Welcome to the land of DOUBLESPEAK... that's what I like to call this somewhat confusing Orwellian landscape of DOUBLETHINK images, filled with illogically juxtaposed mental depictions, emotionally polarized gut-level inversions and, most of all, bizarre enactments of deep subconscious symbols containing a wild admixture of positive/negative feelings.  

The rational conscious mind would definitely have a difficult time making sense out of this dream setting without some sort of psychological roadmap. However, as with the other cards, the subliminal imagery that our ancient teachers have compacted within this Eighteenth (Card XVIII) Trump of the Major Arcana is intended to be our guide and next step along the evolutionary path leading to our ascension as wholly spiritual beings.

What you are experiencing as your eyes visually impact the card's animal/creature figure enactments for the first time, is an instant infusion-beam image projection... a sort of laser-like sight injection (that burns the image deep within your inner mind).  It's a facsimile transfer that your subconscious can and does instantly store so it can translate the data into sub-routines (as they used to say on Star Trek) that only it can comprehend and program for future use.  Later, using these image configurations, it will proceed to feed them back to you as both daydreams and vivid theatrical enactments during your nocturnal dream state.  Its purpose and intent is to stimulate and hit upon your deep subconscious fears... to resurrect your deeply impacted psychoses and traumas so that unresolved reactive emotions can be faced, understood, resolved and their containment energies released. 

The MOON card was designed for that specific purpose.  To be a subconscious interactive tool that will stimulate your imagination (to release stored fears and belief patterns) by activating your intuition.  Classically, the MOON is the container for and driving force of our ego and emotions.  It's the reactive repository of your emotional fears, traumas and complexes (past lives and present) as well as the director of your body's subconscious (physical) creative and reproductive powers (corporeal intelligence - deductive reasoning).  Your rational mind (self-conscious) on the other hand is the seat of your logical reasoning powers (inductive reasoning).  Although it aids you each day in coping with the duality of your linear existence and receives wondrous insights through Meditation (THE STAR-XVII), it hasn't the slightest idea how to execute and perpetuate your autonomic bodily processes. It must rely totally on the skills the Subconscious Mind receives from the MOON for these magical accomplishments.

The ancients say that the first step to our further spiritual evolvement must be the re-creation of the physical body.  They state that mankind's cellular structure is presently too toxic and that we must accept the personal sacrifices necessary to rebuild the sort of perfected physical vehicle (clearer/cleaner cells) needed to house the accelerated vibrations of The Higher Self.  This process was shown to us in THE STAR card.  There we were able to rebuild our bodies as we returned to the path of spiritual aspiration.  Now the next step is to rebuild our emotional body within.

So... how does a wolf and a dog, a crayfish, the Moon (covering the Sun) dropping (15) Yods (Cosmic Lifeforce) on the landscape and a pair of sentry towers along a winding path activate our subconscious intuition?  Well, they are all trying to portray the NEED FOR ALL OF US TO ACHIEVE EMOTIONAL/SPIRITUAL BALANCE WITHIN.  We do this by eating foods which still contain lifeforce (raw or slightly steamed vegetables, fruits, etc.); staying away from dead food (meats, sugar, refined foods and all overcooked items... they have no lifeforce or living enzymes); not succumbing to negative passions, urges and physical bodily demands and by adopting a code of discipline that will prevent negative subconscious urges from regaining control of our reason.  A simple assignment... right?

  In the Crayfish we witness your renewed spirit making a supreme effort and choice to exit the pool of your negative subconscious.  It enters the path that will lead to spiritual enlightenment.  However, it must first confront the opposing polarities of its subconscious and successfully pass between them without succumbing to either.  The wolf (your wild and untamed nature) and the domesticated dog (your civilized and controlled nature) both wish to dominate... the outcome depends upon which you choose to feed or support.  The wise Crayfish will feed them both and thus by recognizing their separate qualities, attain a balanced continuum or state of equilibrium.  By honoring, blending and accepting their separate natures, one finally attains the key to personal control.  In life you don't want to crush or eliminate negativity, nor exclusively embrace the positive, rather you should respect the separate forces of each in order to maintain a "point of control" between their polarities.  The towers form the gateway to higher spiritual attainment.  The Yods (Divine Consciousness) are drops of enlightenment available to us all in the dream state, a time when the MOON beckons forth our subconscious images to teach us important lessons.

In THE STAR card, we recovered physically from the dark worlds of THE DEVIL and THE TOWER.  The STAR inspired us (after our fall from the TOWER) to visualize our bodily reconstruction through mental visualization. 

In THE MOON card, we are attempting to rebuild our inner emotional/spiritual framework by examining the creature-beings of our deeply rooted fears and temptations.  By facing, releasing and balancing their negative electricities we will free the spirit to continue on the path to ultimate human perfection. This renewal will enable us to finally master and balance the shadow aspects of our animal nature.

copyright 2006, Joe Ivory, all rights reserved