Lunar Month Look-Ahead Spread

Barleywine

The discussion we've been having about the Full Moon on the Summer Solstice, along with the interesting idea of using the Deviant Moon deck to explore its meaning, prompted me to create a spread for looking at the upcoming lunar month in a general way to see what it might hold.

Back in 1967, the psychological astrologer Dane Rudhyar wrote a book called The Lunation Cycle that separated the monthly transit of the Moon through the zodiac into 8 stages, the traditional four (New, First Quarter, Full, Last Quarter) plus four intermediate phases (Crescent, Gibbous, Disseminating and Balsamic). His purpose was to examine 8 "personality types," but I see it as a way to use the cards to express attitudes and situations that might prevail during the course of a month.

First things first: the cycle starts with the day of the New Moon, not the first day of the month (unless they coincide). Each of the 8 phases lasts around 3.5 days (using the sidereal cycle).

The "quarters" basically show the square aspect between the Sun and the Moon, which is a stressful time astrologically. So I fashioned those into two "crisis" intervals followed by "resolution" episodes. These would not always blow up into crises, they just suggest sensitive points that agree with standard astrological practice.

I set up a "divisions of life" model that follows the usual meanings of the suits and elements. Cards representing any one of those qualities would be read as indicators of an area of life that is in "high focus" during the 3.5 day period of its influence.

Another thought I had is to deal out four cards in each position and treat them as a mini "life reading" for the few days of each phase. It might also be reasonable to use the different phases as "target" periods in the upcoming month during which the approaches suggested by the position titles could be pursued using the energy offered by the cards.

I'll be working on a more detailed interpretive guide for my self-published workbook. Have fun with it!
 

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earthshine

I love this spread! I posted a reading of it here on the forum. I find it very helpful and insightful.
 

sweetcherise13

Great spread Barleywine! I was looking for something of this nature. :thumbsup:
 

Barleywine

Glad you both appreciated it. I have a page or two of written guidance for this spread, but I'm leery of putting copyright-able content on here that I intend to use in my own publication.
 

fortunato1951

Moon 8 card spread

Did you incorporate some of Dane Rudhyar's philosophy concerning the 8 moons in your page or two analysis of the spread ? Seems like a great spread.

Found this by Dane Rudhyar (from The Lunation Cycle)....think it can be applied in general to the spread

" At the New Moon, the Moon is united, as it were, with the Sun (i.e., in conjunction). It is being impregnated by the ray of the Sun. This ray of spirit impresses upon it a new purpose, a new act of spiritual will, a new creative impulse — indeed, a new answer to a vital need which had become outstanding at the close of the lunation cycle just ended.

Spirit is that which provides answers to every vital need, solutions to the pressing problems of living organisms and human personalities born of the earth. But these answers to needs and prayers, these spirit-emanated solutions must be made understandable and acceptable for human beings. They must be formed or formulated as new techniques, new organizations, new words, ideas or laws. It is as the light of the Moon waxes toward Full Moon that this process of organic and social formation or intellectual-mental foundation takes place.

At Full Moon, this process reaches a climax and fulfillment or else the failure of the process is revealed and separation or disintegration begins. If there has been fulfillment, then the purpose released at the New Moon, as an act of spirit and a creative impulse from the heart of the Sun, now becomes a conscious realization, an objective image, a clear concept, a "vision" or illumination. As the light of the Moon wanes, what has been fully realized has to be disseminated. The consciousness of the illumined individual, of the clear mind is to be spread among men. New systems, new meanings, new philosophies are to be built.

The individual can live consciously what he "saw" because his mind, once truly awakened or illumined, has power over material substances and organic processes, because the clearly realized meaning can indeed transform both the past — which, by becoming significant, is entirely renewed or "redeemed" — and the future — which is determined according to the character of the understanding (positive or negative, constructive or destructive, as the case may be) which the individual has extracted from his previous experiences.

What has been left undone during a cycle is responsible for new needs or problems arising as the last phases of the lunation cycle occur. The failures have to be dissolved, the inertia challenged; the ineffectual techniques have to be given up. The last quarter phase of the lunation cycle is filled with revolutionary challenges, reform, self-overcoming, self-sacrifice; these total up to new essential needs, for which the creative Sun-ray, impregnating the Moon at the New Moon, will once more give solutions and harmonizing, healing answers. "

Thanks again for the spread !!!
 

Barleywine

Did you incorporate some of Dane Rudhyar's philosophy concerning the 8 moons in your page or two analysis of the spread ? Seems like a great spread.

The challenge with Rudhyar is to take his elaborate psychological musings and turn them into pragmatic meaning. I found Marc Robertson's Cosmopsychology a little more accessible in the area of phase relationships. But to answer your question, beyond looking at the waxing and waning hemi-cycles and the idea of fulfillment, I didn't take much of anything directly from Rudhyar.
 

fortunato1951

Lunar Month Look Ahead

Ty Barleywine...will check out Robertson !
 

CosmicBeing

Could the cards represent events? I did the spread yet to translate it.

I did one card for each position. Each phase seems to be lasting 3 to 4 days.
 

Luna's Crone

it would be nice if this where in English. sigh.

a workbook sounds great.
 

Barleywine

Could the cards represent events? I did the spread yet to translate it.

I did one card for each position. Each phase seems to be lasting 3 to 4 days.

Approximately 3.5 days for each intermediate phase is correct; each quarter-moon semi-cycle is roughly 7 days. The Moon's full orbital (or sidereal) cycle is around 28 days. I don't normally think of the phase changes as signifying events, more as "preconditioning" for events, especially the Quarter Moons, which are basically astrological Sun-Moon squares. This is why I suggested the First and Last Quarters as potential "crisis" periods, although not usually anything more than mildly elevated stress. Full Moons I find empowering since they echo my Full Moon birth.