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TdM Moon - XVIII
The hebrew word Tzadiq [righteous, just] is an old name of Yesod, to which in some old sources is attributed the 'moon', suggesting a reasonable 'fit' with the continental attribution of the card 'moon' to the letter Tzade [through correlation of the name of the letter to the word]. Though the attribution of the moon to Yesod is non-standard in Jewish Kabbalah, following the widely accepted redactions of the Gra, this attribution was retained in some of the more obscure schools of mainly Christian Cabalah and Hermetic Qabalah. In Jewish Kabbalah, of the Lurianic/Gra tradition, the moon may be either attributed to Chesed or Malkuth [as Tzadiqim are also attributed to Chesed this also is possibly a connection between Tzade and the moon, but in relation to Malkuth also to the letter Qoph]. Qoph [or kuf] also has lunar symbolism:
quote:
The most fundamental significance in Torah of the number nineteen, the ordinal value of the kuf, is the nineteen-year cycle of the moon in relation to the sun, the basis of our Jewish calendar. The moon represents the female figure, the secret of the sefirah of malchut ("kingdom"), personified by Eve (Chavah = 19, as above). The sun represents the male figure (the bestower of light, whereas the moon is the receiver of light), and in particular the sefirah of yesod ("foundation"; yesod = 80 = 8 · 10, chet times yud = chai), as personified by Adam.
end quote from:
Kuf is said to be made of the letters Zayin [lovers in GD] and Resh [Sun in GD] and contains the 'mystery of the crown', of which it is said that Zayin represents a woman of valour, the 'crown' of her husband [adam - the sun, letter Resh in GD]. Of this 'mystery' it may be worth noting in trying to decipher it that one of the hebrew words for 'crown' aterah is both a name for Malkuth and for the corona of the phallus [attributed to Yesod]. Thus we have Kuf - zayin, resh; Moon, lovers, sun; Eve, the crown of her husband, adam.
The letter Kuf has the astrological attribution Pisces, consignificator of the 12th house, thus the end of the zodiacal and diurnal cycles, by analogy to the moon corresponding to the end of the lunar cycle; the dark of the moon under which cloak, as under the canopy of the bride and bridegroom, the sun [resh] and moon [kuf] conjoin in mystical union [lovers-zayin].
In ancient descriptions the 12th house was:
"... called the House of Evil Daemon, because it injures the
emanation from the stars in it to the Earth and is also declining, and the
thick, misty exhalation from the moisture of the Earth creates such
turbidity and, as it were, obscurity, that the stars do not appear in either
their true colours or magnitudes." -- Tetrabiblos, III.10 (Loeb p.275)
As the shape of the letter Kuf too suggests the shape of the back of the head and neck, so some modern astrologers have described idea of the 12th as:
"being like the back of our head; more easily seen by others than by ourselves. That's why it's a mystery to the 12th house person himself, but not to other people."
A time then for serious reflection, or to seek and listen too the objective advise and opinion of others.
Magically the dark of moon period is traditionally the best time for rites of invisibility and 'deceit'. It is traditionally the time for evoking the fith fath (pronounced fee fah), the lying spirits of celtic mythology and friends of the thief who operates under the cloak of darkness. From the similarity in sound and meaning there may well be a common root among the words fith fath (feefah), fibber and thief; and also with the Goetic demon Furfur, the lying spirit. One of the reasons for evoking the fith fath was to obtain the magickal powers of Glamour. Basically a power to deceive people to either see what is not there, or not to see what is. Pisces, consignificator of 12th house, is both the 'fall' and 'detriment' of Mercury, trickster and god of thieves.
The most prevalent of magickal glamours in myth are the tales of invisibility and those of the old crone who, casting of her ragged cloak reveals herself to be a beautifull maiden. The symbolism is quite literal, as with most type of traditional spell. Dark of moon provides the cloak of darkness in which one becomes invisible; it is also the transitional stage between the waning moon (the Crone) becoming the new moon (the Maiden). A time to cast off the darkening cloak of the past to start anew.
Working with the fith fath is reputed to be dangerous in that who they wish to deceive most are those that call upon them. The tales of Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune walking around the streets of London in fantastic garb in the believe they were invisible comes to mind, the only ones being deceived were themselves [perhaps]. And this element of self-deceit may also relate to the 12th house association with self-undoing in that one is led to make errors through a false perception about how others see you, or how you see them.
There is the possibility of confusion and being subject to irrational fears, suspicions, paranoia.
In mundane astrology the eclipse is usually interpreted in terms of catastrophe and disaster, in natal astrology in terms of the individual though it is not always negative, in artists, writers and musicians it can indicate a time of great inspiration and creativity. But good or bad, it is usually indicative of a period of dramatic change or transformation. Mystically it is viewed as forming a hole in the sky, a gateway of ascension between heaven and earth, a tunnel within which the soul of the mystic may be called upon to do battle with monsters, to suffer the dark night of the soul, before ascending through into the light to commune with the gods.
Very interesting Roppo, Diogenes is most often associated with the Hermit. As for the dogs, don't forget that Diogenes nickname was the 'dog', the word 'cynic' being derived from the Greek for 'dog-like'. In the only contemporary reference to Diogenes [Aristotle's Rhetoric], Aristotle does not mention him be name, but just as "The Dog".
"Dogs, too, especially streets dogs, live in accordance with nature. Independence, simplicity, the ability to adapt themselves to changing circumstances, an absence of inhibition with respect to their feelings and their physical needs, indifference concerning where and how they live and what they eat, absolute honesty, freedom of speech - for they bark whenever they please and at whom-ever they dislike - these are some among the virtues or strengths that characterize the canine army, and these are precisely the traits that Diogenes and his Cynic descendants admired and found worthy of imitation. Why, then, should he have taken offence when the Athenian rabble, unable to understand his mode of life, chose to call him a Dog?" quote from
Although usually associated with the Hermit, we may also associate the Hermit's lantern with the Moon, as with the poet Derek Walcott:
quote
Homecoming: 10
New creatures ease from earth, nostrils nibbling air,
squirrels abound and repeat themselves like questions,
worms keep enquiring till leaves repeat who they are,
but here we have merely a steadiness without seasons,
and no history, which is boredom interrupted by war.
Civilisation is impatience, a frenzy of termites
round the anthills of Babel, signalling antennae
and messages; but here the hermit crab cowers when it meets
a shadow and stops even that of the hermit.
A dark fear of my lengthened shadow, to that I admit,
for this crab to write "Europe" is to see that crouching child
by a dirty canal in Rimbaud, chimneys, and butterflies, old bridges
and the dark smudges of resignation around the coal eyes
of children who all look like Kafka. Treblinka and Auschwitz
passing downriver with the smoke of industrial barges
and the prose of a page from which I brush off the ashes,
the tumuli of the crab holes, the sand hourglass of ages
carried over this bay like the dust of the Harmattan
of our blown tribes dispersing over the islands,
and the moon rising in its search like Diogenes' lantern
over the headland's sphinx, for balance and justice.
end quote from "The Bounty", by Derek Walcott
"... note Crab, a very ill-bred dog, of course, is barc [bark] spelled backward." Shakespeare IV.4
In the d'este Sun card Alexander stands before Diogenes who is sitting in his barrel, the story goes that Alexander says to Diogenes, "Name anything you want, and I will give it to you." To which Diogenes replies , "Then stand aside, you are blocking the Sun." Bearing in mind the association of Alexander with the Devil [hence is frequent portrayal with horns], to me this brings to mind the answer to the Devil who promises him the world, "Get behind me Satan".
If we assume this Diogenes reference has been subsumed in the Marseille deck in the picture of the Moon then I would say the picture of the Moon is almost certainly meant to represent a Moon eclipsing the Sun [as Alexander eclipses the Sun]. As the dark of the moon lasts for a period of three days I consider it highly likely that the Moon card references the entombment of Christ, who rose again on the third day. As I mentioned in connection with the attribution of the 19th letter Kuf, there is a connection here with the Metatonic cycle, the basis of the Hebrew calendar, the basis for the prediction of eclipses, but more relevant here also the basis for the date of Easter, that celebration of Christ's death and resurrection which falls on the first SUNday after the full Moon. The symbolism of Easter and the metatonic formula would explain the numbering 18/19 and the sequence Moon/Sun.
In Christian cabalistic astrology Christ is prefigured in the constellation Orion, the Prince of Light. In myth Orion, by accident or design according to differing versions, is killed by Goddess of the Moon. Perhaps then the two dogs are the two hunting dogs of Orion, howling in lamentation at the death of their master, and in accusation at his murderer the Moon.
Anyone interested in the possible connections between diogenes, dogs and the card the fool might be interested in the thread here:
1,10,100 - A doggy tale
In renaisannce art the lamp was used as an emlem of Diogenes the Cynic, nicknamed 'The Dog'. If we associate the Hermit with Diogenes 'the dog' then we have a tryptich of dog cards:
The Lunatic - aleph = 1
The Hermit - yod = 10
The Moon - qoph = 100
The letter Aleph is also attributed to the constellation Orion, hunter of the Bull [taurus] and Hare [Lupus], lover of the moon goddess Artemis/Diana, accompanied by hunting dogs [canis major and minor]. In the Book of Job and Amos the Hebrew word Kesil [KSYL] is used for the constellation Orion. Kesil [KSYL] also means Fool.
KSYL – Orion, Fool
Job 9:9 - Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.
Job 38:31 - canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Am 5:8 - Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name
The word KSYL Orion also means fool, stupid fellow, dullard, simpleton, arrogant one. And is used 70 times elsewhere in the bible [psalms, proverbs and ecclesiastes] to mean such:
KJV (70) - fool, 61; foolish, 9;
NAS (70) - fool, 35; fool's, 2; foolish, 6; foolish man's, 1; fools, 23; stupid, 1; stupid man, 1; stupid ones, 1;
KJV = King James Version
NAS = New American Standard
According to some the 'dog' on the fool card is not a dog but a hare, this too would fit in with the identification of the 'fool' with the constellation Orion, which is pictured with a hare at its feet, representing the constellation lepus. If it is a hare then we can still consider the dog present, if off picture, as we know the hare is running from Orion's hunting dog canis major, Sirius.
The phenomena of the eclipse is described in Biblical Hebrew by the word Qadar [Qoph, daleth, resh] which means to blacken or darken, as in phrases such as "the sun and the moon shall be darkened". It also means 'mourn'.
A word for dogs, jackals, hyenas is 'Ay' which literally means 'howling' from a hebrew root meaning to cry out in grief, lamentation and despair. This is parallelled in one of the latin words for 'dog' queror which also means to bewail in lamentation.
The word ay is used in Isiaih 13:22 and 34:14 when prophesying the destruction of Babylon:
"Jackals will howl in their fortified towers and wild dogs in their palaces."
The words 'wild dogs' in this passage is the word tannim in Hebrew, which has also been translated as dragons, which in connection with the ecliptic symbolism of this card might suggest that the two dogs also reference the dragons head and tail, the lunar nodes and their relationship to eclipses in the 19 year metonic cycle.
The pool in which diogenes dwells, whom we imagine telling the moon [Alexander the two horned?] to "move aside, your blocking the sun", may in Latin possibly be a lacuna or a lacus:
Lacuna = a hole, empty space / pond, pool / deficiency, loss
Lacus = a hollow / lake, pool, pond, trough, tank, tub.
The idea of a hole would fit in with the mystical concept of the eclipse forming a hole in space, a gateway to the heavens through which the mystic can ascend (or the divine drawn down); on the other hand the crafish in a tank or tub fits perhaps the idea of diogenes in his barrel.
The Man in the Moon
If moon is woman then the Man-In-the-Moon takes on an obvious sexual connotation that was found in literature and plays:
Anon. Arden (IV.2.22-29):
FERRYMAN: Then for this once let it be . midsummer moon,
but yet my wife has another moon.
FRANKLIN: Another moon?
FERRYMAN: Aye, and it has influences and eclipses.
ARDEN: Why then, by this reckoning you sometimes play the man / in the moon.
FERRYMAN: Aye, but you had not best to meddle with that moon
lest I scratch you by the face with my bramble-bush.
Shakes Midsummer Nights Dream: (V.1.250-252)
MOON: All that I have to say, is,
to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man i' the moon;
this thornbush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
Munday Huntington (VIII.173-74)
FITZ: By this construction,
she should be the Moon, / And you would be the man within the Moon.
There are several different images of the man in the moon, would you say this one recalls our favourite lunatic, ill matto?
The eclipse of the Sun, the conjunction of the Bride and Bridegroom, mixed as it is here with the concept of lamentation, calls to mind that part of the Osiris/Isis myth of the magical conception of Horus to Isis when she was in mourning [and perhaps there are parallels with the immaculate conception, the gateway of heaven between two pillars?]. I don't see this card primarily as being about 'horror and madness', but of initiation and rebirth, the realization of the illusionary nature of death and temporal time; a hierophany in which through the continuity of life the eternal is glimpsed.
"She carried the box back to Egypt and placed it in the house of the gods. She changed herself into a bird and flew about his body, singing a song of mourning. Then she perched upon him and cast a spell. The spirit of dead Osiris entered her and she did conceive and bear a son whose destiny it would be to avenge his father. She called the child Horus, and hid him on an island far away from the gaze of his uncle Seth."
There is to me much that reflects both dark and light aspects of the Moon in the Marseille Luna. Firstly, if as I believe this image does reflect the appearance of an eclipse [which as an image is perhaps more apparent in some decks than others], then we have in one image a symbol of both night and day; an aspect also reflected in their being a dark and a light dog, the moon hounds thus reflecting the fact that the Moon appears both during the night and during the day. The towers too can be seen as symbols of east and west which combines with what has already said in previous posts as to how we may see in this card the transience of temporal time, and thus not only of the transience of our sufferings but our joys also: as it is said, "This too will pass". So the Moon has 'swallowed' the Sun but it will emerge again'reborn' from the other side of the moon in its passing. But not only do we have the rebirth of the Sun, a solar eclipse can only occur during the three day period of the dark of the Moon, from whence the crone re-emerges as the maiden. So both Sun and Moon reflect the concept of rebirth and renewal. In the heavenly moon, the moon hounds of terra firma and the moon water creature we may also have a reference to the triple aspect of the moon having rule over the celestial world, the terrestrial and the underworld [artemis/diana; demeter and proserpine/hecate?].
Yes the card speaks of grief, of sorrows and lamentation; but that does not mean our vision should be limited by the confines of our temporal existence. The card to me reminds us of the continuity, the cycle of life; that death is not the opposite of life. For life, being eternal, is singular not dual and thus has no opposite. Yes there are sorrows and grief, but when you look down into the grave don't let your gaze remain fixated there as a profane worshipper of death, look up unto the vast eternity of heaven and remember, this too will pass.
I keep an aquarium, and though it is about 14 years since I last had any I have kept crayfish in the past, never more than one at a time as they are territorial and cannibalistic. One has to be careful of removing any leftover food after they have eaten as they hoard food [and thus may be said to symbolise foresight, prudence] which can pollute the tank. In respect of hoarding there is a hoarding behaviour pattern among some people, usually older adults living alone but not always, that has been given the name diogenes syndrome, though I think this is related to the philosopher, not the hoarding habits of the crayfish. I think the crayfish quite fascinating, and they can have quite beautiful colours, and once settled will feed from the hand [though they tend to move around mostly by a slow walk, they can swim backwards quite fast if startled].
Anyway, besides the possible reference to the hermit philosopher diogenes in the choice of crayfish, there is much else it may be said to symbolise as has been stated in the discussion of the crab. Though not a crab they are both crustaceans and come under the rulership of the moon, and much of what the one symbolises applies to the other.
One aspect I don't think has yet been mentioned, but which I feel reiterates the concept of renewal and rebirth as symbolised in some of the other imagery, is that a crayfishes leg will grow back if it lost through injury, thus too may symbolise regeneration; also as it grows it periodically sheds [molts] its outgrown shell [upto around 15 times in two years, 'out with the old, in with the new']. More than once I thought my crayfish had died only to realize it was the molted shell I wa looking at. After molting it is left with a very soft shell that leaves it very vulneralbe for the three days it takes for it too harden sufficiently to offer it protection, a time period recalling the three days of the dark of the moon.
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