The Moon

The 18th Key

Colour: Crimson (Ultraviolet)
Sound: B Natural
Sign: Pisces (Mutable Water)
SIMPLE LETTER: SLEEP

This Path connects the Kingdon with Victory. Birth, death and resurrection are pivotal concepts on the Path of the Moon.

This is a formative organising path referring to body consciousness. The Moon is anterior to the bright intellectual awareness of the Sun. It is a primitive path of raw animal instincts uncontrolled by intellectual, moral or ethical considerations.

This is a watery path of probation where we must conquer the phantoms of the darkest recesses of our own minds, as well as those of our race. These are referred to as the creations of the created. These phantoms occur due to the density of the physical body and the fact that it is affected by all three paths leading into the Kingdom (Judgment, the Moon and the World).

The Path will show us aspects of ourselves society forces us to repress. Once we slay the dragons of the darkest recesses of our mind and understand their mechanisms, we gain the capacity to manipulate those qualities in ourselves and others.

At the bottom of the card appears a crayfish representing the darkness in us. The process of rebirth into the Light takes place out of this abominable darkness in us. The crayfish symbolism developed from the scarab or dung-beetle which lays its eggs in a ball of dung and pushes it along until they eventually hatch due to being subjected to the warmth of the Sun. Our highest creative force begins its expression in the lowest organic form.

The Moon and the High Priestess are linked in that the High Priestess is the source of the crystal-clear waters of consciousness. That same water is contained in the Moon, however now polluted due to its density.

We must apply reason to what is experienced on this path as we would apply feeling to that which is experienced on the path of Judgement.

The process of birth is presided over by the Greek Goddess Artemis or Roman counterpart Dianna. A Goddess on the hunt travelling through the woods with a pack of hounds. She can be vicious and unforgiving. The dogs in the Moon are her hounds, ready to attack and destroy those that displease her. Pictorially the crayfish needs to move up the path between the hounds to be reborn on the Light of the Sun.

To this Path is attributed sleep. During the cyclic phase of withdrawal of consciousness from the physical, most people continue to act on info closely related to their bodily existence. Dreams are filled with shades of matter which, once consciously transcended, is the conquest of the path of the Moon

The Path represents the natural energy from which our physical bodies develop in the womb and then continues to develop throughout our lives as cells die and are replaced. The relationship between our Personality consciousness and the physical body built for each incarnation.