Sun and Moon Principles
I have always had a certain interest in this primal duality, those two basic orbs that are the same size when viewed from Earth, yet so different in their meanings and symbolism. For such a basic polarity, however, there still seems to be a great deal of controversy about what they should symbolise in our lives and within our psyches. I believe there are still many 'problems' within Astrology with the way these two planets are interpreted, the underlying assumptions made about what they represent and what this may mean for any individual receiving any reading based on these assumptions.
Astrology may be a map or an �algebra of life,� or a language, but interpreting this map often involves applying some kind of a philosophy or value-system and therefore, certain value judgements about what this algebra in relation to planetary symbolism is about. One of my main bones of contention with Astrology is that - along with Judith Bennett, who wrote her blended list of zodiac portraits for women - I believe that Sun-sign astrology is applied in far too rigid and zealous a manner. Judith Bennett wanted her readers to be able to 'break away from any kind of potentially harmful stereotype' and 'did not want any woman to be burdened by a negative image of herself.' I liked her for that.
She suggested that in addition to the moon and ascendant, the fact that we also have important progressions and transits all the time may mean that we may temporarily 'become' more like another 'sign' and that therefore Sign-typology should allow for this.
Maybe Judith Bennett went too far in this direction. Probably for most people, the main constants in their natal chart are pretty well constant and it would be difficult to 'swap' your sign for one you happen to like better, if this 'new' sign is conspicuously absent within your natal chart. As an anecdotal aside, however, Stephen Arroyo certainly points out that a powerful Saturn transit once had everyone 'taking' him for a Capricorn (the sign ruled by Saturn), made him 'feel' like a Capricorn whilst it was operating, though he did not have any personal natal planets or angles in that sign.
I think that excessive generalising of any kind is always potentially harmful and my own less than edifying experiences with sun-sign enthusiasts did nothing to make me feel validated as a unique human being - this often by people who had a whole chart of nine other planets, angles, midpoints and whatever to go by. Perhaps I simply met the wrong kind of astrologer. At one time anyway, I certainly seemed to meet more than my fair share of people who seemed less interested in getting to know me, but in enjoying the sense of power and control that categorising and labelling others can bring. This is where it did seemed to me that Astrology was not being used in any way as a sacred science, but simply as a magical system and therefore - in the way that anthropologists and psychologists mean the term - applied in a more negative sense, controlling maybe, through typologising. At least in practice, all too often there still seems to be less tolerance and understanding of the differences betweenother human beings where this form of astrology is being used, just yet another way to find a good reason to divide the world between �us� and �them.� Whatever the case, this kind of generalising can be � at least according to my experience � diminishing, to say the least. Even where the intentions may certainly have been well-meaning, I did also occasionally have the sense that sun-sign astrology was being presented in a totally evangelical format to me, in the way that Jehovah's Witnesses also may hard-sell their message to non-believers.
It might be worth emphasising at this point that this article has not been written to decry any helpful understanding of self or others and enjoyment or pleasure many people might take from reading about their star signs. As a �party piece� it is easy to see why sun-sign typology might �work� as something rather fun � people getting to know their individual quirks and those of loved ones. At this level, it is difficult to see how this kind of typing might not differ from, for example, Chinese astrology. I am still, however, not prepared to ignore the ways in which applying this basic form of astrology may be less than beneficial for those who may have had less pleasant experiences through it.
I once had a client, a double Taurus; that is, she had the Sun and Ascendant in Taurus. She came to me in a very upset state, it seems that other astrologers had judged that she was not in touch with these Taurean qualities nearly enough (the sun in this case, incidentally, was not actually that close to her Ascendant). She did not �want� to have to become this nasty, grasping entity that she felt, or had been told, Taurus must necessarily be; she balked in horror at the idea of having to undergo the treacherous process of realising it.
My solution in this case was to point out that with a whole stellium of Taurean planets in the 12th House, she was probably experiencing 12th-House problems with weak ego boundaries and all that goes with this. I suggested to her that she needed to see herself more as a '12th House' type and that therefore, her Taurean qualities were bound to 'behave' in a far more evasive and chameleonesque way than would otherwise be expected. She seemed to be happy with this interpretation, admitting that the whole thing had been �really getting to her.�
Quite. Whilst familiar with the philosophical idea that the birthchart is like the apple seed which will hopefully realise itself in the full potential of an apple tree, the over-zealous application of it clearly was not helping in this case. There was at the very least some myopia involved, if the astrologer my client had seen had not recognised how house position might affect the self-expression of the sun. It perhaps should also never be forgotten that in addition to house placements, hard aspects from planets such as Saturn or Pluto could have dampened the ebullience of any fiery sun-sign.
Popular anti-psychiatrist Dorothy Rowe quotes a case-study in which one of her clients had an astrologer mother who opined in just such a rigid and stereotypical way about who her daughter 'really' was, as a Sun Leo. The daughter came to Dorothy Rowe complaining that far from being enlightened about the nature of her 'true' self, she was (perhaps ironically) completely in the dark about who she was supposed to be.
In the absence of a cosy, or what Dorothy Rowe rather scathingly defines as a 'just world' with everything OK and God looking over all of us, maybe it is more than understandable why so many people have taken the Gnostic approach of searching for the Divine Within. In this light (no pun intended), the sun is certainly the closest thing to any symbol that promises to be in any way god-like. This is why I believe that sun-sign generalising has developed this rigid and fanatical edge. I hope I have illustrated from the Dorothy Rowe quote that in extreme cases, far from putting people in touch with any kind of ego or god-like Self, this over-strenuous approach may actually be completely counter-productive. I believe there are also reservations within the astrological community about the potential that may abound for ego-inflation that may abound if it is only assumed that God can be found within, rather than without. A similarly related criticism is one I came across in Mike Harding and Charles Harvey's book, where James Hillman's chart was discussed. The latter was quoted as having suggests that we do not 'have' souls, or Selves, but rather are souls. He was quoted as having believed that the current preoccupation in depth psychology with subordinating and controllong the contents of our souls is an unhealthy preoocupation with 'the stultifying tyranny of self and ego,' and was ultimately 'depersonalising.'
There would never have been the huge market for 'Sun-Sign' books if it was not something that could be easily related to. Linda Goodman's popular best-seller on the one hand, 'How to spot a b******d by his Sun sign', by Adele Lang and Suzi Rajah on the other. Recognisable human types, recognisable human behaviour. I do not think by and large that the sun sign is at all mysteriously hidden by the Ascendant for example - like the Sun itself in the sky, it is usually (but not invariably) plain and obvious enough in many people's characters, and often modified rather than 'masked.' Along, incidentally with the foibles and limitations of each Sign, as is surely evidenced by the 'How to spot a 'b******d' I have quoted here.
It is perhaps worth remembering that sun-sign columns are relatively new and only came into being in the earlier part of the 20th Century, when a newspaper asked an astrologer to come up with readings that did not involve any mathematical working out � something that extrapolations that both the Ascendant and the Moon sign require. Sun signs are simple, as all that is needed is a birthdate, unless someone was born at the �cusp,� that is, either at the very beginning or ending of a sign. Alan Oken was the first writer I came across to make this following point in discussing the Hindu system, and a Hindu student I once had also remarked on this: in Hindu Astrology, it is the Moon, not the Sun, which is considered as the main significator (as it was in ancient Roman times). In Vedic astrology, it seems that it was also relatively easy to work out the Nakasatra, the smaller constellation where the moon could be found. This, in comparison, allowed for a relatively simple way of classifying natives in cases where the time of birth � needed for the Ascendant � was not known. Other Vedic astrologers seem to stress the importance of the Ascendant, though the lunar asterisms are certainly something not found in the West. Oken suggests that this may be because of the greater bias we have in the West for expressing our individuality and personal image (Sun, Ascendant) rather than fitting in with the social collective and status within that collective (Moon and MC). He is careful not to suggest that there is anything 'wrong' with either the Western or the traditional Indian approach here.
The problem is that it tends to be applied so rigidly and I suspect it is because of the spiritual importance assigned to the sun sign, where it is referred to as the God Within, or our essence. The ideas which have contributed to this underlying thinking will be explored later. For now, I would suggest that is is precisely this tendency to affirm this factor in each individual�s make-up that can give the whole thing the evangelical edge I have alluded to earlier. It perhaps also tends to awaken a little too much in terms of self-obsession and narcissism � as other astrologers have noted - but perhaps this is inescapable where what often can behave as a thoroughly all-too-human ego is then elevated to the status of a divine Self. Either way, I would suggest that instead of recognising the essence of each human being as essentially a mystery, as unique as the unique snowflake combination of planets, stars and angles that each individual possesses with their exact moment of birth, this essence is instead labelled and �packaged� into a one-size-fits-all set of shallow generalisations through popular astrology nowadays. It is perhaps ironic that a system of thought that is designed to waken the average person on the street to the truth of their destiny - as a unique 'star' - can also blind, through the trivialising generalisations of the newspaper astrology columns..
Ean Begg may perhaps be less surprised, where he assigns the Sun to the chief of the seven planetary Gnostic icons, calling it te ego complex (from Myth and Today's Consciousness). Neither, perhaps, may Patrick Curry and Roy willis, who in their co-authored book 'Astrology, Science and Culture,' likewise note the way the Sun 'has been allowed to swell into unprecedented importance.' They assign the reasons for this on the one hand to a 'tacit valuing of monotheism over polytheism and integration/unity over diffusion/multiplicity' and reflective of the 'atomised individualism' of urban life where even the self becomes a commodity, on the other.
This is not to decry the necessity for each person to engage on the quest which will allow them to operate in the workld as a 'free and independent source of power in their own right.' Robert Hand, whose quote this is from Horoscope Symbols, does not suggest that the Sun is the Self in the most spiritual sense, but he does point out that that it will depict the 'heroic' 'yang' part of the personality. As he notes, this is 'not just poetry.' In the heroic journey, there are always the themes of making way into an uncertain world, slaying a few dragons on the way and getting the girl.
Life itself is usually messier than this, we all know that the good guy does not always win and frequently makes mistakes, but I would not argue that the Sun isn�t where most individuals have the opportunity meet the world and experience their strength and autonomy head-on. In the individual birthchart it is generally agreed that its function is to 'act' as an integrating focus for all the planetary energies, just as the leadership of any country is always traditionally solar. For anyone who feels that they have less of a sense of personal autonomy and power than they would like and who complains about it when seeing the astrologer, then this is where it would certainly be most valuable to go through what the sun is 'doing' in that person's chart with them and how they might better get in touch with it.
I would still, however, have problems equating the Sun with the Self in the most spiritual or mystical sense of the term. If the sun did not describe an all-too-human ego with limitations, there would be no need for books like 'How to spot a b*******d by his Sun sign.' To be sure, there must be higher 'levels' in which the chart along with its sun can operate as a whole. Perhaps, ultimately this theological question on where the Self is to be located is something for each person to decide - or experience - for themselves. The earlier Gnostics, if, as Ean Begg is right, probably saw the Sun as Yaoldobaoth, the lower ego, at least in theearlier stages of its development. One mediocre star claiming to be the 'lord'of an entire glalaxy. It might then left to the Divine Feminine to 'quicken'the growth of the individual Self within the ego - unbeknown to it.
In practice, then, the ego (here, using the word to depict how each individual would define themselves) does seem to be a little more fluid; it can 'lodge' or 'identify' with the Sun or not, depending on the culture in which you were born, or your own particular biological/psychological bias. The other luminary then, is more likely either to be projected, or work 'behind the scenes' as it were.
The Moon has until recently been described as the 'feminine' principle, but in practice, most women nowadays would prefer to hold onto the autonomy and strength they now have through having the luxury of being able to get a decent crack of the solar whip. Most men, however, as it has doubtless already been noted, are less inclined to 'own' their lunar polarity but rather to �dump� it onto any suitably caring figure: their support systems, as Bill Tierney calls it. It may be, however, that the said support system may grow rather tired of being taken for granted in some cases, if the male remains at an immature level of emotional development.
There are astrologers who have pointed out that there are Sun Goddesses and Moon gods. In the German language, the Moon is masculine, the Sun feminine - as noted before, life is frequently a whole lot messier and less cut-and-dried than could be desired at times.
In one important respect, however, there is still a lot to be said for making seeing the Moon as the more 'feminine' significator - it is women who have the more delicate body/mind system, who menstruate, who purportedly have neurologies too which are more 'set' to relate to others than are the neurologies of men. This latter factor especially has been dubbed the Mars/Venus dilemma by non-astrologers, and I would be as concerned as any other post-feminist that that knowledge should not be used to send us all back to Kinder, Kirche and Küche.
I emphasise the points made above not necessarily as a card-carrying 'earth mother' kind of feminist, not really possessing that kind of temperament. On one level, however, it is truly not far short of offensive to continually read within astrological literature about a planetary body that is constantly referred to as a 'she' - and to find that this 'she' - like planet is referred to as something inherently inferior. I have never had much patience for conforming to sterotypical views about what women are supposed to be like, but at the same time have been less than happy about the way certain areas of feminine experience tend to be disparaged within the astrological world.
Many New Agers, however, have certainly lit upon the recognition that with the lunar menstrual cycle, there is to each woman a ready-made opportunity to access deeper, more Shamanistic states of awareness. It is a deeply instinctual bodily process - and yet, one that goes beyond instinct: in Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle's book The Wise Wound, for example, they suggest that this is an evolutionary gate that takes humanity beyond the instinctual to something more. This is what Redgrove and Shuttle suggest is the real significance of the Gnostic Snake. In this context, to say that the moon is about 'instincts' is a little simplistic - it may well be rooted in instinct, but as so many words linked to 'mentality' have a root connected to the word 'moon' it can be seen to bridge anything from instincts to thoughts, and inspiration and magic. In this context, it may be seen that the moon possesses within itself an impulse towards constant self-renewal and self-transmutation. It might also be noted that the Wiccan path tends not just to recognise, but to honour the �dark� or waning side of the moon - an area of life as much concerned with the need to transmute redundant habits and emotions � as the �waxing� phase is to do with growth and promotion of nurture and connection with others.
As with the sun, or any of the planets, therefore, the moon is not a �given� which automatically prescribes anything, but a process, which may or may not be lived out, �stuck� in a groove, or repressed or not.
I certainly do suspect that those spiritually-minded astrologers who claim that the moon is either exclusively regressive or actively 'bad' could actually preclude any potential for growth in this area at all. A natal moon square Saturn for example may certainly manifest as repeated hurt and disappointment in any situation that requires intimacy, but the work of many astrologers surely shows that such issues can be worked through, both planets eventually working together as a tower of strength, once the hard-earned greater emotional maturity has been acquired. Here too is an answer to the concern that too much attachment to astrology can lead most people into a sense of powerlessness, of being controlled like cosmic puppets from above � ie the planets. It can then be easy to forfeit the sense that there is any real control over our lives, though the Hermetic, or the Gnostic promise, is always that the archons are the doors to greater freedom as much as cosmic gaolors.
The Moon also comes with its two nodes, the North Node and the South Node, and I would suggest that it is all too possible to confuse the symbolism of each. It is generally agreed by the more 'spiritually' minded astrologer, who treats his or her craft more like a mystical religion than either a magical system or a science, that the South Node is supposedly a kind of a psychic dustbin of old and frequently outworn and detrimental karmic patterns. These patterns then need to be reworked through the agency of the forward-looking North Node � or even discarded altogether in the interests of developing the cutting-edge spiritual potentials of the latter. Yet in reading many more esoterically-minded texts, it seems that the natal moon and the South Node together are treated as one and the same. It is to be hoped that the planet, as opposed to its nodes, has 'North Node' possibilities within it too, and is therefore not necessarily the spiritual impediment that many astrological textbooks suggest. This is the point I have made earlier in suggesting that there is also an impulse towards self-transmutation along with all the habit patterns and reflexes that come along with the moon. Noel Tyl calls the moon the 'reigning need' of the horoscope, by which he wishes to emphasise that the horoscope as a whole is a process, rather than a fixed entity: needs, he tells us, are what 'makes things happen.'
The term 'reigning need' all sounds a little too oral, perhaps a little too American, but as Donna Cunningham points out, the UK has a Cancer Sun and therefore does seem to be rather �oral� in the Reichian sense, where consumerism and overeating seem to be the reigning national vices. (Margaret Thatcher, when she was in power, spoke with great disdain against having the UK become a similarly oral nanny-state. Wilhelm Reich may no doubt be wincing in his grave at the way his ideas are being applied here, but his term seems appropriate when looking at Thatcher�s chart: she had the Moon on one of her angles, but the powerfully self-denying Saturn on the other). This �oral� point has been picked up by one of Tyl's followers, who then applies a theosophical dimension to this needful orality: the idea that the hungry, lifeless moon 'craves' the life that is to be seen to near and so far on earth. Therefore the moon creates this serendipitous lack or emptiness that must be filled up, in the Tyl view.
Way before Donna Cunningham posed the question 'How do you know if you are a lunar type?' I have been pondering this issue ever since she put the question as a rhetorical one. The question may well emerge again if a lecture on what you 'should' be like according to your Sun sign leaves you feeling short-changed, as it always has for me. My actual experience of how the sun/moon polarity in my own life is a whole lot closer to how 'followers' of the Grant Lewi school might describe it. Here, the Sun then describes the 'lighted' part which others can so easily pick up on, whilst the Moon describes the inner 'soul' nature - it certainly always seemed to describe mine - with all its most intimate and idiosyncratic hopes and longings.
It is amazing how invalidating it can be if certain aspirations and ways of being are not treated with respect because they are deemed a trivial and peripheral little lunar foible and therefore of no importance because they are not coming from your 'true' solar self. It can be distressing to find that much of what is important to you, how you truly see yourself is somehow discounted as not valid, because of the low opinion within much of Western Astrology of the lunar principle - and, that you are actually supposed to rise beyond it and kill it off so that you can realise your 'true' Self.
Views like these seem to come in the main from the Theosophical movement as first put forward through its leader Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical movement, based on her mediumistically received tomes 'The Secret Doctrine' and 'Isis Unveiled.' This was followed by the esoteric school of thoughts, with its philosophy culled from a similarly channelled source, who worked through Alice Bailey. It is these two writers who suggest that the lunar principle is �source of all sexual misery and evil�, or �the one failed experiment in evolution,� or �a dead and decaying entity.�
No wonder most people within the astrological or New Age community are not anxious to suggest that they may in any way identify in any way with their moon sign. It certainly seems to raise a whole can of schizoid conundrums for many women within the world of astrology. I have met those who glorify the menstrual cycle on the one hand, whilst still viewing the natal moon as a bundle of undesirable habits and defenses that must be overcome on the other. Liz Greene as a Jungian clearly battled with her dislike of how she perceived the naturally regressive feminine bias of her body with what the great Guru of analytical psychology had to say of �real� women, but it seems that later on, she reverted to the spiritual convictions she had already picked up from the Theosophists.
I have never read Blavatsky�s opuses, nor those of Bailey. Something about their general turgidity has somehow, always repelled, although I have read extracts from them. It is certainly difficult to argue against a mediumistically channelled text, there is no way to validate or puts its claims to the test scientifically, yet it such texts can claim the same kind of unimpeachable spiritual authority as what was imparted to Moses on his stone tablets from on high. Whilst acknowledging that immersion in such tomes may indeed open the doors of some kind of genuine intuitions in some cases and a greater undestanding of spiritual realities otherwise normally inccaccessible via other means, it also remains true that the individuals who channel such books are surely, inevitably, always going to be people of their times. They must surely possess the prejudices and hangups of those times, and there is no guarantee either that the channelled intelligence behind them is necessarily entirely free of prejudices of some kind.
There are thinkers who would suggest that the whole spiritual movement around nowadays has devolved into two polarities - the �pagan� and the �gnostic�. The gnostic offshoot is the New Age one, where we all create our own reality, should move beyond the entropic forces of Nature and each have a Divine Self beyond the encumbrances of our treacherous emotions and so on. (This is returning a little again to the points made by Hillman, as quoted in Mike Harding and Charles Harvey's book, where he is said to have called the 'controlling of the rich inner diversity through the development of will and intellect�.as all too often�..'desouling'). The Pagan on the other hand, is nature worshipping, respects its rhythms and is more Goddess-orientated, and certainly more aware of the need to operate in harmony with the planet earth - here books on the Gaia hypothesis would certainly make essential reading. Theodore Roszak suggests in many of his books, written mainly in the 1970's-80's how the Cartesian body-mind split can be seen to responsible for the thinking to do with 'overcoming nature' that has created so much of the ecological evils being faced on the planet right now. (Again, Hillman is also quoted in the same source mentioned earlier as making an attack on the Cartesian division of the universe into living subjects and dead obects). As a Christian, Roszak felt that the Platonic - or Gnostic - approach to the body and nature is unbalanced, though he was certainly sensitive to the dilemma created for a species facing an awareness of its mortality. If there is a hope that some part of us is immortal, then it is understandable that the search for it within the psyche has become paramount. How this can ever, truly be reconciled with the recognition that our bodies and psyches are very much mortal without devaluing what esotericists are pleased to call the �personality� is a moot point. R D Laing brings forth a memorable case study in his first book �The Divided Self� about an astrologer and theosophist who clearly did not find the answer in creating such an irreconciable split between his �personality� and his �self.� Or for that matter, between a beleagured �Nature� that has to be conquered and controlled by �Man.�
These two ways of thinking do tend to overlap, but there are schisms within each way of thinking. It can be noticeable, however, once the minefields of these schisms have been walked on. One book which explores these issues, where synthesis may simply mean a rather slippery talent for glossing over where these schisms are not picked up on, is Monica Sjöö's �Armageddon�, in which she criticises New Age thought from a marxist/feminist perspective. She is less well acquainted with astrological thought, however, criticising Blavatsky and Bailey more for what she sees as the right-wing patriarchal imperialism of both, quoting them in their more racist excesses � also, incidentally, reminding us that for many Nazis, The Secret Doctrine was greatly admired.
Sjöö emphasises the more anti-life extremism inherent in Bailey especially where she � or at least her channelled Master - appears to praise the making of the Bomb as a herald for the advancement of spiritual growth and where her followers suggest that after the Holocaust, whilst those of us who are unevolved and mired in our lower personalities will perish, the �true� believers will inherent new and solarised bodies of Light that will cope with all the radiation.
It is to be hoped that most esoteric followers nowadays are more balanced than that in their thinking, but there is still the tendency to divide human experience too much into �lower� and higher� if current thinking on the subject as seen on the Net is anything to go by.
Whilst it could be possible to be skeptical that there was ever a Golden Age of peaceful matriarchal rule, the ruins of Catal Huyuk notwithstanding, there is still the problematical question of the meaning of the menstrual taboos, which the barest of glance of Frazer's The Golden Bough must bring to conscious awareness. But back to the earlier question of the purported pagan/gnostic split within current alternative spirituality.
Although it may seem that such thinking respects the unfolding rhythms of life, esotericism and theosophy may actually as dualistic as any Christian apologist may hope to find, in seeking out anti-Gnostic literature, where spirit and matter are antagonists with no hope of reconciliation, and so on. Actually, Theosophists are rather more balanced that what we have been led to believe was the case with the Gnostics, who assure us that the 'fall' into Matter and Evolution are actually a Great Learning Experience for the incarnated soul rather than a trap or a tomb. This generosity of thought does not, however as we have seen, extend to the traditional symbolism for the �yin� or �soul� nature within us.
Other Astrologers take a more Taoist view of things. Stephen Arroyo, for example, suggests that the sun and moon, the basic male/female, yin/yang polarity, being of apparent equal size in the heavens, should therefore have 'equal' significance in our charts. Any 'outer' marriage we may therefore make may depend a lot on how well our individual suns and moons 'marry' within our individual psyches, although his thinking is still rather too encumbered with notions of �karmic� factors in various places, for my liking.
Robert Hand suggests that it is not so much a question of sexes, but of yin and yang polarities. What he sees as an imbalance in society is not so much one of the sexes, but one of getting more in touch with the Yin, that is, the lunar, principle. Therefore, the whole Sun/Moon issue transcends gender roles, as such and the conflict between they each represent relevant to men as well as women. Robert Hand, however, that as primal ying and yang polarities the luminaries transcend even genders. In this sense, therefore, the sun �belongs� to women as much as it does to men and certainly, most women I meet are as capable as men of exhibiting solar personalities. This may be good news for those who may have taken any of Jung�s more sexist notions about �animus-possessed� women to heart.
Robert Hand also suggests that the moon acts as a kind of 'interpreter' for Earth, that is, its 'modulator,' The Earth is so much a subjective part of us that it does not appear in the chart, so the Moon has to take on much of the Earth's symbolism.
This is not a new idea either, I understand that the concept of the 'sublunar' world of the Medieval astrologers had similar ideas in mind. Dane Rudhyar certainly draws attention to the idea in referring to the whole earth-moon system as a kind of matrix in which Life on earth is tended to within a �protective electromagnetic envelope�, in the way a mother tends to the needs of her helpless baby.
Jules Holland, however, who has researched lunar mythology from many sources, is critical of this the implications of this concept of the sublunary realm. She first traces the idea from Cicero, who wrote a myth about what is called the dream of Scipio. In this, Aristotle is quoted as saying: �Below the Moon there is nothing but what is mortal and doomed to decay, except the souls given to men by the bounty of the gods, whereas above the Moon all is eternal.�
Holland then suggests that �a division had arisen in the universe which had once been embraced as a living whole � one which she sees as contributing to the growing sense of a split between incorruptible �spirit� and entropic �nature.� Everything �beneath the moon� is then seen as the place where �the elements are mixed together, where uncertainty and doubt prevail and here nothing stays the same for long� and definitely of a lower order altogether.
Possibly there do indeed exist higher realities in other dimensions but as someone who grew up with Narnia and H G Well�s Time Machine, where suns are depicted in their dying days as degenerating eventually into bloated red giants, it was less easy for me to perceive change and entropy as belonging exclusively to the the sublunary world.
However the concept of a sublunary is interpreted in terms of what this implies for most mortals, it can still be seen that the moon may well �earth� us, without which it could be easy to lose touch with reality, to say nothing of body and instincts. However much most modern-day New Age Icarusses might wish to leave their 'lower' selves behind, it might in the end, not be that practicable, as Tracy Marks reminds us in her book 'The Astrology of Self-Discovery.'
Tract Marks uses Assagioli's Psychosynsthesis method for following the path of self-integration. Whilst there may be too much of Assagioli's tendency to categorise aspects of the psyche into 'higher' and �lower,� Marks seems to have come to terms with her demons and T-Squares in a way that is more genuinely integrative than schizoid. There is less, therefore, of the disembodied Self on high here, totally detached from our false egos and personalities, but rather a Russian Doll version of the ego and Self, where each part of the personality, however lowly, in encompassed into more and more inclusive levels of being. 'The needs of the personality,' she tells us, 'must be respected before they can be transcended, or it will otherwise lead to deception of the self or for others.' It is probably a much saner way of looking at the whole process of individuation, if you must be esoteric about it.
Recently, Peter Gandy and Timothy Freke, in their attempts to 'rehabilitate' Gnosticism looked at the Simon Magus myth in great depth. It might now be worth following them a little way, as the hero and heroine of the myth are frequently described as being the sun and the moon.
In the myth of Simon Magus, the First Thought, Ennoia (Or Selena,) 'created' the planets, then somehow 'forgot' that she had, and became enslaved by them. She 'forgot� that she was the Divine Feminine and reduced to something little better than a common prostitute, until her divine partner Jesus, the Solar principle, comes to rescue her.
They marry and find divine peace. However, they also would like most other people to enjoy the same sense of unity as they have discovered, so they spend a great deal of time on earth, preaching the message. Simon, however, goes blind, and relies upon Selena to do his 'seeing' for him. Hence, whilst Selena most certainly 'needed' to be rescued, Jesus obviously cannot do without Selena - the divine marriage is clearly where each is integral to the other - a point that is missed, incidentally, in Freke and Gandy's retelling of the tale.
The Simonian sect was said to be somewhat libertine or Tantric in its practises, no doubt taking the need to marry soma and psyche literally rather than figuratively. No doubt, they also wanted to demonstrate the well-known Gnostic opposition to slavishly following the petty 'rules' of society, which are always seen as a tyranny by them. Shuttle and Redgrove equate this particularly lunar vulnerability to slavishly following these petty rules with what they call the extroverted 'ovulatory' phase of the women's cycle, as opposed to the inward-looking menstrual one. In this context, the moon or Selena is then the soul imprisoned rather than the prison. Perhaps, however, the lunar psyche possesses within itself the ability to transcend this conditioning, in order to be the 'gateway to the soul' and to the outer planets. This is certainly what Tracy Marks for example, suggests. Dane Rudhyar hints on this in his chapter on the Moon symbol in one of his books, Astrology and the Modern Psyche. He too, however, was very much Alice Bailey's disciple and as such ultimately appears to view the rhythms of life as something entropic to be overcome and discarded in the fullness of time.
It might be worth emphasising that none of this has been written to promote any kind of gnostic or New Age or Anti-New Age manifesto, except possibly in a poetic or artistic sense. There is no desire to expound any kind of objective set of �truths.� No doubt, there are others who have discovered many more mystical realities through these ideas, but certain Zen writers at least suggested that the map should not be confused with these realities, the finger is only the pointer to the moon. Without at least some understanding that there is some kind of �soul� life that has less to do with selling it to the world of corporate conformity, however, life could otherwise seem altogether too two-dimensional without hearing some kind of a �gnostic� call, even if this simply remains at a poetic level. However, it is still possible the �pagan� approach to spirituality can offer a greater sense of resolution to the problem of soul and spirit than other more eupsychian approaches to the Soul might.
I hope it is still clear with this article that I am not saying that women 'should' identify with their moon signs, or men for that matter, any more than we should have a lunar-based astrology. Perhaps, however, it should be recognised that the way the basic factors in the chart are interpreted cannot be so done in quite as cut and dried a manner. If, however, you suspect you may be more of a lunar type, or you should ever come across someone when giving a reading who says that they are, I would suggest that it may not necessarily be helpful to assume that this is simply a case of arrested development. It may certainly be less than helpful to dismiss the perceptions of such a client, which could imply a certain lack of respect. It may be possible that there is a powerful midpoint or aspect pattern that makes it that much more imperative to express your lunar qualities in some vocational way, especially if it is connected with the Midheaven. Or there are certain skills and gifts that are better channelled through a receptive planet. Alan Oken in his book �Astrology � Evolution and Revolution� cites the case of a well-known transexual, who underwent operations to become a woman. Oken points out that in this subject�s case, the moon had far more powerful aspects than did the sun natally and that this perhaps was why the subject felt compelled to change her gender. This, however, is something of an extreme case.
More likely, it is simply a case of equal yin and yang principles at work within everyone to some degree, so then the question can only ever be one of balance. There surely has to be a time and a place for everything, including the sun and moon principles in each and every human being, whether or not in chairing a meeting or confronting challenges with the former or in cooking supper or writing a poem with the latter.
As already suggested, it is possible that all the 'ego' planets 'act' as integral components far more than is generally realised, so that singling out the Sun, Moon or any other point in isolation and calling it the Self or the Lower Ego may be far simplistic. Putting aside now the evolution of the soul on some of the more arcane levels looked at earlier, there is much newer astrological research that the idea that sun and moon can and should be more like marriage partners than adversaries. Michael Harding and Charles Harvey, for example, remind us just how crucial is the sun/moon midpoint in the chart. Here, they tell us, is where we really 'come together,' body and soul. Mind and spirit. Herein is the 'mysterium conjunctionis', the Bridal Chamber of Spirit and Soul of the Opposites so beloved by Jung, though it is probable that he had something rather more mystical in mind within his own schema of things, along with the esotericists. The Ebertin school of cosmo-biology certainly places great importance not just on the sun-moon midpoint, but on the midpoint between the MC and the Ascendant too � the Big 4 within this particular branch of astrology. Ebertin certainly did not want to be connected with any kind of system that could be recognised as 'magical' and his dispensing of Signs and Houses is refreshing.
Michael Harding and Charles Harvey, however, also remind us that this 'divine marriage' is not necessarily all that divine in practise - there is still the level of awareness that cannot be shown on the birthchart to be considered. An individual with mystical, dreamy Neptune on their Sun-Moon midpoint natally may be an artist, a mystic or a gangster or drug trafficker.
John Michell writes extensively on the opposing powers of Sun and Moon principles in City of Revelation, writing not just from the perspective of the individual Mysterium Conjunctionis written about so extensively by Jung on an individual level, but on the social level too - the main macrocosm of this in human society of course, being the City. Jerusalem, Babylon, Troy and Stonehenge all make their appearances here, as he talks of Sun and Moon principles in terms of sacred mathematics and Gematria, drawing extensively on Plato's Timaeus, and on the sacred numerology of the Valentinian Gnostics. All quite fascinating stuff, but it is difficult to know how authentic his gematrian and Pythagorean sources really are.
The basic premise of City of Revelation is that the Sun and Moon principles - or their sacred numbers, 666 and 1080 - have to be balanced not just within the individual, but within the whole structure of the City too. There has to be an imperial palace, but there has to be the fountain, too. Too much 666, Michell tells us, can lead to totalitarianism and fantasies of material power, too much 1080, of individual and political stagnation. Actually, Mike Harding and Charles Harvey also touched upon 'body politic' dimensions of the basic Sun-Moon polarity in Astrology, but not in relation to the City. Charles Harvey suggests that in any kind of Parliament where for true Democracy to work, there has to be an effective Opposition. Sounds like a great idea, shame it often doesn't seem to work.
In this article then, no doubt I have done nothing to reconcile certain divisions and conflicts that still seem to exist within astrology, but I hope I have drawn attention to what my still be important question marks about the way the sun and moon are viewed in Astrology. I would certainly, still like to see an astrology that applies basic sun/moon interpretations with more respect to the whole person than what I have frequently seen to date.
Š 2006 Lynda Stevens
Some links to other sites:
Just a nice site with various articles and interesting facts and figures. Useful stuff on eclipses and lunations
GarryPhillipson at work, currently engaged on his PHD on Astrology. Seems to be a fair-minded guy. A lot of what I have written here is in answer to one or two things quoted by one or two of his interviewees.
http://www.zanestein.com/AstrologyFAQs.html
Lots of helpful information written by Zane for beginners. Also returning the favour for the the link Zane put up for me.
http://www.scispirit.com/wok/baring.htm
Anne Baring is a Jungian who has apparently written several books on the need to reconnect with Soul as much as Spirit and here, her article has much that is pertinent to my argument here. Jules Cashford�s webite is also accessible through here.
Jules Cashford on her book �The Moon, myth and image�, along with other publications
http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/astroarticles/moonnodesatbirth.php
Dane Rudhyar is never going to be my cup of tea, though undoubtedly there will be many others who will disagree with me. This link will take you to the article where I have quoted him here.
http://www.cosmosandpsyche.com//pdf/RevisionRiteofPassage.pdf
Richard Tarnas writing about Sun Moon principles in relation to his theories on cosmos and psyche.
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