Symbols - What does heaven look like
Dark moon
The dark moon is the dark side of the MOON archetype. It is also known as the "far side of the Moon".
It applies to both men and women.
It is not, as one might at first think, the opposite of the MOON archetype’s positive characteristics. Instead it is a different sort of femininity or masculinity, a dark feminity or masculinity, the female or male nature at its most seductive and dangerous. It is representative of the enchantress or the seducer, one who lures another by use of sexuality. The kind who tempts another by implying that the grass is greener on the other side, that they can "rescue" someone. Most women with the dark Moon in their character do not know it, because most women do not get their horoscopes done. Men, on the other hand, seem well aware of the powers they have been given and use them liberally.
Some of the more dangerous aspect and traits in the MOON’s attributes are shared – the Dark Moon character can be unforgiving, unmerciful, revengeful, vindictive, blameful, merciless, possessive and jealous. These traits often surface when the person is hurt. They may also be given to infatuation and obsession. It is a secret world, a world of deception.
But they are not feeble, they are not fearful or cowardly or apprehensive, or childlike and they are certainly not submissive or appeasing in their natures. They are almost predatory. This is a joyous game. Men revel in it, some women do too.
They share many of the MOON and VENUS’s characteristics – sensuousness, eroticism, ardour, passion. Often it is dark passion, a strange kind of eroticism.
A Dark Moon person has the potential to be a relationship wrecker until of course they meet their match and actually fall for the person whose partnership they have attacked. Two dark Moon characters a man and a woman together can actually fall in love, but the relationship is then fraught with passion and pain – extraordinary highs followed by devastating lows.
Its purpose
The Dark Moon belongs to the function of destruction.
The Dark Moon attributes thus have a purpose in the scheme of things, although the people with them may not realise it.
The person with them may be used to test others or send them off onto new courses. For example, some partnerships may not be based on solid foundations, and the people need to move on.
Occasionally the characteristics are used against the person themselves to turn them off into a completely new direction. The manner in which the Dark Moon plays out is usually determined by the character of the sign in which it is positioned and with over tones of the ruling planet of that sign. For example, if your Dark Moon is in Aries, it will act in the manner of Aries with over tones of Mars.
In effect, the Dark Moon characteristics are less used for specific tasks in the Great Work and more as a means to an end – perhaps the end being the change of direction of people towards a new task in life and that task is part of the Great Work.
Whether men or women, the role of the Dark Moon person is not to settle down with the person whose life they have affected. Once they have seduced or wrecked a partnership say, they walk away – their job is done. They, of course, do not see it this way, but they are in an odd way being used.
The very nature of the person is such that the person gets most enjoyment out of the illicit and clandestine nature of the affair, the excitement and the novelty and the last thing he or she wants is the responsibility of marriage to this person he or she has ‘conquered’, with all its mundane aspects.
The search of the anima for the animus
Many ‘Dark moon’ women have no children, not wanting the ties. Some Dark Moon women even suffer illness which causes them to be unable to have children. They may love children, but their role is not to bear them and nurture them. It can be a huge burden – an almost inexplicable burden for a woman who has not seen the Dark Moon in her character. Other women instinctively do not trust Dark Moon women, so there is also the additional burden of isolation to bear.
The symbolic figure for the man who has the Dark Moon attributes is the figure of Priapus. Priapus seduced and was ‘blessed’ with a constant erection, but he was never able to have an orgasm, he could seduce but was never ‘fulfilled’ or successful.
And this symbolically may be true of the Dark Moon man and woman.
Both are searching for fulfilment they cannot achieve through human beings. It is in reality a search for transcendence, though they may not realise it, a longing for union with their opposite spiritually, the ‘wedding’ of the male and female in the person.
Furthermore they may search their whole lives for this archetype – an archetype they know instinctively – they know the appearance of this other half of them, the female to their male or the male to their female. We might say they were in love with themselves, but this would be over simplistic because the love they have is for the Higher spirit, achieved through the merger of their two halves – the male and female principle.
A person who is always drawn to the same type or person with the same appearance every time, is actually being drawn to their ‘other side’ – the male side of the female and the female side of the male.
Observations
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