Practically Spiritual.

The Meaning of the Moon Card, Pt. 2: Moonstruck Love

It is difficult to tell from the drawing in the Rider-Waite deck (I see the Rider-Waite as something akin to the King James Bible -- flawed in many ways, very much a product of times, but also the gold standard of the genre) but one of the dogs above is supposed to be a wolf, the other a family pet. Yet they both howl at the moon. The image suggests that, whether we consider ourselves domesticated or wild, at our roots we are pulled by the same instinctual urges. 

The Moon card is not an obvious romantic card, but clues to its true nature can be found embedded in the idioms of our language, which developed hand-in-hand with the symbolic language of the Tarot. Moonstruck. Over The Moon. Mooning over someone. Even though one of these creatures is wild and the other is tame, it is not inconceivable that -- like so many of the other characters one meets in the Tarot --these dogs are mates.

Of all of our inner forces, love is one of the shadowiest, and The Moon card rules all mysteries and ancient patterns. Sometimes love causes us to leave our safe warm homes in the middle of the night and meet with someone whom our friends might think is utterly unlike ourselves, but may happen to be a perfect match.

The Moon card suggests that opposites are meant to be drawn, inevitably, together. And sometimes it's thrilling and deeply spiritual to allow the tide to carry one along to a seemingly inevitable destiny. But left on their own, without the light of consciousness, Moon energies can also be a fearsome trap. The Moon card rules illusion as much as it does instinct; what may seem like a magnetic lover in the shifting light of the moon may also simply be the ancient predator in a fresh disguise.

The Meaning of The Moon Card, Pt. 1: History Repeating Itself

The Unknown

As we know, 
There are known knowns. 
There are things we know we know. 
We also know 
There are known unknowns. 
That is to say 
We know there are some things 
We do not know. 
But there are also unknown unknowns, 
The ones we don't know 
We don't know. 

—Donald Rumsfeld. Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing. (From "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld.")

When I teach the Tarot, I always introduce The Moon card with this spontaneous "poem" from former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld.

The Moon card has everything to do with what unconscious poet Rumsfeld calls the "unknown unknowns," with the parts of ourselves that we do not understand -- our hidden instincts, desires, and dreams. The Moon also rules the oldest things in the world, the simple ancient creatures of the sea that skitter back and forth along the ocean floor with the movement of the tides.

Rumsfeld's war is definitely a "Moon" war, one begun for muddy, unclear reasons, fought against a people we barely understand. Baghdad itself is also ruled by The Moon -- the Islamic crescent is an obvious example -- but the venerable city almost predates civilization itself. Writing was first invented near Baghdad, no doubt imprinting new consciousness on a human mind that will always be, to some degree, pre-verbal.

It is significant that Baghdad's museums were looted almost immediately when the war began. The unconscious mind is so ancient itself that it is unimpressed by any artifacts of antiquity.

I will have to come back to this topic, because I'm currently writing it in a cafe next to an old man who is rambling loudly and thoughtlessly about everything from cell phones (bad) to church (good) to the price of bologna at Market Basket (variable, but much worse than it used to be). He's distracting me from conscious thought, so I cede the floor to this living avatar of Moon energy:

"I eat a lot of turnips...But after a while I need to have some meat...Now, this meat was nice and brown. No red. And tender! You could go through five slices like that..."