The Moon card has always held some extra mystery for me. On a personal level, I felt that there was some undiscovered message hidden in there and that it would take all my strength and an extreme act of bravery for me to retrieve it. This all sounds rather dramatic, but I have a lot of Leo in my Natal Chart, so it’s natural for me to see things as ‘big’. What I didn’t know was that I was about to have a meeting with the Moon card which would put me inside the very landscape that I held with trepidation and foreboding.
Recently I embarked on a Tarot course. This might raise a few eyebrows, but I’m a firm believer in education and bettering yourself. So whether a professional or not, I feel it a necessity to continue the learning process. A favourite mantra of mine is ’learn something new everyday’, and when I have finished this course, I will embark on another. This particular course though is deck specific, it covers Aleister Crowley’s Thoth from a personal perspective. It’s very deep and seeks to explore your own psyche whilst examining the cards themselves.
During some recent shadow work, it threw up my issues with the Moon. We worked through these and the following week we embarked on journeying into the cards. Of course I chose the Moon. I’ve long held the belief that you should face your fears – though I have been proven wrong on many occasions! I couldn’t resist this though and settled down in the quiet of my room and let myself be guided by the gentle voice of Emma Sunerton-Burl into my chosen card.
The following is an account of that short, but far-reaching journey:
After being bathed in brilliant white light, I stepped into the card. My first impressions were of barrenness. The towers were there, but no sentries. There was light shining from above which highlighted the floor – there was water everywhere! This intrigued me as it wasn’t just flood water, there wasn’t any firmness underfoot, there was no ground to speak of. I was truly walking on water! Amazingly I never sank below the surface and it wasn’t an issue in my mind. Emma guides you to a table which holds a book. In this book is written a message for you. I looked but I couldn’t see anything. Then a strange thing happened. The words began to illuminate across the page, as if rolling in a Mexican wave. They disappeared as I read them, gone from the page. The message was as follows: Your Fear Is Your Illusion.
I repeated this to myself a few times to try and imprint the message in my mind. Of course I was focussed on this message and I have no idea how much time had gone by when Emma tells you that there is a gift for you from the card, and to accept it. I had no gift and said so! But as I looked down at my hands, I saw one of the keys the appearing there. It was illuminated and very light in my hands. I spoke out loud and said “what is this for?” A male voice said it was the key to unlock my fear, it was all I needed. Of course I wanted to know where the key was supposed to fit, but the voice said I would know.
That seemed rather ambiguous at the time, but it makes perfect sense to me now – as does my fear being my illusion. The whole card is based on illusion and riddles, and I sat for a day pondering my journey into this card and the message I was given along with my gift. I realise now that the key is for my unconscious mind. As a child, in order to protect myself from things that scared me or upset me, I used to lock them away in an imaginary vault which contained a series of lockers. There was only ever one key that operated all the locks and I now know that the gift of the key from the Moon card, is the very key I had long lost. This would now enable me to release my fears, unlock them from the vault. While in reality there should be a part 2 to this journey – to the vault itself – the message from the Moon card shows me there is no need. In unlocking any of the vault lockers, I will find them empty now. The fear just an illusion from a time gone by.
Details of Emma’s course can be found at her website www.thoth-training.co.uk
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Catherine,
it’s interesting, how you describe the towers and lots of water around. When I look at the Thoth card, I can make out the towers but no water. I was wondering, if you had the RWS Moon card in mind, when you did your Moon card exploration.
xx
Hi Christiane,
Thank you for your comment. If you look at the image of the Thoth Moon card, you can see there is no land or ground area to speak of, only a line that separates the upper world and the lower. Looking at the lower world with the sun and the scarab beetle, the lines across this part of the card do suggest water to me.
Astrologically, the Moon card is aligned to Pisces, and elementally to water. So, while I can’t rule out the possibility of being influenced by the RWS, we are talking about the unconscious mind here, so anything is possible. I haven’t read with the RWS in a long time, so I don’t believe it influenced me on this occasion – not with so many liquid associations!
Catherine
Yes, the abstract image of the Thoth card does suggest water, but when you imagine a landscape or ‘place’ in your mind, you try to make it look more ‘real’.
I was just wondering out of curiosity how people manage to journey into an abstract image and make it work for themselves.
Christiane
Ok, the point of the journey is to see what message the card may have for you. While inside the card, you look around, but you’re not forcing the images. So attempting to make the imagery or the landscape more real, would be to lead as opposed to receive.
If we consider that landscape for a moment, there’s no suggestion of land, of a far off mountain, or a scene going on other than the apparent entry point between two towers with two guards, and the scarab under the water.
This is an abstract card in many ways and it’s illusionary imagery plays to that. If I had used a different card, like the Sun, then perhaps there would have been more of the realism you were expecting.
Thinking of the images on any RWS based deck will provide those kinds of images, but concentrating on that will detract from the reason you have journeyed into the card in the first place.
It’s a fair and interesting point you raise Christiane, so I will at some point in the near future, journey into a RWS card and see how I find the imagery in that. I will of course post my findings. That is unless you beat me to it
Catherine