XVIII. The Moon

Upright

• Potent dreams or nightmares.
• Strange emotions or experiences moving in on familiar settings, coloring the world differently, perhaps eerily.
• Deep-seated fears rising from the depths.
• Terror.
• Not being able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
• Beguiling illusions.
• Insanity, mental illness.
• Being overcome by daunting or mesmerizing visions or desires.
• Dealing with the dark side existence.
• A dark nights of the soul.

Seeing things by the light of The Moon renders them uniquely, magically, sometimes frighteningly. It can be difficult to tell when moonlight reveals a distortion and when it reveals something real, a different side of someone or something which can only be seen in the mysterious, dark glow.

The Moon can signify many things: fear, delusion, dreams which are thoroughly enchanting but cannot be realized, and sometimes profound truths about the nature of the mysterious and the dark. The Moon exerts a force on the vast oceans, hence its Water nature— it grasps the emotions with the unseen.

Without the tug of The Moon, one may not be moved to question their presumptions, or to face the most difficult and vexing aspects of existence. Because The Moon awakens and tugs on the emotions like the physical moon affects the tides, this is a Major in the realm of Water.

Reversed

• Waking up from a dream or a nightmare.
• Loosing the grip of powerful fantasies or visions.
• Returning from the dark side of existence.
• Coming back to reality.
• Shifting from the fantastic to the mundane.
• Diminishing fear or terror.
• Recovering from a spell of insanity, or being treated for mental illness.

Just as with the tides, The Moon exerts a palpable tug on the emotions, sending people reeling into shadowy territory where questions abound and nothing is exactly as it seems. The Moon Reversed signifies a reprieve from The Moon's mysterious forces.

It could be a relief to not have to contend with the darkness for the time being— to not see life by the light of The Moon. Seeing life by moonlight can offer a rewarding perspective, but it is one which will often serve to confuse and to beguile, and one can forget that it is possible to see by other lights after seeing the terror and splendor of the moonlit dark.

Because the light of The Moon might subject people to illusions, and give rise to unrealistic fantasies, its retreat may cause observers to feel like they are waking up from strange and potent dreams, or nightmares.