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While the Sun is self-luminous, the Moon is a reflected light.
The Moon reflects the truth of what's going on with us (and what's going on with others) at a feeling and emotional level. How we're feeling reflects, in turn, how we instictively react to our environment, as well as our intuitive assessment of how we're doing, and whether we're achieving our goals and desires - great or small. When things are going well, we feel happy. We feel good about ourselves and about life. When things are not going well, we feel frustrated, angry, sad, anxious or apathetic, which in turn may affect our self-esteem and our outlook on life. In its own way, the Moon relates strongly to our sense of personal empowerment and well-being in the world, or the absence of same.
The instinctive intuition represented by the Moon is an act of making what would otherwise be unconscious or only subliminally-conscious, conscious. Moon mastery involves learning to deliberately dip down just beneath the surface of "ordinary" consciousness to see what's emerging at an energetic and feeling level, then naming it (the process of languaging is represented by Mercury, Messenger of the Gods). Once you've spotted the tip of the iceberg (a clue, a trigger), then you can trace the iceberg down deeper, and if you're really a Moon master, you can name the energetic bottom line in a situation that allows all of the energy to move, release, and flow freely, offering healing to all who
stand witness.
What we WANT for our Moon, symbolizing the receptive, feeling, emotional aspect of ourselves, is: unconditional love, acceptance, care, comfort, nurturing, encouragement, reassurance, belonging, empathy, communion.
We want acknowledgement for just being, to be able to have and feel our feelings, to be able to express our feelings, to have access to gut-level instinctive intuition. We want to feel safe and secure, to have support and help when needed, to be comfortable, to be able to take care of our various life-needs in our own way and timing. We want to have a sense of continuity over time, predictability, steadfastness, and to be able to
survive well -- something like what we would want in relation with a healthy family or a true friend!
Much of our reactions and responses to life circumstances are conditioned by early-life experiences with our families, especially with our mothers, who when things are natural and normal, do love us unconditionally. Beyond this early life conditioning, we have to learn to proactively create safe spaces and environments that nurture us. Conversely, we need to leave unsafe spaces, abuse, and non-nurturing environments. Stating and embracing what we DO want, and moving out of what we DON'T want are both necessary, two sidesto the coin of lunar personal empowerment.
Our CULTURE does not often acknowledge, much less validate or nurture, the lunar side of life. Indeed, as a whole, our culture is in severe denial of our feeling-emotional-instinctive-intuitive nature. Most social and economic games are currently set up so the game-makers win but everyone else is kept anxious and "in survival" or loss, and struggling with there arbitrarily not being enough good stuff to go around. These games are kept in place mostly by tacit agreement and nothing more. Change the agreements - change the reality!
Emotional DETOURS include shocks, trauma, upsets, losses, insecurity, invalidation, rejection, obsession, denial of feeling, no support, the bottom falling out from under us, a sense of unreality, poverty, collapse, or insanity, all of which can be large or small, singular or cumulative.
Detours can lead to poor self-image, self-doubt, depression, and not doing well in life, which now becomes a constant life crisis that engages a chronic fight-or-flight mechanism (showing Moon-Mars interrelation). As a person becomes very stressed by life circumstances and conditions, so the hormonal, nervous and immune systems suffer. Enter the new medical discipline "psychoneuroimmunology" that deals with systemic interrelationships, the metaphysical basis of which is how the spiritual being stands in relation to its body, other beings, its environment, and all Life.
Being in denial, repressing or suppressing feeling, does nothing to alter the mechanism of fight-or-flight, but just adds to the confusion when a person ends up somaticizing his life-stress. To somaticize stress means to drive it deeply into the body, often in such a way that it appears to have no relation to anything going on the life, so deeply is feel repressed. Somaticized stress is one way we abuse ourselves, having ignored our feelings, or not having created a way to resolve life issues, rather our solution may be to disappear or bury the pain and confusion - into the body. Do you think a body would make a good place to hide or stuff feelings you didn't know what else to do with? :-) That's all your life "stuff"
are, by the way - stuffed feelings.
My claim is that all life issues can be traced back to stuffed feelings, and all life detours are due to ignoring intuitive information that a person did in fact receive but ran roughshod over, and rationalized into the background. That's it in a nutshell - Moon mastery.
Women are even more sensitive to such stress, and women's bodies do not recover nearly as quickly as men's. Put a woman under frequent
or continuing stresses, and she'll have insufficient recovery time, so will not really recover, but will eventually develop mental and/or physical illness, based on the inability to achieve emotional peace, balance, and/or stability. A similar mechanism operates for men, but men's bodies don't continue to run stress hormones as long after the immediate stress as do women's.
Denying the sensitive but very real part of ourselves may appear to be successful for a time, but sooner or later you can only push a cork down in water for so long before it pops up from the side. This is what happens in addictions of all kinds. People want to mood-alter because they perceive that situations in life are not going well for them in some important way, so they feel bad. As bad feelings rise up from within, felt as anxiety or frustration, the person attempts to suppress bad feeling with substances, pushing down the energy (with food or drink), sucking down the energy (smoking), or otherwise leaving their body or mood-altering (drugs, shopping, chanting, running, TV, reading, internet, sleeping) to
avoid pain.
Even bad or unpleasant feelings that stir and rise up from within are symptomatic of LIFE trying to happen within the person, instinctive life energy wanting to move up and out into the world. There are so many denials, prohibitions and inhibitions on the energy and its expression that it's no wonder that modern man is literally hard-pressed to know what do with his anxiety, feelings about his survival, and emotional well-being that are tied to how well he's achieving his desires and goals, and how the future looks to him.
DEPRESSION is depressing feelings coming up from core, pushing them down.
Ask yourself, "What was/is too painful to confront [look at and be with]?"
There's a saying that I use in therapeutic Work-on-self, "Where there's feeling, Life itself is right behind."
Recall that the Moon is a reflected light, reflecting the light of the Sun that symbolizes spirit or soul operating in its myriad ways. Much of what resolves emotional issues in therapy is going a few steps backward, retracing emotion through feeling (however vague and even meaningless this may sound at first), then back to Life itself, moving through one's core in the lower torso of the energy/etheric body, and through the lower personal chakras (including the spleen that distributes life force energy), then back to universal Life, and a celebration of being back in the flow of
Life and spirit moving through you. Symbolically speaking, the Sun in its glory reigns supreme, radiant and effulgent once more, and the Moon is at peace, feeling safe and secure, attuned to what's going on and true need in the moment.
TRUE SELF-ESTEEM comes from two sources:
1) knowing yourself as spirit (SUN) and
2) being able to have, feel, and express your feelings (MOON).
True self-esteem does not come from looks, personality, relationships, money, accomplishments, fame or other recognition; these things are all nice and pleasant, but they're contingent on factors outside yourself for validation, transient, don't last, may not always be there, so are poor sources on which to build a foundation for healthy self-esteem. Knowing yourself as spirit and being able to have, feel and express your feelings - sources of both spiritual and practical information - are abilities always available to you, and self-generating once set in motion.
Therapy can reconnect the person with feeling. Good therapy takes the notion of feeling beyond that of idiosyncratic whim (notice our programming that may say, "if I just do what I feel like, I'll be irresponsible"). Spiritually and energeticly oriented therapy releases stuck life-force energy, allowing life energy to flow freely and graciously through the "system" again. In good therapy, the person learns to reclaim his feelings, and comes to recognize the importance of feeling and emotion as touchstones and pointers to what's actually going on in life circumstances. A person seeking such healing will many times need to go outside of mainstream therapy to find it, because such healing is multidisciplinary, does
not lend itself to scientific proof, may be based in religious beliefs or spiritual lineages or martial arts or bodywork, and may depend on personal experience to validate its effectiveness.
Such healing is one place where the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity breaks down; actually I believe this "distinction" to be largely a false dichotomy that will prove itself as such during the course of effective therapy. The purpose of feelings (Moon) is to help you survive better by being able to name what's really going on, sometimes contradicting all appearances and official claims, yet the content of said feelings
will be acknowledged as valid by nearly all individuals in goodwill who stand witness in a situation. Indeed, witnesses may visibly breathe an enormous sigh of relief and comfort that someone finally named what was going on at a deeper feeling level, calling such a statement "profound," "so true," "the missing piece," or "exactly what was needed."
To attend well to feeling in the course of everyday life circumstances opens up possibilities in intuitive and empathic leadership, and will provide much practical nurturing in families, groups, corporations, even nations. This is partly what we mean when we say a person has "good instincts," resulting in good judgment, and balanced by a rich background of experience.
The Moon denotes a vulnerability, literally an ability to be wounded. Some vulnerability is undesirable, as it connotes a weakness or lack of healthy emotional development, where a person may be passive and easily victimized. INvulnerability can denote healthy boundaries and emotional resilience, but it can also mean in other cases a brittle defendedness, an armoring that makes for social isolation, alienation, and superficial personal relationships. Other vulnerability such as seen after successful therapy IS desirable and healthy. Such vulnerability is
strength, the sign of a healthy Moon, with healthy self-esteem, ability to have and feel one's feelings, have healthy boundaries, the ability to enter deeply into relationship (even repeatedly) knowing that one may be hurt or wounded, but willing to risk being hurt at times in pursuit of a full experience of life itself and in the emotional resiliency of knowing that one will recover, regardless of what happens.
Astrology can help a person explore their own feeling and emotional nature, allow them to receive help when needed, and identify others who will likely support their emotional well-being and, conversely, will not abuse them or damage their sense of well-being.
INTERPRETING THE MOON
The Moon symbolizes your receptive nature, your feelings, emotions, your instinctive reaction to life circumstances. The Moon shows how
you tend to act when nurtured, as well as how you tend to act when upset, threatened, or otherwise stressed.
WHERE IS THE MOON BY SIGN, BY HOUSE, AND BY ASPECT?
The Moon by SIGN shows how you want to be supported, what you need to feel emotionally secure. The Moon also indicates parenting
styles, how the person relates to children, and fertility.
The Moon by HOUSE shows where you're likely to receive support, attention and help in life.
As in all astrological factors, a spectrum of manifestation is possible - from the most exalted and masterful where the person is an exemplar - to the most perverse and degraded where the finest potential of the archetype becomes reversed through ignorance or abuse.
Here are a few keynotes of the MOON SIGNS. This should NOT be considered an exhaustive list.
MOON IN ARIES
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: freedom, ability to take
initiative, innovate, create, express his will, feel alive.
DETOURS: frustration, anger (can be loud and explosive)
when he can't have his own way (feels his ideas are best),
may try to force his own way or ideas on others - then
deny he's doing this.
MOON IN TAURUS
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: steadfastness, loyalty,
comfortable clothes and furnishings, routine, values,
good music (many Taurus Moon people are musicians).
DETOURS: frustration, anger (can be passive-aggressive),
stubborn, resistant, digs in his heels and refuses to
understand the other's point of view.
MOON IN GEMINI
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: safe place to communicate
and ask questions, needs access to information and variety,
ways to satisfy his curiosity.
DETOUR: dissipates energy through overtalking, scatters
forces, may hesitate to go to the depths in relationship,
but keeps things light, surface, intellectually
interesting.
MOON IN CANCER
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: taking the time to
feel, validating feeling and the importance of feeling,
a deeply caring attitude, family harmony, sentimental
or meaningful objects in an orderly environment.
DETOUR: too much emphasis on feeling at the expense of
logic and practicality, overwhelmed by feeling to the
point of speechlessness, oversensitive or overinvolved in
family dyanmics due to lack of healthy boundaries,
sentimental, may manipulate others into giving him sympathy.
MOON IN LEO
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: needs lots of
wholesome attention, an outlet for creative self-expression,
to be bigger, more colorful and louder than life,
to be able to express overflowing affections freely.
DETOUR: creates life-dramas [soap operas], and gets unhealthy
attention because he doesn't know how to create healthy
attention, doesn't give self permission to get a lot of
healthy attention for self, and for favorite projects and
causes.
MOON IN VIRGO
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: education, validation for
keen discernment, devoted teacher-student relationship,
teachers he can admire, cleanliness and order, health
and vitality.
DETOUR: not owning how he contributes to stressful
situations (instead of just criticizing or blaming others),
overanalyzes feelings and emotions, goes up into his "head"
rather than feel his feelings at core (lower torso),
thinks he can "figure it all out" but ends up wasting time
squirrel-caging and rationalizing.
MOON IN LIBRA
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: peaceful and pleasant
relationships and environment, absence of conflict and
disagreement, harmony, mutual helpfulness, justice, fairness, beauty.
DETOUR: low confront level, ignores interpersonal
conflicts until too late, won't make waves, may be
dishonest in personal relations to avoid stirring up
conflict, or may not speak up about personal needs for
fear of conflict, fear of heated or loud conversation,
things getting [temporarily] "ugly."
MOON IN SCORPIO
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: safe spaces to experience and
talk about intense feeling and emotion, encouragement
to go to the depths of feeling, to see depth of feeling
as a source of wealth, to see power dynamics in
relationships, intense emotional and sexual intimacy.
DETOUR: not willing or able to express feeling,
inability to create safe spaces where he can express feeling,
holding it all in, doesn't tell others what's going on with him,
secretive, in withhold, so becomes alienated from others and
does not have the level of intense intimacy and
understanding he craves.
MOON IN SAGITTARIUS
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: sense of freedom and space,
adventure, freedom to tell the truth, ability to experiment,
be lively, be humorous, tell stories, ability to see the future.
A very resilient Moon sign.
DETOUR: no freedom, no time, no space, no adventure,
no truth, no energy, no future.
MOON IN CAPRICORN
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: respect and acceptance
for him as a person, his character, his accomplishments,
his contributions. Encouragement for his ambitions,
safe spaces to express his professional competence,
and to be appreciated for that competence. Cap Moons
are natural time-travelers.
DETOUR: cold, uncaring, selfish, superior attitude,
inferior feelings, haughty, condescending, aloof,
competitive attitude, one-upsmanship, others' invalidation
or ignoring his ideas, professional competence,
contributions, and accomplishments - especially by those he
respects, admires, loves and trusts.
MOON IN AQUARIUS
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: encouragement to pursue
multicultural, scientific, metaphysical, artistic, and
futuristic interests. Permission to be a unique
individual, even with unusual interests. Highly intuitive
and inventive. Needs space to go alone when under stress.
DETOUR: may not communicate with others when stressed
and needing to go alone, instead looks aloof, cuts others
off emotionally. Needs to stay in communication about
his life process - that he needs to be alone but has
not forgotten others and their curiosity to know what's
going on with him, and will come out when he is ready -
and try to keep them apprised.
MOON IN PISCES
NEEDED FOR EMOTIONAL SECURITY: time and space to dream,
person is naturally in "dreamtime" and travels parallel universes.
Imagination, stories, mythology, fine arts and/or literary
pursuits should be encouraged. Highly intuitive,
mystical, devotional, inspired. Needs buddies to
dream, kick back, and relax with.
DETOUR: needs to learn to create healthy boundaries;
may have escapist attitudes; may abuse substances such as
alcohol and drugs to achieve altered states and relaxation.
Here are some notes on THE MOON IN THE HOUSES. This should NOT be
considered an exhaustive list.
MOON IN 1st HOUSE: Gets support for being highly visible, with a
notable personality expression. Useful for marketing,
sales, PR, getting visibility for causes. A lot of
psychic attention on appearances, projection of
personality, being seen, self-expression.
MOON IN 2nd HOUSE: Gets support for making money, manifesting
resources, values clarification, and a lot of psychic
attention in these areas.
MOON IN 3rd HOUSE: Gets support for basic learning, communication,
writing, speaking, teaching, transportation vehicles.
A lot of psychic attention on these areas, plus on siblings
and neighbors. An instinctive-intuitive mind.
MOON IN 4th HOUSE: Gets support from family, manifests comfortable
places to live. Much psychic attention on the foundations
of life, roots, family, ancestry, home, early life emotional
patterns, emotional continuity and sustainability,
parents, domestic environments, domestic real estate, gardens,
spiritual connections and abilities in families.
Can be easily trained to tune in to the energetic bottom line
of situations.
MOON IN 5th HOUSE: Gets support for creativity, sports,
love, vacations, resort and recreational environments,
work with children and teens. Much psychic attention
focused in these areas.
MOON IN 6th HOUSE: Gets support for health, jobs, service to
others, and help from work staff. Much psychic attention
in these areas, and work situations are very impactful
on health and wellness. Study spirit-mind-emotions-body
relationship. Intuitive diagnostics. Finger on the pulse
of what's going on in teams and in the workplace.
MOON IN 7th HOUSE: Gets support from life partners (marriage and
business partners), and from the general public, possibly
leading to fame. Socially popular. May do counseling or
consulting. Reads people and their character intuitively.
Much psychic attention on others and what makes them tick.
Mood, health and wealth can be easily influenced by how
relationships are perceived to be going.
MOON IN 8th HOUSE: Gets support for interdimensional journeys,
inheritances, lineages, business ventures, investing.
Emotionally drawn into other dimensions, may have a
fascination with metaphysics, death, or have special
intuitive information about life-and-death processes,
regeneration. Significant dreams. May be a natural
medium, midwife, or hospice voluneer.
MOON IN THE 9th HOUSE: Gets support for higher education, exploring ideas, beliefs, religions, foreign travel,
publishing, marketing. High minded, idealistic,
psychic attention on the big picture, prophecy.
MOON IN 10th HOUSE: Gets support from and for management, administration,
fame, high visibility in the community. Psychic attention
on authority, being accepted by authority, pleasing
authority and the public, being in authority. Can get attention
for causes and projects. Reputation for being a caring and
sensitive person. If the Moon is also in a water sign,
the person may be so full of feeling, and this drives the
life so that feeling and emotion may be difficult to handle
without therapy guidance. May work with agriculture and
gardens, children, birthing, domestic properties,
public relations, psychotherapy, intuition, food, hotels.
MOON IN 11th HOUSE: Gets support from friends, groups of like-minded
people, networking, is highly visible and popular in groups.
This popularity and attention can be used to further
idealistic and humanitarian purposes. Much psychic
attention on social and group dynamics. Tends to
accept others and, thereby, facilitate others' comfort level.
MOON IN 12th HOUSE: Gets support by spending large amounts of time
in solitude and contemplation, has vast inner and intuitive
resources. Much psychic attention on the invisible undercurrents
of life, causes, metaphysics, consciousness studies, spirituality,
psychology, past lives, karmic patterns. A keen intuitive
observer of life. With all his ability to detach and observe,
needs to create ways to also engage with the world comfortably.
ASPECTS to the MOON (mathematical relationships of the other planets to the Moon) and RULER OF THE MOON yield additional information about identity, purpose and vitality. A Moon that's well-aspected tends toward an ease of self-awareness, awareness of feelings, senstivity toward the environment, empathic intuition, sense of emotional well being and comfort in the world, ease in talking about feelings and expressing emotion gracefully. A Moon that's stressed by aspect tends toward boundary problems, lack of confidence, doubt of own intuition, repression of feeling and therefore ability to speak about feeling at all or gracefully, and/or a history or tolerance of abuse. However, challenges may be just what's needed to gain a thorough understanding of how life works in an area, and to learn how to tackle and overcome obstacles, whereas if things are too easy, we may take them for granted and not learn much.
DWADS are a secondary Sign influence underlying the exact degree and minute of your Moon. Dwads can give outstanding supplemental
information, especially for those working on deeper and more psychological levels, and can help explain why someone is not the typical Taurus Moon, for example. It's very useful to know the dwad under your Moon, as this deeper information tends to add confidence in the unfoldment of your emotional nature, yields additional security in your way of being in the world, and generally tends to give "permission" to feel and be MORE.
RELOCATION astrology shows where to go in the continental United States and in the rest of the world to place the Moon on the angles of your chart using astro-cartography. Another system called "local space mapping," which I have researched extensively for 10 years now, shows where to go in the world to gain support for your Moon - where to go to foster your instinctive-emotional experience, buy residential property (especially older, nostalgic, historical or fixer-upper properties), enhance fertility and favor involvement with children.
RELATIONSHIP COMPATIBILITY. "Synastry" analysis places the Moon of one person P1 into the chart of another person P2, showing what's
the psychic attraction in order to have emotional security and nurturing needs met, how comfortable you feel with the other, your receptiveness and empathy with the other, the potential for dis-comfort and feeling abused by the other, as P1 comes into P2's life. Then conversely, P2's Moon is placed in P1's chart.
Using another compatibility technique, the Composite Chart, the composite Moon represents the merger of two individuals' Moons, the third energy that's formed in their coming together, and its sign and house placement are an important focal point of psychic attention for the composite or relationship chart. The composite Moon is derived by mathematical calculation - the near midpoint of both people's Moons.
PROGRESSIONS are one way to bring the natal chart up to date in present time, and show long-term developmental trends. You never lose the qualities of your Moon Sign, but the Progressed Moon shows where your psychic attention is in present time, and what is "lit up" for experience in your chart now. It points toward the kind of experience you seek now on your soul's journey. Progressions are determined conceptually and mathematically, and do not correspond to physical location of the planets in present time. The Moon progresses through a sign every ~30 months. When the Progressed Moon changes sign, this event heralds a new sub-chapter in the person's life, a new developmental phase, and many new qualities and experiences arrive suddenly at this time. The month or two before the Progressed Sun changes sign is a time of completions from the previous ~30 months, a good time to complete projects but not begin anything big.
TRANSITS are another way to update the natal chart into present time. Transits are where the planets are now, and how they relate to your natal chart. The Moon transits around your entire chart in 28 days, and transits through each house in your chart in about 2 1/2 days per house. As the Moon transits around your natal chart, it "lights up" the houses of your chart in succession, highlighting windows of opportunity to cultivate emotional and feeling experience in that area of life. Much depends on what you do with these windows of opportunity, rather than depending on externals to determine your experience. Moon transits, showing where your psychic attention is now, are a great time to accomplish tasks or projects related to that house each month. Coordinate the Moon transiting the houses with Moon transiting the signs, since these seldom exactly correspond.
Moon transits through the signs show what kinds of things everyone's psychic attention is on for the next 2 1/2 days, so capitalize on that information when making plans or initiating projects.
HORARY ASTROLOGY is the chart of a particular question. The Moon is used extensively in Horary for several reasons. First, the Moon lights up the true nature of the matter in question by sign and/or house. By sign, the horary Moon can help in finding lost objects. The aspect the Moon made before the question is asked suggests what led into the question. The aspects the Moon makes before it leaves the sign show the likely progression of events in relation to the question, the final aspect shows something about the outcome. Horary astrology makes use of the VOID OF COURSE (VOC) Moon, which means that the Moon makes no more major aspects before it leaves the sign. Horary purists use only the Ptolemaic aspects (conjunction, sextile, square, trine and opposition). However some other horary astrologers include the quincunx (or inconjunct). VOC Moon is useful in everyday matters as well, and the common theory of VOC suggests to do just routine matters in a VOC Moon (reading, filing, cleanup), and that anything purchased during that time will not be fully used, anything important begun during that time (including
contracts or agreements) will not come to fruition and is likely to come to nothing or end early.
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE MOON
Poverty and Wealth
In an article for the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES on March 9, 1997, "It's Called Poor Health for a Reason," Richard Shweder sets forth the statistical relationship between a person having poor health and low social status or income. He says, "No one knows why people with
high social status are more healthy and less crazy." It appears to be something of a chicken-and-egg thing, that poor people get inferior health care because they can't afford to get the best health care, which in turn makes them less healthy and able to maintain the more advantageous work and business circumstances, so make less money.
I submit that the above is largely a Moon-type problem, in that the state of one's emotional well-being, and how others perceive your emotional well-being, determines - by mirroring and social status - how much support and reward you'll receive for your contributions and projection of personality in the world. If your work is rejected or ignored, if you're unemployed, under-employed, undervalued, unappreciated, laid off, business is slow, then you're going to feel a lot worse, which becomes a vicious cycle. Conversely, when things are going well and you're feeling good, your
mood is up, then things just seems to go better and better, because people enjoy being around a person whose mood level is up.
People know moods are contagious, and collective mood is reflected in the economy of recessions (small withhold, introversion, low energy movement, people reluctant to spend, future looks bad), depressions (large withhold, collapse, very low energy movement, people not willing to spend, future looks very bad), growth (normal movement of energy, normal spending, mood is boredom or status quo, future looks ok), or boom economy (no withhold, expansiveness, mood of enthusiasm or exhilaration, high energy movement, people willing to spend, even eager to spend, future looks very bright). So we have individual mood levels inside of larger collective mood levels.
Major transits to the natal Noon (slow moving planets transiting the natal Moon) can correlate to very challenging life conditions, which in turn may lower mood, health, and income. Those times in life, conditions related to them, and any negative conclusions drawn in those times need to be examined, lest they continue to operate at a subconscious level in the psyche and create a sub-optimum emotional, energetic, economic and health state in the individual. My rule of thumb: if you get into an emotionally challenging situation, make it a point to NOT draw any conclusions.
Just maintain a neutral attitude, be an observer of the energy, breathe slowly and deeply, relax, validate yourself as spirit, and don't draw any conclusions about yourself, other people, the subjects areas involved, and life in general during these times. Just wait it out and the lessons will become apparent at a later time.
Stories
Much of our lunar education comes from hearing stories - fables and real-life stories alike - and tracking the images, the sense and meaning of the story as we hear it, relating the themes of the story to the larger scheme of things, allowing our imagination to take us where it will in full knowing that we will arrive at an understanding of the story, during the telling of the story or at the end of the story. If anything is unresolved for us by the end of the story, if the story raised more questions than it answered, then we can "live in the question(s)" that remain, which is a lunar
act of "sitting with" and being-with, taking the story deep within us, reflecting on it and turning it over and over within us, until the truth or meaning of a situation emerges. A comfortable, safe space within us is just the laboratory context needed for such reflection, and allows all the dreamtime that's needed for truth and meaning to emerge. Such a reflection is a journey into another dimension of being, into dreamtime, and is as natural as breathing in and out.
Dreams
The Moon is seen by us at night, and night-dreams are a lunar manifestation to consciousness. Dreams show us our preoccupations, where our psychic attention is, and reveal the contents of our subconscious. Dreams mirror our subconscious. Taken to extreme, this mirroring process can get distorted to the point of looking like the mirrors in a fun-house, with accompanying disorientation, obsessions, sense of reeling and spinning, and psychosis (lunacy) - all of which is saying there are symbolicly some big Moon issues here, Moon needs not being met, anxiety or fear (which signals Moon needs not being met), or Moon needs abused or derailed. Night dreams (dreams while asleep) are a psychic readout, a dramatic, symbolic mirror of the subconscious.
Daydreams and fantasies are also lunar, and show our dreaming desire nature moving into times and places to explore possibilities and have experiences that are not yet present on the physical plane. The essence of any dream or desire is always valid, regardless of what form the dream takes. Separate the essence out of the form, and validate the essence. For example, separate the essence TO LOVE out the desire or
fantasy to love a particular person. Move the form particulars off to the side, and magnify the essence. Feel the essence of your desire, feel your heart's desire, breathe deeply and comfortably with it, and know that this is your soul's desire for experience. I maintain that essence is one way God lives in you, dreams through you.
There's a shamanic and magickal phenomenon called "dreamtime," that refers to the experience of being in a dream and outside of normal time, whether this is wakeful or sleep dreaming, or deliberate journeying into other dimensions or "many mansions" on search and recovery missions, to access or deliver information, or just tour this universe and parallel universes. We all move fluidly in and out of altered states of consciousness throughout the day and night and, via our lunar intuitive natures. We all participate in "dreamtime" in our own ways. Some will actually journey through psychosis and lunacy to retrieve very special kinds of information and arrive at a new level of health and stability on the other side
of the journey. Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
In psychotic disorientation and lunacy, a person is "out of his mind" and fully in his feelings - overwhelmed with feeling, which can be scary. The person may be destructive to himself and others in this state, but what he instinctively wants to destroy is an old way of living or circumstances that do not nurture and support him emotionally, do not support his feelings and intuitions, that may even deny or abuse his emotional needs, feelings and intuitions - which are the tip of the iceberg of Life itself. Psychosis is a spiritual emergency in preparation for a new level of spiritual
emergence, with all those feelings acting as pointers to the truth in some way - lunar truths that can no longer be ignored or made nothing of.
There is a religious another side to madness. In the PHAEDRUS, Plato called this altered state of consciousness "divine madness" that allowed a person who was spiritually "intoxicated" to prophecy. We have to be open to these experiences for them to happen, and that openness and receptivity is symbolized by the Moon.
"Food for the Moon"
The Gurdjieff-4th Way tradition of psycho-spiritual development has an expression "food for the Moon," meaning that there are uses of energy that are spiritually counterproductive, that distract us off our path, and tie up attention with dramas and temptations, obsessions and anxieties that go nowhere. While we're in these states, we go in circles in the worst possible way, squirrel-caging, running the same old mental circuits,
stuck, and the residual emotional energy we produce in these states is called "food for the Moon." We might as well gather the tendency up and give it to the Moon in the sky, which doesn't need it and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway. "Food for the Moon" means that our imagination and psychic attention has gone down a path of worldly consciousness that can never satisfy us, and we have failed to identify the essence within the form and extract it for our journey.
Time, Memory and Meaning
The Moon relates to memory. Memory has survival value, allowing us to bring forth the knowledge and wisdom from the past for use in the present and future. Memory is tied to feeling and re-cognition. You can remember something better if you have a feeling or emotion related to it. Those things for which you have no feeling, no sense of importance, can't see how it matters or fits into the large scheme of things, are much harder to remember. While there may or may not be any intrinsic meaning to life events, we can and do ascribe meaning to events, since they
are important to us in the creation of our own tapestries of life. Those facts, subjects, and events with strong feeling, emotion and meaning attached to them are most memorable - for better or worse!
To enhance memories, we can draw on feeling experiences, assess relative importances, attribute meaning, estimate how a subject or event relates to the bigger picture. When you have a good feeling, direct (by using a light intention) your energy body to entrench the feeling, remember this feeling and the information attached to the experience, so you can recall the feeling into your energy body when necessary, use it as a [re-]orientation point if you find yourself getting far afield. This will allow you to create more sense of stability, security, meaning, and more continuity over time, in what could otherwise be chaotic situations.
Part of emotional security and sense of well-being is to be able to have the freedom to be in past, present or future, and to be comfortable with the feelings associated with different events along that time track. That's what family traditions, favorite foods, rituals and celebrations are about: a history of significant events associated with love, triumph, and other good feelings, with a promise of there being more of the same in the
future - emotional touchstones of well-being shared among family members, meaningful treasures carried from one generation to the next.
In Conclusion
Let us always remember true and wholesome nurturing for self and others. Let us always remember how feelings are Life itself moving through us. Let us remember how our moods tell us something about how feel we're doing in achieving our goals and desires, and how this mood is instrumental and a carrier wave in terms of how we create our future.
REFERENCES
ARTICLES
"Depression, Stress May Sicken Women," AP report from Washington DC, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, Nov. 16, 1996, pg. 12A.
"It's Called Poor Health For A Reason," by Richard A. Shweder, NEW YORK TIMES, March 9, 1997, pg. E5.
BOOKS
Alice A. Bailey, GLAMOUR: A WORLD PROBLEM.
Jessica Bear, colllected works on Bach Flower Remedies.
John Bradshaw, HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU, and collected works.
Barbara Brennan, LIGHT EMERGING.
Deepak Chopra, THE PATH TO LOVE.
Ann Ree Colton, WATCH YOUR DREAMS, ETHICAL ESP, and collected works.
Dion Fortune, PSYCHIC SELF-DEFENSE and collected works.
Daniel Goleman, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
Vernon Howard, MYSTIC PATH TO COSMIC POWER; 50 WAYS TO SEE THRU PEOPLE.
Eileen Nauman, BACH FLOWER REMEDIES AND ASTROLOGICAL SIGNATURES; NATURAL ESSENCE MATERIA MEDICA; CRESTED PRICKLE POPPY PROVING; MEDICAL ASTROLOGY.
Plato, PHAEDRUS.
John Pierrakos, CORE ENERGETICS.
John Ratey & Catherine Johnson, SHADOW SYNDROMES.
Trevor Smith, HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF EMOTIONAL ILLNESS.
Keith Souter, HOMEOPATHY: HEART AND SOUL.
Jose Stevens, TRANSFORMING YOUR DRAGONS.
Nick Totton & Em Edmondson, REICHIAN GROWTH WORK.
Edward Whitmont, ALCHEMY OF HEALING and PSYCHE AND SUBSTANCE.
Special acknowledgements to:
Marsha Mossman, Donna Araman, Eileen Nauman DHM (UK), Ida E. Chandler, Dr. H. Arvis Talley, Pati Carlson.
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