March 9, 2010 - The Moon

I go through phases of closeness and distance, of feeling separate and alien, and feeling part and parcel of the world. I wax and wane just as the moon. I watch from above; I howl from below like wolf and dog. My question today is about love, but I think after The Moon shows up, it moves beyond the romantic realm to this deeper wound, this child-me that sometimes feels connected and sometimes doesn't.

Here's what Joan Bunning of learntarot.com writes about the Moon: "Most of the time we live in a tiny pocket of normality that we wrap around us like a security blanket. We turn our backs on the mysterious universe that waits outside. From time to time we may sneak a peak with our imagination, or venture out through fantasy or expanded awareness. We can be thrust out there unprepared through drugs, madness or intense experiences such as battle.

The Moon is the light of this realm - the world of shadow and night. Although this place is awesome, it does not have to be frightening. In the right circumstances, the Moon inspires and enchants. It holds out the promise that all you imagine can be yours. The Moon guides you to the unknown so you can allow the unusual into your life."

Those of us who are noctavigant (night wakers and wanderers) know this realm of the Moon, this place of dreams and mysteries, symbols and signs. It is a place of shadows, of soft, secret light, of the fantastic and the ordinary, the wild and civilized traveling together. It can foster fear although it doesn't have to. It can create such strong illusions we believe them as real, although that's our choice and not the dictate of the Moon. This card can signal lost direction and purpose, wandering aimlessly. My troubles with love involve all of these aspects of the Moon - illusions, inner demons, bewilderment. I often will make the other my direction, or sometimes love, and I lose myself. Sometimes it can take years for me to find myself again.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Moon is depicted by Emma Woodhouse staring into a basin of water in the dark of night, haunted by the shadows of her heart, her wild imaginations and darkest fears. The Moon is our depths, our mysteries, unfolding. We face our greatest fears, rational or not, and in so doing learn more about ourselves then we ever could have imagined. Fears are not reality, not always, and yet they are powerful things urging us to act recklessly, sometimes being our own worst enemies.

"The Moon is never a card of superficiality. When you receive the Moon your feelings run deep and true. They are likely to be complicated, complex, and occasionally overwhelming." p. 48

The Tarot never gives me direct answers. Sometimes it reframes, more often it reflects, asking me to do the work of figuring myself out and finding my own way. It asks me to tolerate ambiguity and the discomfort of becoming, something I'm more and more able to do. Perhaps this is the true gift of being noctavigant, a creature of the Moon, the stuff of dreams. We come to a place, if we're lucky, where dreams and "real" are both part and parcel of our waking and sleeping lives. We come to know our fears, to look them in the eye, and to keep on going. The wild and civilized in us find their balance and we can, perhaps, at last, find our way to our most authentic selves.