the fiery sun. While the Sun exists, without the moon, we would have no ability to structure what we do with the Sun’s energy and influence, no way to harness it into our bodies and emote it into relationship with others. The moon represents the darkness where light is birthed and then reflected. It moves the astral into form. Like the mother birthing a baby, like the waters of many ancient mythologies birthing life.
The moon shows how we receive emotions, nurture, nourishment, our environment, nature, how we take in life happenings. The moon collects human and physical experiences, and where it’s placed in the chart and its condition will let us know how it goes about doing that. When the moon is in relationship with another point or planet in the chart or by transit, it collects that planets energy and brings it into physical form. So paying close attention to the Moon’s aspects is an important part of chart delineation. Which is why noticing the moon’s “void,” when it’s making no aspects, called a “void-of-course,” is also important. In ancient astrology, this was a rarer occurrence than in modern astrology’s interpretations because of the difference in orbs between the two traditions. If the moon is in a void-of-course, then it is not manifesting any other planet’s spirit and intention which has possible implications of a lack of attachment in particular areas of life, dependent on the chart. We also have the idea of the wandering mind, the lunatic (with “luna” being a latin word for the Moon), whose emotional and reactionary mind is somewhat unstable and/or constantly changing correlating to the fast and ever changeable nature of the moon’s path. Oftentimes when we think of mind and thought, we refer to the planet Mercury, but the Moon is the gathering mind of memory. Memory being an impression that you receive and hold. Mercury may communicate memory or express it, but the Moon stores it.
MOON PHASES
You may be familiar with lunation phases, where we track the waxing and waning of the moon. Ancient peoples noticed the different shapes of the moons light over the course of the month, and then began to notice the phases in human experience that correlated with the moon’s phases. The phases of the moon speak to the changing nature of the relationship between the Sun and Moon as the Moon circles its way around the Earth and both around the Sun. Astrologers often include the moon’s phase into their delineation of charts and transits. Some peoples divide the moons phases into three, some into four, some into eight, and some observe a different phase each day of the 28 day moon cycle.
New Moon
A new moon is when the Moon conjuncts the Sun, meaning it joins the Sun in the Sky and we have a dark moon. This phase is considered one of new beginnings, a seed emerging, new possibilities. It is a great time for starting new projects and setting new intentions.
Waxing
Waxing is when the moon begins to separate from the Sun and gets brighter and brighter, signified as a time of growth, building, creating, struggling and accomplishing. Oftentimes this phase is separated into three separate phases called Crescent, First-Quarter, and Gibbous.
Full Moon
The full moon is two weeks after the New Moon, when the Moon and the Sun are in opposition in the sky and we have the brightest moon. This signifies a time of full clarity, understanding of what has been built, gratitude, high energy, and desire to share with others.
Waning
Waning is when the moon moves back towards the sun and decreases in brightness until it conjoins the Sun again for another New Moon. This is a time of bearing fruit and deconstructing what was built so as to plant a new seed for a new cycle. Often separated into Disseminating, Last-Quarter, and Balsamic Moon phases.
It is important to discuss the moon’s nodes at this point, as the nodes are an important topic especially to modern astrology. The nodes of the moon are not tangible objects but rather mathematical points calculating where the moon’s orbit intercepts the ecliptic, the Sun’s apparent path. The nodes are always opposite each other, the North Node being the forward direction and the South Node being what has been traversed in the past. The significations are much the same, with the North Node signifying where one is headed, the seed of a person’s potential, the possibilities for the soul’s mission, and the South Node being where a person has come from, what is easy and known already for them, a safety net to fall back on or habits perhaps needing to be challenged. When the New Moon happens in conjunction with one of the Nodes, we will have a solar eclipse when the moon passes in front of the Sun from our view, whereas when we have a Full Moon near one of the Nodes, we have a lunar eclipse where the Earth is placed directly in-between the Sun and the Moon, dimming the moon’s light and sometimes turning it a red/orange color. Eclipses have always been seen as very powerful endings and beginnings of cycles.
During a reading, we can take a look at how all of these aspects of your particular Moon placement are influencing your chart. It is a deep and beautifully adventurous journey diving into the Moon, and I look forward to every chance I get to do it. I hope this overview has been helpful. If you have any questions or requests, please email me at saramariepersons@gmail.com or contact me through my contact page.
Influences for my currently education are Chris Brennan, Demetria George, Chani Nicholas, Dan Rudhyar, and Richard Tarnas.
Sara Marie