The Moon: Association with Pisces?

ravenest

So, you are saying that the dung beetle relations to "Sun at Midnight = Pisces psychologically. Okay.

Not exactly , more the way I wrote it ; has SIMILARITIES to SOME psychological states 'Pisces type people' CAN find find themselves in. Pisces psychology itself has a muc much larger range than JUST dung beetle sun at midnight.

"I am the walrus, koo-koo-ki-choo"? :D Sorry. I don't buy it--because which, after all, is caterpillar/butterfly? The night or the moon? I only do zen thinking every other month.

Then you are in trouble and going to fins this difficult to comprehend. Lets de-Zen it.

If something, one viewing, or on one day, or when you are in a certain state of consciousness looks like a mountain .... and then it doesnt the next day, one can just get caught up in a dualistic argument ( like, is it the night, Moon, or modnight or a crab or a beetle .... its gotta be obne or the other ! ) .... or, one can think, maybe I am looking at something bigger here and my normal senses cant really comprehend it. I am just seeing parts of it and thinking that is he whole.

Do you know the tale of the men in the dark room wit an elephant ? Each field or column of correspondence is a different elephant (or some strange and unusual animal ), and particularly that field represented in Tarot by the Moon card ( because the very nature of the card itself is , amongst other things, about illusion, shifting images, reflections, underworld journeys, etc. ). Where the different men are feeling a trunk, the feet. the skin, one sees a great eye, they are all coming to different conclusions. Eventually, they put all the info together (or the light comes on ) and they work it out.

All the symbols are the parts, not the thing itself. The thing itself may be just as exotic and unknown as an elephant was to those men in the room, especially if they were not 'well travelled'. Many people I know would have been lost after the first sentence of this conversation, posts back. Look at the boards in UTC or something, people dont want to read tarot like this. They want to know what the Moon means because it came up when they asked the cards if their boyfriend still really likes them, and similar issues.


Context seems to be all--to me, Anubis is part of the underworld, met by the dead at the weighing of hearts. He is the psychopomp of that land. But I totally get that the Moon card is all about "creatures of the night" including bats, owls and wolves/dogs, therefore Anubis. So, okay. I get that it goes with the card and Pisces psychology.

Especially because in this case ...... its on that card ! An Anubis figure could be on the Death card too, but there it would have more of a Scorpio association. THis is totally in sync with the Egyptian use, by the way. Versions of Anubis meaning different things and different qualities are in different temples, same as the other Gods like Horus and Isis. But they are in 'fields' of similar energy, they do interpenetrate a bit, but also have divisions. So , for example , Anubis could relate to different areas that have to do with associations to the underworld, but he wouldnt be used in 'fields' of 'generation' of childbirth or fertility etc.

Nice of him to give that tip of a hat to the fishes ;)

Yes, wasnt it. As many tarot deck makers just show lunar symbolism and dont even but a pisces symbol on the card. ;)

Okay, look. If you put a Scarab on the card, or a crayfish, a reader is going to look at the Moon card and say "Cancer the crab!" Because they all know that Cancer is ruled by the moon and there are those symbols that say "Cancer. "

So, if the card is, instead, about all the midnight psychology and back-of-the-head (all cool stuff), then why not give it those elements and forego any associations to Cancer the crab? Likewise, if it's about Pisces, why not throw in a fish? --if the card is NOT assigned to Cancer, why muddy the waters with Cancerian iconography? Even if it *can* be related if we do certain complicated yoga poses?

Okay ... look ! :) ... try this bit again

"It takes it place as it is attributed to it ... but dont make the mistake that the card is about Pisces, just like it isnt just about the Moon, or the dark Moon. These are a range of associations used to describe an an energy / process.

Its a bit like the finger pointing to the Moon ..... the finger or indicators are not the thing itself . They all come together to indicate the thing, not to substitute it."

IE. A card, especially a Trump isnt about just one thing, a title, an astrological association, etc. All the symbols on the Emperor card dont just mean 'Emperor' they mean a range of things in that field.

I mean it would be nice to be able to explain the deeper esoteric meanings tarot has come to have for some people, in a simple one line definitive statement ... but it doesnt work like that. One can choose deep and esoteric, and go there, or choose surface and exoteric and swim on the surface . Mostly that will work ... the Moon card does create a bit of an 'undertow' though .... dragging deep down to the depths, one can just paddle on


http://www.timosart.com/GameArt/GoW_A_Vortex01.jpg ;)

Swims in the depths; her song can lure ships to wreck and men to drown...sounds pretty close to that Piscean psychology you outlined when you described those Piscean friends, drug addiction included. And, quite literally, she's half fish. So she at least waves the flag of being "something fishy." Honestly, I really don't care if it's a mermaid or a trout or a sign that say "Gone fishing'" so long as the card has something that says "oh, by the way, my astrological sign is Pisces, not Cancer...never mind the Beetle/Crayfish there, that relates to the fish too, but it's going to take a college degree and lots of googling to explain." ;)

Great ! ..... I retract and affirm, yes, it would be a good symbol ... better than writing your last sentence across the bottom of the card :D

I mean, I get the whole secret society thing where if you haven't gone through the hazings and know the secret handshakes you shouldn't be reading the cards because they're supposed to be "members only!" But is it too much to ask for a fish or two in AS promenade a position as the Cancer/Moon iconography just to ease confusion? :D

Not only 'members' , thats just on that level. Deeper connections can be made by anyone who has studied the background subjects in hermetics. But not exoteric readers who play on the surface.

You dont need a college degree either . One can start here

http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/magic/Agrippa1.pdf

(... even just the first part of the first paragraph )
 

Thirteen

Postmodern

Then you are in trouble and going to fins this difficult to comprehend. Lets de-Zen it.
Heh. No, I get it (got it)—I think. "And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun..." I mean, yes, we can deconstruct down to astronomy terms: everything is made from the same big bang and therefore it's all the same thing. People, animals, planets, stars, dark matter, etc. As you say, Elephant, not parts of elephant. Caterpillar and butterfly the same even though they look different. But if we're going in *that* direction, we might as well have one blank card rather than a deck of them. We *do* have deck of them and those who created that deck *did* make distinctions between the finger pointing and what it was pointing at. They just went for a larger finger. :joke:

Also, there are cards where, even with all the moving parts, we can see the elephant entire. The Sun card is a good example. It's title, it's central, eponymous icon, the sunflower motif, the rotating zodiac (planets), on-and-on, it's all the Sun. Parts and whole. But the Moon strikes me as someone who cut up the elephant and put the parts around the room. It's kinda hard to see the whole elephant when the tusks are on the mantle, the legs have been made into ottomans and the hide is now a pair of curtains. Which is to say, I don't know if the bind men and the elephant metaphor works because I'm not quite sure the Moon card presents a unified whole of any kind. What is the whole? Night time with the moon as one of its parts? But there are moonless nights and if the moon vanished tomorrow, we'd still have nighttime. Daytime, by compare, exists only because we're facing the Sun. So, daytime-and-sun work if we're talking caterpillar-butterfly, or elephant parts = elephant. But if we're arguing that the moon is part of the night, then that's not entirely true.

So, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the Cancerian iconography, and even the name of the card, is essential to get across all that back-of-the-head, midnight, Piscean thematic stuff. I mean, yes, all the cards are stuffed to overflowing with iconography of all sorts, from number to hebrew letter to colors, etc. Damn Edwardians were clutter happy when it came to decorating their homes and tarot cards. :D

And I will grant that I am bias to a more modernist approach. When I look at the cards, I try to distill them down to a more elegant and unified symbol, if only at first glance. But even if I try not to do this, the Moon is troubling because it doesn't want to offer a whole of anything. This whole conversation is coming across to me this way: there is card named "Piano" with a Piano as it's focal image. I say, "So it's about music, right?" And you say, "No, it's about elephants." HUH? "The keys are elephant ivory, and the title of the score n the piano is 'Baby elephant walk,'" you point out to me. "But, but, but... it's a piano! It's name is 'Piano!'"

And you shake your head and say, "That piano is only one part of the whole card. Can't you see the elephant in the room?" :D

Maybe I should view all this from a postmodern perspective? :cool:
 

Babalon Jones

Heh. No, I get it (got it)—So, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the Cancerian iconography, and even the name of the card, is essential to get across all that back-of-the-head, midnight, Piscean thematic stuff. I mean, yes, all the cards are stuffed to overflowing with iconography of all sorts, from number to hebrew letter to colors, etc. Damn Edwardians were clutter happy when it came to decorating their homes and tarot cards. :D

Maybe it was intentional, in that they (the Edwardians, and others) were trying to simultaneously describe the card as both "Pisces", the night, witchcraft, the dark moon, etc. but also at the same time as "the actual Moon" more aligned with the sign of Cancer and the Chariot, and strangely also why it is aligned also with Scorpio as Death, and the Priestess as Moon.

And I will grant that I am bias to a more modernist approach. When I look at the cards, I try to distill them down to a more elegant and unified symbol, if only at first glance. But even if I try not to do this, the Moon is troubling because it doesn't want to offer a whole of anything. It really is like the card was named "elephant" but the only evidence of an elephant is a piano with ivory keys. You'd think it should be named "Piano," but no, it's called "Elephant" because of the keys, and the musical score which happens to be "Baby Elephant Walk."

Maybe I should view it as postmodernist? :cool:

I think if you simplify the Moon card, you are doing it an injustice. It is meant to be the way it is.
 

Thirteen

I think if you simplify the Moon card, you are doing it an injustice. It is meant to be the way it is.
Actually, I realized that I wrote up that example wrong. I re-wrote it to make more sense of my confusion. I don't mean to frustrate you with all this; and I promise I'm not trying to simplify things for the sake of simplifying. I don't want any card to be merely "x" and only "x." That serves no one, not even beginners. But there does come a point where one has to ask, "is all this complexity necessary? Is there anyway to distill this grand and layered message down a bit?" The answer to that might be "no." But poets and artists have certainly found ways to distill some very complex and layered ideas down to amazing compact and simplistic seeming poems/works of art.

Obviously, all decks are what they are, and none of my concerns are going to change that. My aim, however, in asking all these questions isn't to do the Moon card or any other an injustice. It's to find a way to pass on some of this to beginners in as small and manageable a bite as possible. Hopefully *without* losing too much of that complexity. As the way readers learn the cards is pretty much all at once, there is no telling them to put aside uber-complex cards like the Moon till later. So I kinda-sorta-hafta find a way to simplify it, however unjust that may be to the card, if I want to help beginners understand it at all.
 

Babalon Jones

Actually, I realized that I wrote up that example wrong. I re-wrote it to make more sense of my confusion. I don't mean to frustrate you with all this; and I promise I'm not trying to simplify things for the sake of simplifying. I don't want any card to be merely "x" and only "x." That serves no one, not even beginners. But there does come a point where one has to ask, "is all this complexity necessary? Is there anyway to distill this grand and layered message down a bit?" The answer to that might be "no." But poets and artists have certainly found ways to distill some very complex and layered ideas down to amazing compact and simplistic seeming poems/works of art.

Obviously, all decks are what they are, and none of my concerns are going to change that. My aim, however, in asking all these questions isn't to do the Moon card or any other an injustice. It's to find a way to pass on some of this to beginners in as small and manageable a bite as possible. Hopefully *without* losing too much of that complexity. As the way readers learn the cards is pretty much all at once, there is no telling them to put aside uber-complex cards like the Moon till later. So I kinda-sorta-hafta find a way to simplify it, however unjust that may be to the card, if I want to help beginners understand it at all.
I totally get what you are saying! if though I had to explain the Moon card to a beginner, this ambiguity would be part of the explanation.
 

ravenest

Heh. No, I get it (got it)—I think. "And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun..." I mean, yes, we can deconstruct down to astronomy terms: everything is made from the same big bang and therefore it's all the same thing. People, animals, planets, stars, dark matter, etc. As you say, Elephant, not parts of elephant. Caterpillar and butterfly the same even though they look different. But if we're going in *that* direction, we might as well have one blank card rather than a deck of them. We *do* have deck of them and those who created that deck *did* make distinctions between the finger pointing and what it was pointing at. They just went for a larger finger. :joke:

:)

Dont forget its not all 'god-goo', there are divisions between levels. Extension and separation of 'Platonic Forms' and all that stuff. In this case, we have 22 levels or 78 in a full deck, Liber 777 collates things into 32 levels ... the I Ching 64 ( a basic 8 , a duality of 4, etc. )

Not sure if that is what John meant ?


Also, there are cards where, even with all the moving parts, we can see the elephant entire. The Sun card is a good example. It's title, it's central, eponymous icon, the sunflower motif, the rotating zodiac (planets), on-and-on, it's all the Sun.

Of course ! The Sun is about things like that , the Moon is more 'obscured' at times.

Parts and whole. But the Moon strikes me as someone who cut up the elephant and put the parts around the room. It's kinda hard to see the whole elephant when the tusks are on the mantle, the legs have been made into ottomans and the hide is now a pair of curtains.

You just saw one way of how an elephant looks ( and the Moon Card looks ) 'on the astral plane' . That level of the astral also relates to the Moon Card.

Which is to say, I don't know if the bind men and the elephant metaphor works because I'm not quite sure the Moon card presents a unified whole of any kind. What is the whole?

The whole is everything in that field dependant on what 'level' you are on .

Let's work backwards. The issue could be we are tying to see the field in the Moon Card, one of the fields aspects.

Going back a bit further ; the Pisces association came about by matching the Hebrew Letters to the zodiac, in an order ( as Richard pointed out ) . So really, and in this system (and thats where I am trying to stay - hermetically , in Thoth GD ) one has to use the letters as the key and not the card.

So the whole field is the field of Qoph , in a way ( I like to stip it back more and see Qoph as a desricptive element ... we could call the field, number or 'key scale 29

Here is your 'field' where the things listed are 'magically connected' (why ? go back to Agrippa, Three Books ... first paragraph )


http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Path_of_Qoph

Just swap 'star' for Moon :D .... oh dear !

Night time with the moon as one of its parts? But there are moonless nights and if the moon vanished tomorrow, we'd still have nighttime. Daytime, by compare, exists only because we're facing the Sun. So, daytime-and-sun work if we're talking caterpillar-butterfly, or elephant parts = elephant. But if we're arguing that the moon is part of the night, then that's not entirely true.

Wonderful ! Now we could move on to some more defining issues ? Why is that crawdad going out creeping tonight ? Its not the phase of the moon its its position. Whether it can be seen or not the Moon regulates animal life and nature . But its the stations of the Moon; 0, 90, 180 .... Moonrise, Moon midheaven (IC) , Moonset, Moon 'underfoot' IC or Moon midnight. Fish feed at Moon midnight ... even in my indoor tank.

There are other Moon cycles as well, in biodynamics we use 6main ones

http://www.biodynamics.in/Rhythm.htm

They all separate , re join, peak and trough together and apart at different times (look at the curved lines on the bottom of the card) .

So, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the Cancerian iconography, and even the name of the card, is essential to get across all that back-of-the-head, midnight, Piscean thematic stuff.

They are all part of the Qoph stuff. :)

And I will grant that I am bias to a more modernist approach. When I look at the cards, I try to distill them down to a more elegant and unified symbol, if only at first glance. But even if I try not to do this, the Moon is troubling because it doesn't want to offer a whole of anything.

She is a damn difficult and illusive lady :)

This whole conversation is coming across to me this way: there is card named "Piano" with a Piano as it's focal image. I say, "So it's about music, right?" And you say, "No, it's about elephants." HUH? "The keys are elephant ivory, and the title of the score n the piano is 'Baby elephant walk,'" you point out to me. "But, but, but... it's a piano! It's name is 'Piano!'"

And you shake your head and say, "That piano is only one part of the whole card. Can't you see the elephant in the room?" :D

No no no .... I would never !

I might do this . I cant take you to the elephant but come in here < takes her into a room with a piano >

"No no ... that is a piano ! "

"Okay, but hold on a minute .... sit down and listen to this < plays Baby Elephant Walk >

"No, thats not an elephant thats music ."

"Ah ... but its a baby elephant . close your eyes and listen ! "

"Still sounds like an music and looks like a piano ."

"But the piano is a bit 'elephanty ' .... see the ivory keys ."

"That's ridiculous ... you old romantic .... shove over ... I'm hittin' it post-modern , "

< plays Vlastimir Trajković's Piano concerto in C-sharp major >

Maybe I should view all this from a postmodern perspective? :cool:


and what would that be ( Post modern you say ? < leans forward and lifts his listenin' horn to his ear > ) ?
 

ravenest

Actually, I realized that I wrote up that example wrong. I re-wrote it to make more sense of my confusion. I don't mean to frustrate you with all this; and I promise I'm not trying to simplify things for the sake of simplifying. I don't want any card to be merely "x" and only "x." That serves no one, not even beginners. But there does come a point where one has to ask, "is all this complexity necessary? Is there anyway to distill this grand and layered message down a bit?" The answer to that might be "no." But poets and artists have certainly found ways to distill some very complex and layered ideas down to amazing compact and simplistic seeming poems/works of art.

Obviously, all decks are what they are, and none of my concerns are going to change that. My aim, however, in asking all these questions isn't to do the Moon card or any other an injustice. It's to find a way to pass on some of this to beginners in as small and manageable a bite as possible. Hopefully *without* losing too much of that complexity. As the way readers learn the cards is pretty much all at once, there is no telling them to put aside uber-complex cards like the Moon till later. So I kinda-sorta-hafta find a way to simplify it, however unjust that may be to the card, if I want to help beginners understand it at all.

But thats simple ! Just tell them its the Moon and go with the Moon .

If they want to get complex and ask about pisces , tell them about the matching in order with hebrew letters and cards that were done. If they want more then they go down the path we have here.

No one is saying it HAS to be this way ..... it can be simple and Moon .... but THIS way .... well, you walk in ,,, and the big door starts to slowly close behind you and ....


:D
 

ravenest

I totally get what you are saying! if though I had to explain the Moon card to a beginner, this ambiguity would be part of the explanation.

Great start ! "Well, its a tricky one and ambiguous .... " :thumbsup:
 

kwaw

The Sun card is a good example. It's title, it's central, eponymous icon, the sunflower motif, the rotating zodiac (planets), on-and-on, it's all the Sun.

Well, not entirely - there are the twin children, which astrologically one would associate with Gemini (in the TdM pattern, they are even posed as one can find in woodcut illustrations of Gemini). Twins are also on the BoT Lovers card (which is attributed to Gemini).

What is puzzling, is that the GD felt justified in switching Justice and Strength on astrological grounds (the presence of a lion in one and scales in the other), but didn't apply the same logic to other cards, such as the Moon, with as much even not even stronger clear astrological associations. The reasoning/justification has only been selectively applied.
 

ravenest

I mentioned this before ..... if we make the Moon the Moon.

What do we do with Pisces and the HPS ?

(I am sure it isnt a puzzle and there are a few answers , just curious is all . )



...... is there a system that does collate Moon with Moon ?