Planet-wide, the moon is a universal symbol of the Divine Feminine: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Astrologically, the moon represents the dark, feminine, emotional side of nature. The phases of the moon coincide with human menstrual cycles, and with ocean tides, thus connecting it to the sea and all of its attendant goddesses. Countless cultures have revered her, and modern patriarchal culture has both feared and maligned her. The moon is also associated with sexual and gender variance in many traditions, especially in its relation to men.
The phases of the moon are one of humankind's best and most ancient means of measuring time. "Moon," "menses," and "month" all share the same root, meaning to measure. The Hebrew, Mohammedan, and many indigenous calendars are based on lunar cycles, not solar, and even the dates of some Christian holidays, like Easter, are determined by the moon. The waxing moon is called the right hand moon: if you spread your thumb and forefinger and look at the back of your right hand, you will see they form a right hand crescent. The opposite, of course, is true for the left hand, and the waning moon is named accordingly. In patriarchal culture, the left-hand is vilified, associated with evil, perversity, and women.
In western Pagan traditions, such as Wicca, the year is divided into twenty-one holidays: 13 esbats, celebrated on the full moon, and 8 sabbats, celebrated at equinoxes, solstices, and the half-way points between them, called cross-quarter days. The new or dark moon is seen as a time for inception, of mysteries being born in the dark; as the moon waxes, the time is ripe for taking things on, and celebrating the new. The full moon is a time of giving thanks, and celebrating abundance. As the moon wanes, what is outmoded is left behind: death is acknowledged as both an end and a beginning, in the endless cycling and recycling that is life.
The Moon: A View From Earth
- In the Basque language, the word for "deity" and "moon" are the same.
- From the natives of North America: the Sioux call the moon "The Old Woman Who Never Dies;" the Iroquois call her "The Eternal One;" for the Lipa Apache, she is "Changing Woman." The Chehalis "Changer" is a creator/transformer moon-god; for the Tillamook, a moon-goddess. For the Cora, both moon and sun are man and woman together.
- The Bakairi of Brazil see the phases of the moon as being caused by animals who gnaw at it.
- Ancient rulers of the Tutsis were called "Mwezi," meaning "moon."
- In Greek, "menos" means both "moon" and "power."
- In Polynesia, the first woman, the Creatress, is Hina, "moon."
- In the Andaman Islands, the waxing moon is male, the waning moon female.
- The Greek writer Lucian tells of a journey to the moon, which is inhabited entirely by homosexual men who give birth through the calves in their legs.
- The Elysian Fields were sometimes said to be on the moon.
- In the Vedas, souls are devoured my maternal spirits on the moon after death.
- In Gurdjieff's cosmology, souls who do not develop consciousness are food for the moon.
- The Maoris called their moon-mother "man-eater." (They followed suit.)
- In Isaiah 3:18, the women of Zion were denounced for wearing lunar amulets.
- The Naassians - a Gnostic sect - believed in a primordial being called "the heavenly horn of the moon."
- Bushmen say the moon on its back is an omen of death.
- In China, to "admire the full moon" is to check out a homo's butt.