The previous article covered the Sun. This one covers his queen — the Moon.
By day the Sun is brightest; by night the Moon is. And when we look up, the two appear almost exactly the same size. Astronomers have long found this remarkable: the Sun is vastly further away, the Moon far closer, yet they look identical in the sky.
What does the Moon (Chandra) signify in Vedic astrology?
The Moon's Sanskrit name is Chandra, also known as Soma. It signifies your mind, your emotions, and your daily thoughts.
It also signifies the mother and the queen. In Vedic astrology it is a benefic.
The Moon produces no light of its own; what we see is reflected sunlight. It orbits the Earth, waxing and waning.
Why is the Moon's nature described as thieving and indulgent?
When I first heard this I thought it far too harsh. I have loved the Moon since childhood — I find it beautiful, especially when full. What had it done to deserve such a description?
Take the indulgence first. In the mythology, the Moon carried off Tara, the wife of Jupiter, and fathered with her Jupiter's illegitimate son — Mercury. So Mercury is, in fact, the Moon's child.
And the twenty-seven Nakshatras are all wives of the Moon — every one of them taken rather than properly married. Of the twenty-seven he favours the fourth, Rohini, above all the rest, and Rohini falls in Taurus. This is why the Moon is exalted in Taurus: Taurus signifies the household's resources, food and pleasure — the most basic comforts — and the Moon is happiest there.
As for the thieving — taking another's wife already makes the case. But I have my own reading, drawn from the Buddhist idea of the six thieves.
The six thieves are the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. Why call one's own senses thieves? Because they deceive you. The eye sees something beautiful and you want it. The ear hears praise and you are pleased, hears criticism and you are wounded. The tongue tastes something good and wants more. What the sutras are ultimately saying is that all of it is illusion.
The Moon signifies exactly these thoughts. It continually tempts you to linger where it is pleasant and to avoid what you would rather not face. The difficult thing can wait; the comfortable place is worth staying in. This is entirely ordinary — everyone does it.
What is the Monkey Mind?
Our thoughts jump about — you see one thing and want it, then another, then another. This is what is meant by the Monkey Mind.
What is stranger still is how often we do not know what we are thinking at all. You spend an hour online; ask what you just looked at and you cannot say. Genuinely cannot say.
Gossip works the same way. The process requires no thought at all, yet afterwards you notice a certain pleasure in it — and that aimless, time-filling pleasure is precisely what is meant by indulgence. It sounds unkind, but it is not wrong.
This is why the placement of the Moon in a chart matters so much. Poorly placed, it makes yoga or meditation especially necessary, simply to let the emotions settle.
The most effective practice is a simple one: notice that you are wandering, while you are wandering. You are scrolling aimlessly — ask yourself "what am I actually looking at?" and you will stop immediately. At first it may take ten minutes before the question occurs to you. With practice it takes two or three seconds. The time you save can go to something that matters.
Why is the Moon connected to the emotions?
Because it waxes and wanes — and there is a story behind that.
The father of the twenty-seven Nakshatra wives learned that the Moon favoured Rohini alone, the other twenty-six having complained to him. He rebuked the Moon and laid down a punishment: that it would sometimes be full and sometimes diminished.
That cycle of waxing and waning is our own moods and emotions. The Moon governs the tides, and it influences women's bodies and monthly cycles. We rarely notice, but the influence is constant.
Why is the Moon's love a narrow love?
Nurture and care belong to the mother — but a mother's love is a selfish love.
In Vedic astrology the mother belongs to the Moon, and to Cancer. That love runs deep but its range is small: it extends to one's own family, one's own name, one's own children. Standing in a queue you naturally see to your own child first, not someone else's. To ordinary people this is entirely normal, which is why the Moon counts as a benefic.
Reaching the rank of queen is another matter. A queen must love her subjects, not only her own children. That takes a great deal of work.
Key facts about the Moon
- Sanskrit name: Chandra (also Soma)
- Signifies: mind, emotions, thoughts, mother, queen
- Nature: benefic, feminine
- Element: water
- Exalted: Taurus (where Rohini falls)
- Debilitated: Scorpio
- Own sign: Cancer
- Directional strength: 4th house (the home)
- Friends: Sun, Mars, Jupiter
- Enemies: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Rahu
- Full circuit of the zodiac: about 30 days
- Time in each sign: about 2.5 days
- Time in each Nakshatra: about 1 day
- Retrograde: never (as with the Sun)
The Moon is debilitated in Scorpio for a straightforward reason: Scorpio is dark, secretive and bound up with suffering, while the Moon wants comfort and ease. It has no wish to go somewhere that deep.
Does strong really mean good?
Not necessarily. When I first saw exalted or debilitated placements in a chart I would tense up too: is this very good, or very bad?
But the ultimate aim of astrology is liberation. If you have a great deal of material pleasure and no idea how to handle it, it may well work against your emotions and your peace of mind. The Moon in Taurus can eat, drink and enjoy itself endlessly — whether that is genuinely a good thing is hard to say.