The Moon & Me

I want to be left alone,

I don’t want to be touched.

I want to write, paint worlds with words

I want to stay out of trouble for once in my life

And fall into my own rhythm of transformation

like the moon.

- Celine Saintclare

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been infatuated with the moon. She’s been a silent witness to my life, we’ve had conversations together. I like the way she listens quietly, glowing with ancient wisdom. I find her presence comforting. And the moon is definitely a ‘her’. I knew she was a she before I ever got into astrology. Although my research tells me there was a time the moon was considered masculine and the sun feminine. That can’t be right. Although I can see how the sun too has feminine qualities, a life-bringer and nurturer. Maybe they’re both feminine.

But the moon, without a doubt is female and I’ve always had the sense she understands. The both of us are in constant states of transformation, the both of us shine our brightest in the dark and rarely reveal ourselves entirely, there’s a part of us that remains mysterious, even to ourselves.

Sometimes the moon appears enormous and other times distant, sometimes she appears inexplicably tinged with blood or a luminous, moody blue. I like the slender shape of a crescent moon, the first peek of light after a new moon, and a full moon which has such a reassuring wholeness that it triggers an ancient calmness in me to look at, that I think must be etched onto my DNA.

For a while I was disappointed not to be a Cancer. I have the moon cycle tattooed along my wrist, which I’m told was a mistake. The tattoo would apparently give the moon too much influence over me and send me into a tail-spin. I wasn’t afraid. I know the moon, I understand her.

Not to bore you to death with the astrology talk but come to think of it, my moon (Gemini) is smack dab on my IC, the middle of my fourth house which represents my home life, domesticity, my lineage.

The internet tells me that this moon placement gives me Cancerian qualities and gives me a deep emotional need to know where I came from and to study my ancestors (true), it also makes me highly sensitive and attuned to the moods of others (unbearably true).

If you don’t know where your moon falls in your birth chart, I’d urge you to find out. They say the moon is more influential than the sun in a night-time chart (if you’re born after sunset), I’d be willing to bet her influence is underestimated across the board.

The moon’s power is overwhelming but unexpected. She doesn’t burn us like the sun can, she emits a gentle, silvery glow. But she commands the tides and stirs us into madness and makes the Moon Flowers and Evening Primroses blossom. What could be more feminine than that? Gentle subjugation, total influence without force.

Is it likely, after all, that the 28-day moon cycle corresponds with the 28-day cycle of menstruation by sheer coincidence? ‘There’s no evidence!’ the scientists cry! Do we need evidence? When our very bodies sync with the celestial body that’s circled our planet for as long as we’ve known it. We women live lunar existences, constant transformation, constant cycle. A monthly rhythm.

Some interesting quotes from recent articles that look into the influence of the moon on human behaviour:

For centuries, people have believed that the Moon affects human behaviour. The word lunacy derives from the Latin lunaticus, meaning “moonstruck”, and both the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder believed that madness and epilepsy were caused by the Moon. Pregnant women are also rumoured to be more likely to give birth on a full Moon, but any scientific evidence for this, gleaned by looking back over birth records during different lunar phases, is inconsistent. So too, is evidence that the lunar cycle increases violence among psychiatric patients or prison inmates – although one recent study suggested that outdoor criminal activity – incidents occurring on streets, or in natural settings like beaches – may be higher when there is more moonlight.

From ‘The Mood-Altering Power of the Moon’ by Linda Geddes

The moon may have an impact on people with bipolar disorder. In a small study of 17 people, researchers learned that their patients cycled rapidly between states of depression and mania, and that these rapid cycles weren’t random but instead in sync with the lunar cycle.

From ‘Does the Moon Affect Humans?’ on The Cleveland Clinic

For more moon reading, I’d recommend this very interesting article by Linda Geddes: The Mood-Altering Power of the Moon and this article by Katarina Zimmer for National Geographic

And now I’ll leave you with a fragment from one of my poems:

Until next time,

Celine x