The Moon : unconscious, receptivity and daily life
- Sign attached, Domicile : Cancer
- Attached house : 4th House
- Exaltation : Taurus
- Detriment : Capricorn
- Fall : Scorpio
- Element : Water (cold and wet)
- Polarity : Feminine Yin
- Harmonic or complementary planets (excluding Aspects) :
Sun – Saturn - Cycle duration : about 28 days
- Symbolizing aspect : Conjunction
- Corresponding life age : 0 to 12 years old
- Physiology : Digestion
- The Moon spends 2.5 days per sign and travels at about 12 degrees a day.
- The Moon and the Sun never retrograde.
See Planetary Rulerships.
The Moon in Astronomy
As the Earth’s only natural satellite, the gravitational influence of the Moon is visible on the ocean tide and even on land. Its size is very large for a satellite and compared to the size of Earth.
Its apparent size is equivalent to that of the Sun, it always shows us the same face, that’s why we speak of the Moon’s “hidden face”…
The Moon is cold, its core has no magmatic and volcanic activity.
Its surface has been abundantly bombarded, its composition gives it this pale white aspect which reflects the Sunlight but as softened through a filter.
We perceive the soli-lunar cycle course clearly by the increasing and decreasing phases (quarters and crescents), as well as the solar and lunar eclipses.
Its creation would be due to a giant collision of the Earth with a celestial object, that is why it is called at the same time the Earth’s daughter, sister, or cousin…
The Lunar Nodes are the result of its orbit crossing with that of the Earth.
The Moon, astrological planet
Anima’s main attribute, the moon represents the woman, the mother, it symbolizes fertility, fecundity, receptivity, inspiration, intuitiveness, emotions; it refers to and takes care of organic biological forms… It is versatility, but adaptability, compromise, dialogue, including through symbolism or other forms of abstract communication.
The Moon is the night star, both the relay and the Sun’s complementarity. But it is changeable, hiding, growing and shrinking as it travels across the sky…
For these reasons, the moon has always been considered as mysterious, it’s our share of dream, unconscious, imaginary, sensitivity…
It animates our inner experience, it is the “self-image”, our psychism, sometimes to the point of revealing our anxiety, our fears and doubts.
The Moon makes the link from the unconscious to the conscious, it connects our deep, intimate and abstract subjective aspirations, coming from our imagination, to their actual concrete realizations in our daily objective experiences.
The Moon forms in reality a reaction mirror towards the solar forces, the Sun sends its tsunami of energetic vibrations, and the Moon receives them, welcomes them, feels them and reacts to them, it vibrates from this reception and transforms them in order to translate them into matter : the Moon is a principle of emotional reaction above all, it does not initiate things directly but responds to them under a “lower” vibratory mode.
The Moon is a planet of Individuation like Mercury and Venus, the inner planets in Earth’s orbit. It synthesizes the Mercury mind and the Venus feelings into a tangible and attainable emotional thought. It has a function of both mind adaptation to the environment and conservatism of the heredity and traditions of the clan, culture, country…
The soli-lunar cycle describes all the growth phenomena, it describes the earthly experience evolution, the Individuation maturation and then the ego overcoming in the personality achievement.
With the Moonphases evolve its possible interpretations, from extroversion in increasing Moon, to introversion in decreasing Moon.
The lunar cycle, because of its speed, gives rhythm to daily life, the Moon enriches us in our daily subjective experiences, it tells our behaviors in front of daily adversities and guides us at every moment.
A good dialogue between the Moon and the Sun is an imperative of human equilibrium. If the Sun is the Spirit, the Moon is more like the Soul, while the Ascendant represents the displayed Personality.
The Moon in signs indicates the consciousness type that will develop its type of sensitivity necessary for your experience throughout your life. It will determine the way you express yourself with your loved ones in the intimacy of daily life, part of your intimate behavior, it represents the zodiac sign that we generally manage to express spontaneously and easily.
Your Moon in houses in your Birth chart indicates your refuge, the security that you are looking for, by extension the home where you find yourself, a domain of fragility and sensitivity, where you exercise your intuition best, where your unconscious is most receptive, at the risk of some versatility…
By extension, in the chart it’s also the native’s childhood type, the maternal love and the attachment to the mother, and/or older sister…
In Aspect and transits (see Moon in transit), the Moon directly impacts the ego, the daily life and the current well being, the Moon coloring the native’s expectations, punctuating the beginning and the completion of the projects according to the Houses and its revolutions (all the Lunation, New Moon, Full Moon, etc).
The analysis of the Lunar Return (based on the same model as the Solar Return) also allows us to directly follow the daily life, over 28 days : the important development of a business, an intimate or professional relationship, day by day, we can determine an atmosphere, dates.
The Moon needs a structuring of the other planets, because otherwise, it can slip towards its face of hyperemotivity, moody and anxious.
The Moon and the Sun are important to determine health, vitality, individuality…
The Moon, by its location in the astrological solar system, naturally links the functions of the individual planets (Sun, Mercury, Venus) to the collective planets (Mars to some extent, and especially Jupiter then Saturn) by making a kind of “direct relay”.
The Moon by allying with the other Planets brings them a downside, at least the lunar influence is subordinated to them.
In the woman’s birth chart, the Moon is very important, it informs about her femininity, her condition as a woman in general, as well as her relationship to motherhood.
In the man’s birth chart, the Moon indicates not only his potential sensitivity, but also the type of woman he is attracted to, his feminine ideal, his solar complementarity, the wife who will be able to satisfy him through marriage in particular.
Depending on whether the Moon is strong or weak in the chart will therefore impact differently in male and female charts.
See also in addition the Lunations (Lunar Seasons), Lunar Nodes and Black Moon.
Lunar personality traits
The Moon is the female archetype by excellence (the Yin). One finds in the natives’ character marked by the Moon these elements :
They are intuitive and receptive, imaginative, poet, but not very flexible…
In love they are romantic, sentimental, but very shy.
Dreamy and moody, nostalgic or melancholic at times, their mood swings are frequent, they are said capricious or sulky, indecisive, unpredictable… Their temperament cyclothymic makes them alternate phases of exaltation and depression.
Deeply linked to the principle of maternity (mother and/or wife), they have a great attachment to home, their emotionality finds there serenity and harmony that they know how to create. With their relatives they can be talkative but remain secret and reserved on the bottom of things.
Negative Moon : psychic hypersensitivity, passivity, placidity, laziness, influenceable, rigidity, indecisive, slow, distrustful, pessimistic, backward-looking, extreme traditionalism…
Character traits found in Cancer (its Domicile).
The Moon also symbolizes water, the crowd in the sense of undifferentiated “human tide”… these elements often return in the native’s dreams.
The short lunar cycles are very important in the rhythm of the first months of life (with the cycle of Mars in the first years).
In the circle of life, the Moon represents the age of childhood, from birth to puberty (appearance of sexual characteristics), the periods when the child absorbs like a sponge the new experiences refining his process of Individuation (opposition of the “I” to the Others).