Moon Musing

Everyone, even the most skeptical, seems to have their own Moon tales. Fishermen fish and farmers reap and sow according to the Moon’s sign and phase. First responders, from Police and Fire to emergency room personnel, all relate stories of how things get crazy when the Moon shines brightly in the night sky.  While the believers and skeptics all know their Sun sign, many are totally unaware of what their Moon sign is. While the Sun provides the vital, essential energy, the Moon supplies the primal survival instinct.

The Moon presides over the inner realm, the unconscious, instinctive actions and reactions.  The natal Moon points to how or what makes you feel secure. What you need to make you happy and how you express your feelings. The Moon tells of childhood experience, of being nurtured, or not. The sign and house position of the Natal Moon provides a vital piece to your personal puzzle. It is where you instinctively go and drop into like a worn, old, comfortable shoe. Natal Moon placement points to where you adapt, what you are open to. The very nature of the Moon is fluctuation so even the fixed sign Moons are open to change in the area where the Moon falls in the natal chart.

The Moon phase you were born under indicates personality type and how you act/react to the outside world. While you share the waxing and waning of the Moon with the rest of the world when this phase recurs monthly it is the beginning of your personal cycle. As an exercise in self knowledge note how you feel and react to events around you when you experience a natal phase return.

The Moon returns to the exact sign and degree of your Natal Moon every 27 ½ days. This is your Lunar Return. A horoscope erected for that moment in time reveals the temper of your times, the flavor of the month so to speak. This pinpoints the focus of your upcoming month.

Through the method of Secondary Progressions, where a year in the life of an individual corresponds to a day in the ephemeris, astrologers “Progress” the horoscope. This moves the planets along changing aspects and signs through the course of a lifetime. The Progressed Moon moves 12 degrees a year thus, over a two and a half year period it hits every point in a chart. And every two and half years it changes signs. The Progressed Moon is the thermometer that takes your emotional temperature. When the Progressed Moon forms an aspect to a natal planet or angle, a change, an event or attitude adjustment is on the horizon.

The Moon makes a complete circuit around the Zodiac in 27.33 days. This is called the sidereal cycle. From New Moon to New Moon is the Synodic cycle, a period of 29.53 days.  Whatever the cycle, the Moon activates every point in the horoscope on a monthly basis. Fast moving, the influence of the Moon is often fleeting. Just as it rules the tides, the Moon rules the ups and downs of daily life. Knowing where it is, what phase it is in and how it relates to your horoscope allows you to “catch the wave “.  Timing is everything so use the Moon to your advantage.