The Moon As A Symbol

Because the Moon is illuminated at night by the light of the Sun, it inevitably carries with it all the positive - and negative - traits of the female. Looking at the bigger picture, though, without the light of the Sun, none of the planets in our solar system would be illuminated, and life on earth would not exist, at least in the way we know it. Earth, then, shares some kind of sisterhood with the Moon in that they are both reliant on the Sun for their illumination.

The Moon is visible primarily at night, and night time is associated with death. It made sense for our ancestors to believe that the souls of the dead must exist in the lunar atmosphere, an ancient belief that caused some consternation at the time of the first Moon landings.

Whereas the light of the Sun represents intuition and deductive reasoning, the Moon - because it is a mirror to the Sun - signifies the accumulation of knowledge based on a more inductive and painstaking way of learning. The owl, a nocturnal bird that shares the same symbolic space as the Moon, is therefore the bird of knowledge. The color of the Moon means that it is connected with the metal silver.

In human beings, the female menstrual cycle copies the cycle of the Moon. Traditionally, women menstruate at the time of the new Moon, and ovulate when it is full. However, artificial lighting and man made environments mean that these cycles do not always coincide. The word "menstruation" comes from the Greek word, mene, meaning Moon. This word also means "month," although we have a solar system for measuring the months as well as the lunar one.

From: Element Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols
Moon Mandala Art by: Elspeth McLean