Moon

What the Moon represents

For psychological astrology, the Moon is the instinctive, emotional side of the personality. Where the Sun says what a person is trying to become, the Moon says what they need in order to feel safe: a routine, a place, a presence, a particular way of being comforted. It carries the imprint of the earliest care they received and of the habits that grew out of it. It can be seen at work in spontaneous reactions, in moods, and in whatever the person does to recover from a hard day.

Its home sign is Cancer, a cardinal water sign, where it protects, nourishes and remembers. It is exalted in Taurus, where security comes through calm and through the body. It is in detriment in Capricorn, where emotions stand back behind duty and restraint, and in its fall in Scorpio, where they gain in intensity and are harder to share. Its gift is intuition and the ability to care for others; its excess, a dependence on habit or a touchiness that closes up at the slightest bruise.

Its rhythm in the sky

The Moon is the fastest body in the chart. It goes round the zodiac in a little over twenty-seven days and stays about two and a half days in each sign. Its sign at birth therefore changes very quickly, and it can even switch during the day itself: this is why the time of birth matters for placing it with certainty. Like the Sun, the Moon is never retrograde: its apparent motion always stays direct.

On top of this rapid journey comes the cycle of phases, from new Moon to full Moon and back again, which lasts a little under thirty days. The phase at birth, which measures the distance between the Moon and the Sun, is sometimes read as a way of reconciling needs and will. Because it moves so fast, the Moon is also the body that most clearly sets apart two people born a few days from each other, and it is often the Moon that sheds light on their differences in sensitivity.

The Moon in a partnership

Day to day, the Moon shows what a person expects from a relationship: presence, tenderness, space, stability or lightness. These expectations are rarely put into words, because they seem obvious to the one who holds them. Many misunderstandings between partners begin here: one comforts with words, the other with gestures, and each believes they are giving what is needed. Knowing one’s Moon helps to name one’s needs rather than waiting for them to be guessed.

In synastry, the Moon is one of the most telling signs of how two people get along in everyday life. When one person’s Moon touches the other’s Sun, Venus or Ascendant, a sense of familiarity often settles in very quickly, as if they had known each other for ages. Two Moons in tune make shared life easier; two very different Moons call for more translation. A contact with Saturn can bring loyalty as much as an impression of coldness. None of this is written in advance: these are tendencies worth getting to know.

To go further

• Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas, The Luminaries (1992)