Moon in Taurus – Alertness & Grit: Pyrite & Mother of Pearl Pendants

One might be forgiven for thinking that the Moon is the planet of rest and sleep. After all, the Moon is one of the quintessential symbols of nighttime, when the majority of human beings set aside daylight matters and consciousness and descend into the realms of Hypnos. Especially in the ancient world, when human-created light was scarce and not so easy to create, tend, and transport, the Moon’s share of the day slowed things down considerably.

This is not, however, the picture our ancient sources paint.

The Moon, while we are sleeping, sets about “wandering through the Gloom of night,” as Thomas Taylor puts it in his translation of the Orphic Hymn to Selene—which also lists Luna as the “lover of vigilance,” or as Kristin Mathis of the Mysteria Mundi projects translates it, she is “wide awake.” 

Picatrix, too, depicts the Moon as more suitable for caffeinated conversational marathons and all-nighter study sessions than bedtime lullabies: “She signifies the beginning of works, great cogitations about things, good perception and motion, the best discussions in councils, utterances well spoken, daring in all things” (Book III, Chapter 7, tr. Greer & Warnock).

Going back further still, the Papyri Graecae Magicae aka the Greek Magical Papyri offer an image of the Moon that quivers, shivers, squirms, and screams:

…many-formed, who arm your hands
With dreaded, murky lamps, who shake your locks
Of fearful serpents on your brow, who sound
The roar of bulls out from your mouths, whose womb
Is decked out with the scales of creeping things,
With pois’nous rows of serpents down the back,
Bound down your backs with horrifying chains
Night-Crier…
…goddess of the triple ways, who hold
Untiring flaming fire in triple baskets…
Give heed, you who protect the spacious world
At night, before whom daimons quake in fear
And gods immortal tremble…
—PGM, Prayer to Selene, IV, 2786-2870 (tr. Hans Dieter Betz)

Ancient epithets of the Moon attest to this as well, as the co-personification of Artemis and Selene led to numerous epithets praising and describing the Moon’s qualities as a huntress: stalking, watching, and above all alert. The Huntress, Huntress Who Wears the Short Dorian Tunic, Goddess of the Chase, Who Haunts the Forest, Swift Running, Far-Darting, Archeress, Roaming in the Night, Lover of the Chase, Loving to Inspire Frenzy, Slayer of Wild Beasts, Bearer of the Bow—titles that, if anything, suggest restlessness rather than slumber.

The Alertness & Grit talismans tap into that aspect of the Moon that, indeed, never sleeps, but always has her hands dirty with the ever-changingness of the teeming, growing, gleaming, dying, constantly regenerating sublunary world.

The image engraved upon these talismans from Book II, Chapter 10 of Picatrix was especially fitting for the Moon in Taurus: “the form of a man with the head of a bird holding a staff above him, and holding the image of a branch in bloom in his hand.” Capturing the teeming animality of the Moon, the original purpose of this image was that “whoever carries [it] on a journey will not be tired no matter where they go.” 

If any planet signifies sleep it is arguably Saturn, whose slow movement corresponds to the languor of slumber (indeed, al-Biruni attributes sleep as the state of being signified by Saturn). The Moon, by contrast, is renowned in astrological and ancient astronomical lore as being principally fast, darting through the heavens with much greater alacrity than any of the other wandering stars. The Moon, indeed, as the ultimate and constant wanderer, is perhaps best positioned to aid with alertness and the endurance and fortitude of the long-distance traveler, whether distances along the earth or distances of mind and spirit.

The reference to caffeine above was not an accident. Coffee and tea, as with any psychoactive substances, impart results dependent on dose: alertness can sometimes tip over into agitation if we’re not careful about regulating ourselves. Indeed, Rain’s initial adjustment period with the Alertness & Grit talisman involved several days of uncomfortably heightened energy bordering on agitation (though we do note that Rain has a classically difficult time with Lunar talismans due to a particularly gnarly natal Moon situation). Although this settled down fairly quickly, it’s still worth mentioning, since although alertness can be a good and necessary thing, it can be unwelcome for those prone to hypervigilance, wake/sleep disturbances or insomnia, or (hypo)mania. It’s also worth noting that our testing has been with the iron pyrite versionsof the talismans, and we suspect though have not confirmed through experience that the mother-of-pearl version may soften potential hard edges in the adjustment period or beyond.

Bolstering the Moon’s substantial essential dignity (exaltation & triplicity), her Lord (i.e., the planet ruling the Moon’s current sign Taurus), Venus, was in phasis—a condition of prominence represented by the reappearance of a planet as it comes out from under the beams of the Sun. The Moon’s next aspect was also to Venus as well, intimately tying the election’s significator to her Lord and the Lord of the Ascendant. Note that medieval texts on astrological magic, most notably, Picatrix, favor any aspect to a benefic planet as a fortitude, and so the fact that the Moon’s aspect to Venus was a square simply moderates (rather than undermining or negating) the positivity of this connection.

Having Mars in the 1st house would not be our 1st choice, though this malefic tinge to the election is counterbalanced by the copresence of the greater benefic Jupiter in the 1st house. We also note that we chose to end the working before the fixed star Algol rose on the Ascendant and that the carving of stones finished before she was within 3° of the Ascendant.