The Moon

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"The major task of the twentieth century will be to explore the unconscious, to investigate the subsoil of the mind."

- Henri Bergson

The Moon - Waite Smith
The Moon - Thoth

Associations / Attributions

Hermetic Title
Ruler of Flux and Reflux, Child of the Sons of the Mighty
Number
Eighteen
Element
Water
Astrological
Pisces
Hebrew Letter
Qoph (Back of the head)
Sephirotic Path
Netzach (Victory) to Malkut (Kingdom)
Potential Uses
Facing a fear to become a source of strength

Card Meanings / Keywords

Golden Dawn

Dissatisfaction, voluntary change (as opposed to Death), error, deception.

Waite

Hidden enemies, deception, danger, darkness, terror, occult forces. Reversed: Instability, silence.

Crowley

Illusion, deception, bewilderment, madness, dreaminess, error, the brink of important change.

Personal

Facing a fear, the unconscious, intuition, addiction.

Synopsis

Astrologically, the Moon trump does not represent the moon in the sky (which is the High Priestess) but the otherworldly Pisces in both its intuitive and darker aspects. The Moon has a deep, polarizing nature: While its light shines to guide the traveler through dark and treacherous lands, the shadows it casts can be quite ominous. Fear of the dark is often not fear of the darkness itself, but what lies in wait for us in the darkness that we cannot see. From the Moon flows a low light suggesting what might be—engaging the imagination through fear—and can be much more frightening than a metaphoric total lack of sight. The Moon trump often hides the fantasies of our shadows and wields a potentially self-destructive black magic such as addiction or thoughts of suicide. If we try to either run from our monsters or give ourselves totally to the darkness we are likely to find ourselves lost to our souls, forever wandering foreboding landscapes in search of a haven we deny ourselves. On the positive, the Moon offers an opportunity for us to cross through this darkness and confront our demons, acknowledge and integrate them as a necessary aspect of ourselves, and perhaps even make our monsters our allies.

Poiesis

Stirring the depths
a harrowing howl slinks in the shadows
awaiting a feast of flesh and fantasy
Tears for the lost soul shall not be
when the demons of self-destruction
neither fight nor flee
Facing fear do not freeze
find the path through dark fright
and follow the light of the soul
to the land beyond day and night

What is my greatest fear? What thoughts, feelings, and desires lie in wait that I have cast into the shadows? Which must I confront and dispel in the open rather than hide away? Which may I tame, and which are allies in disguise?