The Many Faces of the Moon

 

photograph by Aneev Rao

What face comes to mind when you think of the Moon?

Is it a familiar face. Is it male or female. Is it easy to read. Is the expression upon it soft and glowing. Is it mysterious and veiled. Is it a mirror of your emotions, your dreams and desires.

“We want to get behind the beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that reflects to us our own desire for good. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a sorrowfully irritating mystery. We want to feed on it, but it is only an object we can look on; it appears to us from a certain distance.”

― Simone Weil

Last week I decided to watch the transiting Moon as it moved through and around my natal chart, and observe my emotions and feelings.

On October 5th, I published the first post of a series I wrote on relationships with narcissists. At that time the Moon was in Leo and had just begun to transit the 12th house of my natal chart.

The 12th house in astrology is a nebulous place. It is the natural home of the sign of Pisces, ruled by the planet Neptune. It is sometimes known as the ‘house of self-undoing’ – that’s one of the less negative things which has been stated about it. If you research the 12th house, you may come away from your research screaming in terror as though you’d visited a haunted house at midnight on Hallowe’en.

“Over the years, I’ve received more inquiries about the 12th than any other house. The ones who write are usually in distress. Sometimes they’re new to astrology and are panicked to learn they’ve got planets here: “I’ve heard the 12th is a terrible house. Am I doomed?” Other times, it’s people who know all about the 12th. In fact, they’ve got a long tale of 12th house woe and are hoping I can predict the precise moment its trials will end. Classical astrologers have called this house “the valley of miseries,” “the dark den of sorrow and horror,” the “portal of toil,” and the house of “Bad Spirit.””

– Dana Gerhardt via The 12th House on Astrodienst

I have my natal Moon, the ‘planet’ of emotions, nurturing, and inner nourishment, in the 12th house. So does Dana Gerhardt. Her natal Moon is in Virgo, like mine, and she has Virgo rising, like me, and you can hear it in her words (you can hear natal placements and aspects in the way people express themselves verbally, it’s fascinating. I learned to do that from reading the posts of The Oxford Astrologer). Hers has a square from Saturn, ouch, mine doesn’t – my Sun gets that honour.

“Twelfth house Moons often have mothers who are sick, narcissistic, or otherwise un-nurturing, reversing the mother-child dynamic so the child has to mother the mother. Twelfth house Moons learn to disguise their own vulnerability and pretend it isn’t there. They become masters of self-sufficiency. Often they’re particularly gifted at taking care of others. But repressing their neediness doesn’t make it disappear; it goes to their 12th house blind spot, where it lives as an emotionally hungry child. Trailing the competent nurturer, the little orphan cries out with an unconscious “Poor me!”—which everyone but the 12th house Moon person can hear.”

– Dana Gerhardt via The 12th House on Astrodienst

photograph by Tejal Patni for Splash Calendar 2011

This is an interesting interpretation of the 12th house – The Twelfth House: Your Own Worst Enemy – it includes a description of the influence of this house on each planet when it is located there natally. I chose to share this post because the author/astrologer, like Dana Gerhardt, has her natal Moon in the 12th, and I love reading interpretations by astrologers (and astrology enthusiasts) who have personal experience of a placement. If you read it, and read the Moon in 12th – I would never cheat on my partner, but I can understand why people do.

Astrologically my reluctance to cheat may have to do with my Moon being in Virgo, which may make me puritanical in my approach. It does give a certain practicality about nurturing – such as don’t do to others what you wouldn’t appreciate others doing to you, instead do for others what you would like them to do for you (but don’t expect them to do it for you because you’re doing it for them – that’s good intentions leading to hell). But, more to the point, it makes me very analytical about emotions, particularly the causes and consequences of emotional pain and suffering.

I prefer to keep things as simple as is humanly possible for myself. You can’t control others, especially when it comes to their emotions, their subconscious needs, impulses and compulsions. If they’re going to get complicated and cause chaos, then that’s what they’re going to do.

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

― Mary Shelley

An affair is an emotional and psychological fuck-fest for everyone involved, and for those who weren’t involved but got dragged into it by those who were involved. Been there, done that thanks to my parents (and perhaps also thanks to having my Moon in the 12th). My father was a serial adulterer, he had his reasons, one of them being that my mother was frigid. He wasn’t totally wrong about that, being the wife of a serial adulterer will make you increasingly frigid towards him.

The author/astrologer of the post mentions that the 12th house “is the House where any bad karmic debts owed will be collected. We all have them. Every single one of us. And this is the House where we will pay the piper.” In the post I published the day that the Moon was transiting my 12th, I mentioned karma, being kicked by yours and that of others, and I also spoke of the importance of knowing your enemy.

The 12th house is also associated with ‘hidden enemies’… sometimes the hidden enemy is you. If you don’t know yourself well, and/or if you’re afraid of yourself, what lies within, you can be used against yourself by others. Some people (especially covert narcissists) will use your compassion, empathy, and other abilities often associated with the Moon, to manipulate you, to get you to manipulate yourself, and you may end up behaving in ways which are anything but compassionate and empathetic – you’ve unknowingly slipped from the light side of the Moon to its dark side.

photograph by William Nsai

The following day I published the second post in that series. The Moon had moved into Virgo, was still transiting my 12th house, and would pass over my natal Moon.

In that post I spoke of my own experience of slipping into the dark side of the Moon.

I talked about my mother – the Moon in your natal chart is often associated with mother/mothering, the Great Mother, the archetype and ideal of mother, and the personal mother. Your natal Moon can reveal certain aspects of your relationship with your mother – in my case she was most definitely a ‘hidden enemy’ and a cause of my self-undoing.

My experience of her was very much in keeping with the negative side of Virgo – a chronic nag, hypercritical, bitter, bitchy, pedantic, demanding perfection but nothing and no one could reach her high standards, a control freak, a neat freak, a lecturer specialising in the awful truth about you, your faults, your flaws, obsessed with the appearance of things, of people, of herself, prudish, picky, with a martyr/saint complex.

My experience of her, my relationship with her, caused many difficulties in my relationship with myself, in my feelings about my gender – my mother hated being female and it often felt as though she was trying to crush the feminine out of me (she taught me at a very early age to never cry – crying was weak. She hated women who ‘used tears to manipulate men’. She was a female misogynist.

My experience of her, my relationship with her, and what I did to myself because of it – a typical 12th house Moon move of letting someone else’s strong, surging, overpowering and overwhelming emotions take over, flood into me, drowning my own emotions out, pushing them down, because my emotions didn’t matter, what I felt was a ‘nothing’, I didn’t have feelings – caused a pattern to be locked in and appear repeatedly in my relationships with other females.

The Sabian Symbol for my natal Moon in Virgo 12th house is – A Merry-Go-Round.

The Moon in your natal chart can also reveal aspects of your relationships with women (particularly if you’re female). My relationships with other females has often made me wonder if perhaps I was a male in the body of a female. I relate more easily to the way men deal with emotions and express themselves than to the way women deal with emotions and express themselves.

Like many men, I’ve found females too confusing, too all over the place with their emotions, too erratic, too dramatic, too contradictory, too complicated, too overwhelming, too overly-sensitive, too illogical in their thinking and feeling. I have, every now and then, adopted advice for males for dealing with females – if she’s upset, apologise. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you did anything wrong what matters is that she thinks you did. Don’t ask her what you did, she expects you to know what you did and won’t tell you – she may become even more upset with you because you don’t know what you did.

“Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story.”

― Daphne du Maurier

I find it easier to talk with men than I do to talk with women, mainly because I don’t have to be careful with what I say. I can be quite tactless, blunt, and therefore may appear to be insensitive. I am not actually insensitive – 12th house Moon’s often get written about as though we are mystical seers and feelers, psychic sponges, and it’s accurate. People often gasp and stretch their eyes when I share with them what I’ve picked up from them – How did you know that about me!?! I knew it because I listened to you, that’s how, and you were saying it with every atom in your being.

Men also tend to cut you more slack than women when you make a mistake, when you say or do something stupid (which happens with me a lot), when you upset them, when you bruise their ego, when you hurt them. When women cut you slack I have this suspicion that I am being given more rope with which to hang myself, after that I’ll be drawn and quartered.

I have that suspicion because it’s happened before, particularly with my mother – when she was being nice, patient and tolerant, a tick-ticking sound could be heard, and at some point she’d snap, she couldn’t take anymore of your impertinence, she’d had it up to here (her hand would show you that ‘here’ was way over her head) with you being yourself, enough of putting up with your nonsense.

I’m also a woman…

When I contemplate the movements for female equality, and all the stories connected with those, I often find myself focusing on the abuses committed by women against other women. How, in too many ways, women are the hidden and not so hidden enemies of other women, and therefore they are their own worst enemy when it comes to getting equality, and being freed from the sort of attitudes, behaviours, and judgments which keep females living in fear and silence.

“What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face? What woman’s terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny?”

― Audre Lorde

Reading about the Keira Knightley/Duchess Kate polemic made me sigh heavily because the media turned it into a catfight. The people (many of them women) in the comments of one article about it decided to use it as an excuse to rip Keira Knightley to pieces (apparently they’ve never liked Keira Knightley because she’s uppity). They weren’t any nicer about Duchess Kate (because she’s a royal = uppity), but at least they ‘defended’ her against a ‘villain’ who was ‘attacking’ her.

Did Keira Knightley really shame Duchess Kate, or was what she said taken out of context, misunderstood. To me it sounded like Keira Knightley was angry about a ‘something’ and not a ‘someone’, and used a ‘someone’ as an example of how that ‘something’ affected that ‘someone’ and expressed it so awkwardly and badly (which often happens when expression is fueled by passion and anger) that it was easy to misunderstand it and turn it into a polemic about one woman shaming another. I think and feel that Keira Knightley was with her words trying to misguidedly support and help Duchess Kate even though Duchess Kate didn’t and doesn’t need that kind of support and help, but perhaps Keira Knightley wanted and needed that kind of support and help when she was in a similar position to the one she highlighted awkwardly and badly.

Women often speak about themselves and their own story, and its emotional trials and tribulations, when speaking about other women. Sometimes women do this because they don’t feel able to speak about themselves other than through roundabout ways – maybe they’ve been taught by other women that women prefer it when women talk about other women and not about themselves. Women who talk openly and boldly about themselves around other women may get the side-eye… unless you’re telling the other women what a mess you are and how messed up your personal life is, and those other women can empathise with you, feel sympathetic, and show compassion.

Poor you, we feel for you, it’s tough being a woman. Now, step off centre stage – perhaps part of your problem is that you’re too open and bold, like a man, and let us tell you how much tougher we’ve had it than you at being women (this bit was inspired by reading the comments other women wrote about and at Keira Knightley).

It is tough being a woman living under the rule of a Patriarchy. The stories women will tell you about the abuses they’ve suffered are spine-chilling. Things were definitely much worse for women in the past than the present. Women speaking up and standing up together to be counted changed that. Things definitely need to keep changing.

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

― Margaret Atwood

This is a post about women listening to the stories of other women – ohborder: (Video!) On fleek – the title is a bit misleading about the content. It’s a deep and thoughtful post. This is the intro: “Came across this video on the internet, and it brought me to tears. There are so many things we lived with all our lives without questioning, “is that right?”, “is that acceptable?”, “is that fair?”. Or maybe I was just too busy following the “rules” to keep myself as safe as I possibly can.“

Would a Matriarchy be better than a Patriarchy for women.

The Sisterhood tears itself apart from the inside out, with shaming, bitching, shading, and unnecessary competitiveness – who cares which mommy is a better mommy, what matters is that all mommies teach their little girls to respect themselves, and their little boys to respect themselves by not disrespecting little girls. Mothers have a huge influence on the attitude males have towards females. If a little boy’s mommy hates other mommies (read women), and treats other females disrespectfully…

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

Arundhati Roy

I also mentioned in the post I wrote that day a negative muse who started me off on my journey into blogging about narcissists… it has been a healing experience which has allowed me to know myself, the shadow and the light, in ways I didn’t before.

I own my emotional nature now more deeply and thoroughly. I feel more at peace with my 12th house Moon.

photograph by Linda Drake Photography

The day after that, October 7th, I published the last post in that series. The Moon crossed my ascendant (which my natal Moon conjuncts), moving into my 1st house. My 1st house also holds my natal Pluto (Rx) in Virgo. The 1st house is known as the house of the self.

In that post I spoke about my experience of being the child of narcissists, and discussed some of the oppression, suppression, and repression of self which comes with it. I talked about change (Pluto is associated with transformation – a change which often requires a descent into Hades) and shared my own ‘tips and tricks’ to deal with the challenges of relationships with narcissists. But the real challenge is your relationship with yourself, your self.

“I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or chisel to remind you of your me-ness as I discover you in myself.”

Audre Lorde

My natal chart’s shape is known as a ‘locomotive’.  It’s named after the wheel of an old locomotive train. In a locomotive chart one planet, known as a ‘cutting’ or ‘leading’ planet,  powers the chart, gets it going and keeps it moving. In my chart that’s the Moon.

I was revisiting this concept in astrology on October 8th, as the transiting Moon was moving from passing over my natal Pluto Rx to join up with my natal Uranus/Jupiter. Those two planets are tightly conjunct in Libra, with the cusp of the 2nd house sandwiched in between them (I use Placidus, at first because it’s the default on Astrodienst, but now because I tried all the other options and Placidus works best for me).

Uranus and Jupiter together are the crazy twins. Add the Moon in to the mix… and you’ll most likely find me babbling at high speed (Uranus/Jupiter trine natal Mercury + T-Moon = I feel the urge to excitedly share my inner ramblings), sounding like I’m high as a kite (just not one I’m flying because those seem to end up dragged through puddles O’ mud), and completely off my rocker (Uranus/Jupiter egged Mercury on to add rockets to my rocking chair so that we could all rock n’ roll n’ ride to the Moon).

I did write a post that day. It was rather weird for two reasons. One – I joined in with a blogging group activity and did it properly (as properly as I’m ever going to do anything). Two – I found myself being nostalgic. Neither of those may sound weird, but they are weird for me. It was fun! Fun-weird is the best!

photograph by Dean Alexander

 

On October 11th I wrote another post, this one about what gets you thinking – it was a very thinky-think piece (my natal Mercury was popping n’ buzzing). That day the Moon was passing over my natal Mars in Scorpio (which squares natal Mercury) in the 3rd house of communication.

On October 13th I wrote a post about sins and virtues, influences and inspirations. The Moon on that day was crossing the IC (the lowest point) of my chart in Sagittarius, briefly squaring my natal Moon (and natal Venus). It had passed through natal Neptune in Scorpio the day before… much of what I wrote came from what had been stirred up then.

When I decided to watch the transiting Moon and its effects on me, my emotions and feelings, I also decided to make note of the things which drew my attention, including the emotional movements of those around me.

It’s been very interesting thus far.

This post caught my attention – edifyingthespiritblog: Trolls: The Zoilist Movement of Social Media – it is also a deep and thoughtful post. The photographs contained in my post are directly inspired by the ones contained in her post.

The Moon right now (which is a not-now now, because I wrote most of this post yesterday, was going to publish it yesterday, but something didn’t feel quite right about it – I was rushing myself) is in transit through my 4th house, the house of home, family, and roots, connecting with transiting Saturn in Capricorn (transiting Saturn is still squaring natal Uranus/Jupiter… so the crazy twins have been tamer than usual, which has been a blessed relief for the most part, and I’m hoping to keep up some of the lessons Saturn has taught me about taming the crazy).

Today (which is now yesterday) I’m pausing to review what I’ve noticed thus far, and how this Moon-ing all began.

photograph by Nicole York

I feel it began awhile before I began to think about it.

One night, at the last full Moon, as I stared up at the glowing orb in the sky, which was surrounded by an iridescent halo of moisture, contemplating how the light it emitted, which lit up the dark of night, causing many stars to become invisible, was that of the Sun, reflecting upon it like a mirror.

That thought led me to consider conversations which humans sometimes have with the Moon, either in words, in feeling, or through festivals dedicated to it.

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

― Tahereh Mafi

We’re always asking the Moon to bless us, to give to us, to be our mirror and reflect our rays which we send out to it.

What about the Moon, what does the Moon want from us, from me?

With my natal Moon poised upon my Ascendant, I sometimes feel as though I am the Moon to the Sunlight of others.

I said this in reply to a comment the other day: “My moods are very obvious as I have Moon conjunct Ascendant = I wear my heart on my sleeve, but people often read my moods wrong because I have Moon conjunct Ascendant and the Moon is a mirror which reflects the light of the Sun (ego) of others.”

Today, the transiting Moon is passing through my 5th house, the house of creativity and creation, joining forces with transiting Pluto (can you guess which parts I wrote under the influence of Moon/Pluto) which is still attached to my natal Sun, albeit on the leaving and loosening its grip side of it.

This post means a lot to me, it is like all of my posts, a child O’ mine. I’m almost reluctant to share it, and that is why I will share it, it’s how I release myself from the shadows, doom and gloom of a 12th house Moon.