18. The Moon
i. The Nutshell
Upright
The Moon dissolves the edges of things you thought you understood. Nothing is quite what it seems with this card. Your reflection makes animal shapes, it ripples, the shadows breathe, and the road ahead glitters like a mirage that vanishes in the same moment. This is your calling to feel your way forward without a script.
When The Moon rises, your inner world of dreams, instincts and fears gets louder. You’re in the theatre of your mind where each of your alter egos has something to say. Stay present like you’re watching a new sci fi on Netflix because this is where you get to see what scares you, and that some of that is purely your imagination in overdrive. Despite all this, The Moon wants you to walk the path anyway. To stop demanding proof and start learning the language of intuition, uncertainty and the wisdom that can only be felt. You may feel like your anchor isn’t holding but that’s often what real change feels like before it introduces itself properly.
Keywords: Intuition, dreams, illusion, uncertainty, subconscious, parallel universe, soul memories
Translation: Trust the part of you that’s been here before.
Reversed
The Moon reversed is what happens when you attempt to gaslight your own intuition. You're feeling off - and writing it off. You're calling it confusion, but deep down you know exactly which truth you're dodging. This reversal suggests you're stuck in a fog of your own making, or inherited patterns pretending to be facts. Maybe you’re spinning through old fears, over-identifying with your anxiety, or owning someone else’s narrative because yours feels too ‘out-there’ to trust. It's a call to stop outsourcing your knowing. You're not losing your mind - you're losing that alter-ego.
Alternatively, The Moon reversed might mean the scotch mist is finally starting to lift. You’re squinting in the half-light and seeing the outlines of something more resonant. It’s not in your full beam yet but you’ve become accustomed to finding your way in the dark and know to trust this is the beginning of what it feels like to trust your intuition.
Keywords: Fear, confusion, denial, intuition blocked or returning
Translation: You’re in the deep end of your own psyche so tread water and notice.
ii. Illus-traits
A quick symbolic breakdown of The Moon in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck - what do you need to be at peace with to face uncertainties?
The Moon - Illumination with mood swings. The path is warped and cast in shadow. Feel your way through.
Dog and Wolf - Instincts that are tame versus wild. One knows the rules, the other howls at them. Both are valid but neither has the full picture.
Crawfish - Psyche surfacing. What’s usually hidden is now crawling into consciousness. Get curious.
Water - The unconscious is reflecting and distorting. You’re looking through your emotions to find the truth.
Twin Towers - You’re in-between realities now. This is the initiation of arrival.
Winding Path - Not a straight line in sight. Progress can feel like a u-turn until you see you were always on the right path.
iii. Influences
Planetary
Naturally, the Moon is ruled by the Moon - our emotional hub and the queen of tides, moods and mysteriously misplaced objects. This planetary influence moves with secret hints and hunches and by doing this, logic loses its grip and your night terrors start writing the agenda. You’re being asked to trust what you feel in the dark, not what you can prove in daylight.
Natal House(s)
The Moon draws a veil between the Fourth House of roots, safety, and ancestral memory, and the Twelfth House of dreams, breakdowns and what psychologists institutionally call the subconscious. However, The Moon activates the internal terrain where your illusions masquerade as insight and your beloved childhood soul-buddy pet might visit you in a dream to deliver life advice. Which will you listen to?
Astrological Sign(s)
The Moon card is linked to Pisces who’s the empath, mystic and emotional sponge. Pisces prefers to swim through life absorbing signals. This card shares the signature of blending reality into poetry and dissolving facts into feelings.
Numerologically
The Moon is card 18, which reduces to 9; the number of culmination, inner wisdom, humanitarianism and distant revelations that only make sense three weeks later. It’s the Hermit’s lantern flickering at the edge of that lucid dream. There’s something you’re meant to see here, but you’ll have put your specs down and stop looking for the tangible because the third eye doesn’t need to correct its vision.
Element
As a Water card, The Moon swims in the depths of feeling, intuition and surrealism. This isn’t healing you can measure easily; it comes through tears, outbursts, strange feelings, chills, tingling in your head, and the feeling that your past just smiled at you. Park the intellectualising and listen to what your body or dreams are trying to communicate by keeping a dream diary and deciphering the next day.
iv. A Day in the Life of The Star
Well That Escalated Quickly
You feel like you’ve wandered into a haunted house with no Selenite and the overwhelming feeling that your so-called intuition might be undermining your best interests. You’re not sure if you’re having a breakdown or just vibing on smoke signals. Dreams are weird, your gut feelings feel like gastro, and every tarot pull looks like a high school dare. You're suspicious of anyone who uses the word ‘journey’ and your shadow self is now hosting nightly pep talks you never asked for. Nothing makes sense, everything feels symbolic, and you’ve started yelling ‘Over it! Just tell me in plain English!.’
Adjusting the Knobs
The weird dreams are still happening, but now they come with subtitles. You’re less terrified and more cautiously intrigued, like maybe this is a metaphor. You’ve stopped trying to decode everything with logic and started writing things down just in case they mean something later when the dots add up. The veil is still there, but you've made small openings in it. Your emotions are still in control, but you've accepted that your inner world is like a quirky shop and you’re accepting the treasure in the unconventionality.
Unsubscribed from Self-Sabotage
You’re embracing your inner moon-child and your coping mechanisms now include poetry. You’re noticing patterns, trusting hunches, and occasionally catching yourself knowing. Your boundaries are stronger now, and you're beginning to feel like yourself again, if 'yourself' means a wise hermit learning to rest, experience emotions, and trust your dreams instead of outside opinions.
Writing the TED Talk
You’re now drawn to mysteries, made peace with uncertainty, and flirt with your instincts. Your shadow and your higher self now car-pool. You don’t need to know where you’re going because your intuition has it’s own satellite. You’ve realised perspective is sometimes intentionally murky, strange and slow but as you’re now fluent in the dark, you trust that.
v. Working with these Energies
Living The Moon by Illuminating the Night
The Moon offers mystery, mood swings and metaphors that haunt your dreams. For a dream example, think being a passenger in an open top bus that’s hurtling down a narrow cobbled street, dodging boulders of ice that look like giant Elestial Quartz, with a scary driver that laughs as he throws your luggage out the window. This perceives a lack of control of imminent change that’s leaving something behind in your current life. It wants you to get your driving license and take the wheel because you feel the change coming but your anxiety is driving the bus of denial, and it’s leaving whether you’re driving or not, but it’s better to be. The Moon archetype is a psychic treasure map scribbled in disappearing ink. You're not heading in a straight line because you never were to begin with. You're meandering through that cobbled town of your own psyche, led by moonlight.
1. Decode the Dreams
- What’s your anxiety pointing at in the moonlight?
- What fears are being projected as intuition?
- Are you interpreting the signs or reaching for another coffee?
2. Massage Your Shadow
- What emotions are you only allowing to visit after midnight?
- Where have you been trying to out-logic something that needs to be felt?
- What if your confusion is just the cocoon part?
3. Gently Release the Defenses
- If your inner child took that bus wheel today, what route would they choose?
- What roles or identities are overdue for a fade-out?
- Where can you be ‘weird’ without immediately self-editing?
4. Trust the Blur
- What would it feel like to let your life unfold without demanding immediate meaning?
- Which mysteries are requests to commit to strengthening your intuition?
- Can you be okay not knowing, and let intuition fill in the blanks?
5. Stay in the Dream Loop
- What recurring themes or synchronicities keep knocking on the door of your subconscious?
- Where does your heart and/or body say yes whilst your brain insists on overthinking?
- What small practise helps you reconnect when reality gets too pointed?
vi. Building Skills
How to Function When Everything Feels Like an Alternative Reality
Practice Emotional Cartography
Track moods like weather patterns instead of failures
Use journaling, dream logs, or voice notes to catch subconscious thoughts
Learn to name your feelings before they hire a marching band
Strengthen Inner Signal Reception
Meditate to hear your superconscious, aka your soul’s knowing or higher self
Try breath work or body scans to distinguish intuition from indigestion
Trust the subtle yes/no in your gut more than the overthinking monologue
Create Ritual Anchors
Choose 2-3 daily practices that equal safety such as tea, candles and grounding touch
Make your space beautifully existential so your psyche feels seen
Ditch strict routines and build habits that anchor you in the present moment
Develop Symbolic Literacy
Notice recurring images, metaphors, and motifs in your life
Trusting synchronicities reinforces the value of your intuition, especially when logic fails.
Interpret and understand but resist attaching and gripping. Divine flow needs to flow. If you go through life like it’s a white-knuckle ride, your claw-like hand is unable to open to receive.
Gently Apply Reality Checks
Keep a trusted friend on call for when your brain spirals.
The heart doesn’t lie - it flags genuine feelings and reveals old fear patterns. The key is learning to tell the difference.
A nap isn’t just for grandmas; it can be very helpful. A tartan blanket is optional, but very nice.
vii. Embodiment
Learn to See in the Dark. The Moon offers atmosphere, unraveling and revelations. You’re still here, a little feral, slightly cross-eyed from over-analysing signs, but intact. You’re now adapting to twilight logic and marrying your instincts.
Smell:
What does mystery smell like? Smoke or scent on another plane of existence, or the memory of someone you haven’t met yet. Take it in. This is what it means to be alive in the middle of the in-between; tracking truth by scent and uncertainty.
Body:
Where does your intuition live today? In your gut, your neck, that sudden twitch in your left or right eye? Scan yourself and lay a hand over the message; accepting any discomfort as being temporary. Your body is communicating and it knows you’ll pay attention to discomfort, so acknowledging it by asking what it’s communicating is the best way to clue-in.
Soundtrack:
Choose instrumental music that sounds like the inside of your dreams. Vibrations that speak to your bones in a language older than words. Let it hold your mood and feel the answer.
Action:
What’s one practice that grounds you? A salt bath by candlelight? Telling your worries to your cat? Drawing a boundary with someone who swears they’re just being honest?
Nature Cue:
Find the moon, a mirror, or a body of water. Stare. Reflect. Repeat. Watch how the surface changes with the slightest shift. That’s your psyche.
Notice What’s Dreaming You:
The Moon asks what’s becoming. What part of you is shapeshifting? What truth feels too wild to say out loud, but refuses to leave? That’s the next version of you. Let the Moon show you how to navigate by memory.
viii. Your Impressions
Look at The Moon card in your own deck if possible. Take a moment to observe without overthinking.
Where does your focus rest? The moon above, both full and crescent at once? The wolf, the dog, the crawfish crawling out of the subconscious billabong? It’s all intentionally fluid.
Notice what stirs in you. Is it unease at the lack of answers? A strange ambiguous comfort? A gut-deep pull toward something you can’t explain but absolutely feel? Let it surface.
Now check your body. Are you holding your breath without realising it? Is your heart moving to an older rhythm beneath your logic? Maybe there's a sense of knowing trying to creep in.
The Moon asks you to feel it out; one dream-fragment at a time.
ix. Intuitive Meaning
This card can indicate the moment you realise the shift is a new normal, especially if it’s become a ‘stalker card’ (repeatedly shows up). Become curious as to what stories you’re currently telling yourself about whatever situation is wanting your attention.
When have you trusted a hunch or gut feeling and been right in an unpredictable way?
Where are you confusing emotional autopilot for safety?
What uncomfortable truth about your emotions are you ready to accept?
Applied Insight – Three-Card Reading with The Moon as Your North Node
What fear is disguising itself as fact?
What instinct wants to be trusted even if you can’t explain it?
What hidden part of you is surfacing ready to be understood?
Pull or shuffle-fling your cards and note your feelings. Take your time and let the answers unfold. Write three ‘you’ words that relate to your current experience:
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x. Closing Reflection: Track Your Evolving Lens
Your relationship with each card will grow over time because it’s meant to shaped by your life. Consider the prompts below to revisit and reflect.
What I thought this card meant when I first pulled it: —————————————————
A recent experience that changed how I see it: —————————————————
How I feel about it now, in my body or life: —————————————————
What surprised me as this card kept showing up: —————————————————
One way this card is living in my life right now: —————————————————
If this card visited me today as a guide, what would it want me to remember? —————————————————
Revisit these after a week, a moon phase, or a meaningful moment. Let the card evolve as you do.
If you feel a quiet sense of recognition, curiosity and want to explore it, browse the sessions page for what feels right.