The Symbolic Moon
Moon plays a significant role in every culture and mythology around the world. Chinese New Year is a celebration of the beginning of a new Lunar Year. Monday in many languages carries the name of the Moon in it. Celebrating the Moon isn’t just the thing of the past. In modern Western pop-culture and witchcraft of today Moon is associated mostly with the feminine. Different Moon phases are celebrated and associated with different states of mind and emotions, with seasons, stages of human life and life-death cycle. It’s known as a symbol of secrecy and mystery, guardian of dreamers, but each Moon phase has a specific symbolism of its’ own and suggests specific kind of activities to harness the power of a current phase of the Moon in order to succeed with all kinds of mundane and special actions, events, needs, wishes and manifestations.
Since the beginnings of the human history Moon has been known to have magickal qualities. People observed the sky, counted time by observing the course of the Moon in the sky. And they figured out that Moon has a very tangible and visible effects on the big bodies of water on Earth as the tides changed together with the changing phases of the Moon. The tides depend on the gravitational pull of the Moon. It’s not just a mesmerizing object far away in the sky.
"Signs & Symbols of the World" by D.R. McFlory tells: "Shamans and pagan priests and priestesses developed rituals to ensure the the sun would rise again when it was forced from the sky by the moon. (..) In many cultures, the sun was (and still remains) masculine to the moon's feminine. (..) In ancient Egypt, the sun god was Ra, the most powerful male deity. The moon was a goddess Sefkhet, wife of Toth; Sefkhet was also goddess of time, the stars, and architecture. Egyptians, however, also had a male moon god Khonsu."
In modern worldwide mythology and witchcraft of today Moon carries the feminine energy and among many other things it is a symbol of everything feminine. However, in my native mythology (and language in which every thing has a clear gender) - Latvian folklore - Sun is the feminine and Moon - masculine. Sun also plays a much bigger role throughout Latvian folklore and traditional worldview than the Moon. Moon - Mēness - is a male deity that in myths, folk songs and tales is the lover of the Sun. Once upon a time they were a happy husband and wife, and in their marriage many stars were born. It was a happy unity until the Sun discovered that Moon isn't exactly the faithful husband and family guy. When the Sun went to sleep, Moon was sneaking out to date a beautiful star. The Sun was so angry that she cut the Moon's face with a golden sword of sunray, making his face a half of a circle. Over time Moon's face healed and was round again, and he promised the Sun to change. Well, he didn't keep his promise, and the Sun was angry at him again and cut his face again. That's why the Moon is sometimes full and sometimes just a half of it. So, this celestial marriage ended and forever they are enemies, but sometimes also depicted as running after and chasing each other.
In Latvian folklore Moon is a warrior. He also guides and protects those who have work to do at night. Obviously.
Cherokee legend from the southern USA tells that Moon was the brother and also lover of the Sun. When the Sun was young, she had a lover who visited her only at night and never showed his face. One night the Sun rubbed ashes on the face of her lover so she could identify him later. The next night when her brother - the Moon - rose in the sky, with horror the Sun saw his face dirty from the ashes, so, she discovered her lover. The moon was ashamed and from then he decided to stay from the Sun as far as possible.
A pretty sneaky character, isn't he?
But the female deities associated with the Moon carry a different type of energy. It's magickal, sexual, fertile, a bit secretive. Moon goddesses mostly excel with their beauty. The most well know today is the one known as Luna or Selene, who comes from Greek mythology. She is the goddess who illuminates the Earth with her beauty, she is the mature and fertile full moon, often depicted dressed in long silver or white robes and riding with the Moon like her chariot. Selene wasn't the one and only Moon deity for the ancient Greeks. She is recognized in the company of goddesses Artemis ( known as Diana in Roman mythology) and Hecate, where Artemis - the goddess of hunt and youth, chastity and vegetation is the representation of the Crescent Moon, but Hecate - the goddess of magic and witchcraft, crossroads, old age, underworld and wisdom represents Waning Moon and Dark Moon - the time at the end of one and the beginning of another Moon cycle when the Moon isn't visible in the sky at all.
Similar aura to the one carried by Selene is the one of Celtic Moon goddess Arianrhod. Similar to Hecate but associated with the Full Moon in Celtic mythology is Cerridwen - the keeper of the cauldron of knowledge. Polynesian Sina is the goddess who lives on the Moon itself - she voluntarily left the Earth to live there.
And this is just a very small number of Moon deities around the world and throughout the history.
"Thank goodness for the moon's inconstancy - the loveliness, the fearsomeness, the portentousness of its measured concealments and revealments; the apportioned variability of its shadow and light. How reassuring the cadence of lunar time, its allowances of increase and necessary diminishment. How potent the "nocturnal predominance" of the moon and of the particular mode of consciousness we think of as " lunar"." - tells the intro of the essay about the Moon in the amazing book "The Book of Symbols. Reflections on archetypal images." by The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism. If you are into archetypes and symbols - get that book. It’s huge, richly illustrated and pure treasure to read. A few more sentences from that gorgeous book: "(..) the moon presides over conception, pregnancy and birth, over the agricultural cycles of sowing and reaping, over every kind of coming into being. She is mistress of moisture; of the juices of life including sap, spittle, semen, menstrual blood, the nectar and poisons of plant and animal. She governs the humid vapors that promote decay, the moisture that falls as rain of dew, the ebb and flow of every body of water; the favorable or unfavorable outcome of every navigation. As lord of ecstasy the moon reigns over all intoxications and inspirations."
