The Moon is all about the way we interface with the unknown, or the unconscious , or the astral plane, or the spirit world, or the realms of gods, daemons, and demons, or parallel universes. These are the strange and frightening worlds every hero must travel to complete his or her quest.
Since the keys of the major arcana trace the story arc of this journey, The Moon is a pivotal card, casting its eerie shadows over many of the other keys.
The card most obviously connected to The Moon is The High Priestess because the planet attributed to this card is the Moon. To make absolutely sure you get the connection most depictions of this card are loaded with lunar images.
The High Priestess is the guardian of the threshold between the known and the unknown, the conscious and the unconscious mind, the hero’s ordinary world and the world he must enter to complete his quest. She can either help or hinder him as he makes his transition. Her motives are inscrutable because she works from knowledge and understanding gained in the realms hidden by the veil draped between the two pillars—the place our hero is headed for but knows nothing about. Like these pillars, the two towers in The Moon key mark the boundary between the known and the unknown. Her sparkling blue robe shimmers into water and flows out of the card, becoming all the bodies of water pictured in the rest of the cards and gently reminding the reader about the ubiquitous influence of the realm of The Moon.
The Moon rules the sign of Cancer, the astrological sign that corresponds to The Chariot. The charioteer in the Rider Waite Smith deck has crescent moons on his shoulders to remind us of this fact. The fabulous Merkabah is often described as a chariot that will take a devotee to the higher realms, the territory of The Moon.
When we look at the numerology, the most obvious correspondence is with The Hermit; since 18, the number of The Moon, reduces to 9, the number of The Hermit. This is The Man who’s been there, done that, and gotten the T-shirt. He stands high on a mountaintop holding up his starry lantern to guide others. He can be a mentor to our hero or he can be our hero herself after she successfully returns from her journey.
When we divide 18 by 3, the number of the Empress, or the fertile, earthy counterpoint to the High Priestess, we get 6, the number of The Lovers. Aside from the obvious fact that the moon is always associated with lovers and romance, there is yet another connection. Most depictions of this card show a man, a woman, and an angel or higher being. This is symbolic shorthand that beautifully describes the way to the higher self or the divine. The man (consciousness) has eyes only for the woman (the physical world). But the woman (who is actually the unconscious) looks to the divine. To journey to the realm of The Moon, the conscious mind must be intimately connected with the unconscious mind.
The next multiple of 6 is 12, the number of The Hanged Man. This is the card of the mystic who voluntarily sacrifices everything to gain enlightenment by traveling to the realm of The Moon .
The Moon, whose number is 9 comes just before The Sun, 10 (19 reduced). “The Perfect Ten” is the number of completion and highest excellence. To become whole and integrated, to become the best person we can be, we must become the hero who masters the strange and dangerous byways of The Moon and returns to tell the story.
2 thoughts on “Moonshine and the Major Arcana”
Tales, unlike stories, never lie. You see, a tale is an account of things in their due order, often divulged secretly, or as gossip. Would you like to hear one? –Lord AutumnUncle Ebb was so good at telling his tales of the Moon Realm that sometimes it sounded like he’d been there himself.As children, Lily and Jasper listened raptly to his bedtime tales of a place where nine moons swirled around one another, each inhabited by strange and wondrous beings: magical lunamancers; undersea merfolk; wise birds; winged dragons; and Lily’s favorite, the heroic, leonine Rinn.There was only one rule: don’t tell a soul.But now, years later, Uncle Ebb is missing. Lily has learned the secret behind the tales, and soon Jasper will too. But there’s one big problem. You see, something terrible has happened in the Moon Realm. . . .
And what happens in the Moon Realm directly affects what happens in the physical realm.