The Moon
The Moon is a card of introspection, embracing both wild and domesticated aspects of our nature. It invites us to confront our darkness and achieve personal balance by acknowledging our shadow selves. The Moon teaches us to reconcile our inner primal instincts with our societal roles to avoid dishonesty and harm.
Keywords
Visual Elements
The Moon is another one of my birth cards, and one I feel very connected to. In the Smith-Waite deck, and in many others, the Moon tends to be one of the most visually intricate illustrations—there are dogs and wolves and lobsters, towers and landscapes and things raining from the sky with the big crescent or full moon looming over it all. I love it. It can certainly be helpful to many different readers to interpret that many different symbols, but at the end of the day, I find them more distracting than helpful. In my design, I sought to distill the meaning of the Moon while still upholding its subtleties. I wanted to visually break it down to its fundamentals while leaving enough room for interpretation.
Introspection and Primal Nature
To me, the Moon is similar to the High Priestess and the Hermit as a card of retreat and introspection. But it lacks the formality of the High Priestess and the self-imposed discipline of the Hermit. The Moon is far more primal. It is a card of running wild with the best and the worst of ourselves. There is a darkness to it that makes us acknowledge and sit with our own darkness.
Symbolic Elements
In this card two trees stand in place of the customary two towers. Instead of man-made structures, the Moon pours its light out onto a craggy forest in which we can get lost if we are not careful. Instead of a dog and a wolf, the werewolf from Strength reappears, embodying both the wild and domesticated aspects of our nature. An owl looks down upon him, a symbol of wisdom, predation, dreams and nightmares. I was thinking of Goya's 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' when I decided to include it in place of the customary lobster. (That piece of art appears again in my Nine of Swords card.)
Communion with the Moon
The Moon and the wolf are in communion. Her light is cold, but it is not unkind. The night is as necessary to achieving personal balance as the day. Under its cover we can see our innermost selves reflected in the Moon and come face to face with our own wildness. The Moon shows us our shadow self. She warns us against losing ourselves in the lunacy of our baser impulses and desires. She teaches us that it will not do to repress them, ignore them or turn a blind eye to them—doing that will breed dishonesty and bring hurt to ourselves and to the people around us. So, we must confront the shadow self, practice self-awareness, and reconcile the inner animal with the person we must be in order to function and flourish in society.
Fyodor Pavlov tarot
💜 Please support creators. Buy official decks.
ℹ️ Disclaimer
All card images and descriptions are taken from public sources. They are used for review purposes only. All rights to these images and descriptions belong to their creators. If you believe there is a copyright infringement, please contact us at [email protected].