The Moon (Tarot Triptych)
Name: The Moon
Number: XVIII
Astrology: Pisces
Qabalah: Qoph ק
Chris Gabriel June 15, 2024
The Moon is yellow and raining down its influence over the waters and creatures of the Earth. The sky is filled with its rays. Two dogs look up upon it, and within the water there is a shelled creature.
This card is the emblem of lunacy. It represents the maddening influence of the Moon, that makes dogs howl, transforms men into monsters, moves the tides and the creatures therein. This is the card of the unconscious.
In Marseilles, we find the “Man in the Moon” looking down morosely upon the earth. He is surrounded by a central halo of rays, and specks beyond that. On the earth, between two castles, two dogs are howling at it. Within the water, there is a lobster whose head and pincers are rising out of the depths.
In Rider, we see the same image, though here the Moon is seemingly disappointed. The towers are simpler, the emanating specks are distinctly in the form of the Hebrew letter Yod י, and the lobster is entirely out of the water.
In Thoth, we are given a similar form, but with major differences. The moon is faceless and fluidic, blood swirls within the water below. The towers remain, but the dogs have been elevated to forms of the Egyptian God Anubis holding wands and ankhs with his jackal form at his feet.. The shelled creature is no longer a lobster, but the scarab form of the God Ra, Keph-Ra, the dung beetle who rolls the Sun day by day.
The influence of the Moon in our lives is ubiquitous. We see it move the tides and we hear dogs howl at it. Our calendars are structured according to the lunar cycle, which also tracks to the menstrual cycle. We get tattoos of the Moon, we watch movies where werewolves are transformed by it. We expect strange things to occur on the night of a full moon, and they often do!
The watery unconscious is symbolized perfectly by the Moon, for under its zenith we dream night by night. The werewolf embodies our experience of this cycle well, when repressed bestial energy spills out and dominates our conscious self.
And the lobster, as Jung told us, is what we meet when we stare long enough into our own reflection and see what is beneath.
Marseilles and Rider show the influence of this dark Moon to hold what Edgar Allen Poe described as ‘illimitable dominion over all’. Thoth offers a significantly more hopeful image, the Sun is already moving through the sky to illuminate all that is dark.
When this card is pulled we are to consider these dark influences, the forces within us that may be brought out at random, and to hold it in our hearts that whether or not this dark night of the soul is but a night, a terrible week, or a cursed year, that the Sun is coming. And on the other hand, if we are engaged in acts that need this cover of darkness, that we can move stealthily therein.
