← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 28/235
Moon
Listen to this article
The Moon is the closest body to us and the fastest-moving light in the sky, and in a chart it stands for what is closest and most immediate in a life: the body, instinct, mood, habit and memory. It describes what a person needs in order to feel safe and fed, how they respond before they have had time to think, and the rhythms of daily life. The tradition gives it mothers, women in general, the public and the crowd, and all things that change and return.
Nature
The Moon is cold and moist, feminine and nocturnal — the leader of the night sect, with Venus and Mars. It is the second luminary. Early authors also noted that its quality shifts with its phase: warm in the waxing half of the month, cold in the waning half, passing through all four qualities from one New Moon to the next. Its virtues are adaptability, care and responsiveness; its faults, inconstancy and wavering.
Signs it rules and where it is strong or weak
Its domicile is Cancer. It is in exaltation in Taurus, traditionally at 3°, where its changeable nature is steadied. It is in detriment in Capricorn and in its fall in Scorpio. Modern astrology keeps the same scheme.
Motion
The Moon moves between about 12 and 15 degrees a day and stays in each sign roughly two and a half days, completing the zodiac in about 27 days and returning to the Sun every 29½ days. It is never retrograde, because it orbits the Earth itself: we are never overtaking it. Its cycle with the Sun gives the phases — from New Moon through first quarter to Full Moon and back — and when a New or Full Moon falls near the lunar nodes, an eclipse. After its last major aspect in a sign, before it enters the next, the Moon is said to be void of course, a time the tradition treats as poor for beginning things.
In a chart
The Moon's sign describes the emotional temperament and what comforts; its house, where a person most looks for security and belonging. A Moon in the 4th leans toward home and family, in the 10th toward a life lived in public view, in the 7th toward finding steadiness through others. In a night chart (Sun below the horizon) the Moon leads its sect and its condition matters all the more.
In transit
Because it is so quick, the transiting Moon colours hours rather than years — the mood of a day, the right moment for a small task. Its monthly passage over natal planets is a reliable, minor rhythm. The progressed Moon, moving about a degree a month, is far slower and is often read as the emotional weather of a two-and-a-half-year chapter. The Almanac's Moon panel follows the transiting Moon day by day: her phase, sign, distance, whether she is void of course, and the traditional lore attached to each — see planting by the Moon and the zodiac man.
In the tarot
The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow.
Major Arcana: The High Priestess
Decans it rules: Six of Pentacles (Taurus 10°–20°), Four of Cups (Cancer 20°–30°), Two of Swords (Libra 0°–10°), Nine of Wands (Sagittarius 10°–20°), Seven of Swords (Aquarius 20°–30°)