Waxing and Waning of the Moon

In the Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus, a collection of legends about the planets, he describes that the moon, is the conveyor of the virtue of all the planets. The moon keeps us honest, down to earth, blessed with the common sense of farmer. The moon reflects in her striking and obvious transformation the progress of a personal lifetime: human life itself exhibits this lunar character. But is also suggests the dynamics of episodes in the personal life – the waxing and waning, the fullness and emptiness, the beginnings and endings which shape and tone the ways in which we embody the movements of soul becoming involved more intimately with the processes of psyche entails familiarity with these lunar phases: knowing the colours and aromas of beginning and of ending, recognising fullness for what is it – part of a rhythm, not a goal; and appreciating emptiness.

Traditionally, the moon is believed to empty itself as it approaches the sun and begins to wane. A Moon activity consists of an imaginative acknowledgement and appreciation of processes of ending: wane, rot, entropy, decay, and death. For Moon, as opposed to Saturn, it is emptying itself that is important and Saturnian fantasies might lead to an effort of preservation, keeping life the same forever, which is not too different from eternal death.

Part of being connecting to the sky, being celestial is to experience cycles of growth and decay, of light and darkness. A waning moon, drawing toward the three-day darkness of death. Part of the fertile imagination is the capacity for enduring the death of what has already been achieved. Without the phase of emptying, there can be no vital fullness. As Thomas Moore suggests, we do not have to imagine these moon rhythms as sequential plots in time but rather view them as archetypal images of the psyche. Waning or waxing, full moon or silver crescent may be sensed at any time reference to one of the many motions of the psyche. In lunar consciousness personal life is emptied as well as filled, a round that has much darkness as light.

To catching sight of obvious but extremely subtle signs of spirit in its progressed, like a seasoned farmer noticing without much display the brownish-orange to sandy colour and dip of an evening moon.

We have the entire sky within us : Luna symbolising the continuous motion of soul and body.

- The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino