Meaning of the Moon Tarot card

The Moon Tarot CardA sinister and gloomy atmosphere pervades the illustration on the Moon card.

The Moon is often shown in the first quarter, therefore not very bright, and in the oldest Tarot decks a few clouds are nearly always added to make the image even more spectral.

Today we have forgotten how frightening the night could be in the Middle Ages. Not just because without street lighting we could end up in total darkness, without any possibility of finding our way, but also because, unlike today, many wild animals roamed the countryside and approached our towns and cities.

In the historical period when it was created, the Moon card was undoubtedly associated with darkness, danger, and the possibility of making mistakes.

General interpretation of the card

The external circumstances are such that we cannot get our bearings. Someone is hiding something from us, or in any case the route to obtain what we want is quite impassable if we decide to pursue it now.

It represents a state of darkness, which is the opposite of the next card of the Sun. If the Sun represents clarity, the Moon represents difficulties of judgment, confusion and uncertainty instead.

It can represent a person who proves particularly sensitive, or who behaves in a way that seems indecipherable or capricious to us.

It also represents our fears, our apprehensions, that we probably do not have the courage to face. In this case, the uncertain and unfavorable situation has arisen because of our prevarication. For example, we waited too long to declare ourselves to someone, and now that person is not free.

Dishonesty, someone is deceiving us (maybe we are deceiving ourselves).

Specific examples of possible meanings:

  • You probably can’t get what you want right now (unless you want to risk a great deal). The advice is to wait, because this situation will not last, and with a minimum of waiting, it will be much easier to get what you want.
  • We have hesitated too long, we have waited too long to declare ourselves. Now the situation that has arisen is extremely difficult to resolve (for example we have ended up in the so-called “friend zone”, i.e. being considered just friends, and not potential lovers).
  • We took a lot of “mental journeys” and almost ended up building a sort of parallel universe of our own. We are now struggling to understand what the situation really is.
  • Not wanting to admit the situation, misinterpreting what we are told. At this point, I must recount a personal anecdote: I have lost count of the number of times a querent has asked me whether a person loves him or her, when in reality he or she has already asked that same person, and that person has quite clearly said no (perhaps saying “not now, but who knows, tomorrow anything could happen”). The Moon card can indicate just that, not accepting the reality of the facts, and ending up deceiving ourselves.
  • We are afraid of a certain eventuality, so we are stuck. This is the typical case of a person who likes someone else, but doesn’t show their feelings due to fear of rejection. What happens in this case is that they end up with nothing. In reality, we are missing out on something that could be fantastic for us, which might have a fifty-fifty chance of coming true. And in doing so we put ourselves in the situation where, by not trying, we are 100% guaranteed not to have it.
Rob Sánchez

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