Practically Spiritual.

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..." 

The dark side.

If you want to be fully alive, if you want to arrive at your deathbed without too many regrets or unanswered questions, you need to know how to visit your own basement. You need to be able to go to the dark side.

Too often, people associate "the dark side" with evil. They're wrong. Evil is vinegar; the dark side is good red wine. If you’re clever, you can easily recognize the difference.

The dark side is a gloomy old basement full of treasures and dust. Here you find everything forgotten, spurned, out-of-style. The unflattering family photographs, the failed wood shop projects, the pants you can no longer fit into. Here, too, are the gargantuan monsters of H.P. Lovecraft. The sulfury, musky scents this place gives off, like night air, inspire some and make others fall asleep and dream.

Though I wouldn't compare it to a summer's day, it’s a rich place, much richer than most places aboveground. Basically, it's compost. Jung calls this place the shadow.

Shamans believe that illness is caused by soul loss. The shamans think that when you go through trauma, sometimes pieces of your soul break off and get lost. I think they go to the dark side.

And you can either travel there and get them back (which is what so many of our favorite fairy tales and adventure stories are about, really), or you can let them go.

We all know people who’ve let pieces of their soul go. Their lives are much diminished. They repeat themselves a lot in conversation. Though the faces of the people they share them with may differ, they keep having the same experiences over and over again. Usually, they don't know exactly what they've lost. Or maybe they're afraid to go down those basement steps.

There are a lot of doorways into the dark side. People visit it in therapy or in their art. They go there by way of music, sometimes just lying in a dark room with headphones on or, lost in themselves, picking at a guitar. These are all valid ways to get pieces of your soul back. My way is through Tarot cards.

Other methods work some of the time -- like how Stella got her groove back -- but, sometimes, they backfire.

But if you want to be alive, if you want to be really happy, you have to find a way in. You have to go back to the dark side again and again. You will probably want to make little journeys for other people, too. Occasionally life in the upper world will go really pear-shaped and you will have to venture deeper into the dark side than you ever have before. Expect life to challenge you in exactly this way.

To be a fully-realized person, you must try to know the dark side like the back of your own hand, and not be afraid.