MAJOR ARCANA

The Moon Tarot Meanings

The Moon is the perfect representation of deep inner work. It’s the card of Pisces so it’s an emotional one and it is also ruled by the element of water. The Moon is our intuition, but it can also be the illusion we have created for ourselves to prevent us from having to deal with the darker aspects of our subconscious.

The Moon, much like The Star and The Sun, is a source of light, however, each of these cards have a very different type of light. The Star is very concentrated, burning intensely and giving us focus, The Sun is warming, nurturing and sometimes can be blinding. The Moon though has a very soft, diffused light that feels a little more gentle, easing us into those darker depths of our subconscious rather than putting a spotlight on all the things we’re not quite ready to deal with.

The Moon Upright Meanings

In the upright position, The Moon is an invitation to head on down to the murky depths of our subconscious, she doesn’t force us, all she does is give us the opportunity to face the things that are causing us negativity or discomfort. The main upright meanings of The Moon are:

Deception
Confusion
Imagination
Subconscious
Emotions

The reason The Moon is seen as such an emotional and hard to process card is because our minds are designed to lock away the things that threaten us, so anything that makes us sad, angry or feel negatively about ourselves, gets locked up down deep in the subconscious realms. To head down there and start unpacking it all can throw up things we’ve been repressing or avoiding and that can be something that is hard to face.

The Moon Reversed Meanings

In the reversed position, The Moon starts to find a bit more clarity. We embrace the soft illumination of the moon and take it up on its invitation to dive down deep. Some of. the main reversed meanings of The Moon are:

Clarity
Need to connect to intuition
Seeing the big picture
Lack of imagination
Repression

The Moon reversed can offer us a lot of answers to our most deeply rooted questions. It’s a signal that by tapping into your intuition and really trusting yourself to support you during this difficult journey, you open yourself up to a whole lot more clarity.

Free Beginner Tarot Workshop

Sign up to access this completely free two-part prerecorded workshop to see if learning Tarot is the right journey for you!

Reading The Moon in a Tarot Spread

When the Moon first appears, see it as an invitation to venture down into the subconscious, it’s not a demand and you don’t have to take it up on its offer, but the opportunity is open to you if you choose it. The Moon can be a passive or active card, but which one is completely up to you.

The Moon is showing you that the answers you seek are being displayed to you, but some of these answers you may not be ready for or be able to process, so it’s worth deciding if you do head down into those depths, how far do you go?

The Moon as An Invitation

The Moon is all about invitations, it is the main theme and message of the card. It is an invitation to explore the subconscious and because of that, the decision of what action to take from this card is completely up to you.

For The Moon, this invitation could be the following:

An invitation to journey into the thoughts and feelings you’ve been repressing
An invitation to allow yourself to be more vulnerable
An invitation to start your journey of personal growth
An invitation to connect with your intuition a bit more deeply

The Moon as Sage Advice

The Moon as advice is one of self-love and compassion. The Moon knows that the things it is illuminating are hard to face, so it doesn’t want to push you too far, all it wants to do is advise you on how you could approach it.

Some advice The Moon may offer is:

To tap into your intuition in order to find the answers you’re looking for
To deal with some of the repressed thoughts and more prominently, feelings, that could be causing issues in your external world
Be mindful of what you tell yourself and question whether it’s the truth or if it’s a lie you’re telling yourself as a form of protection from pain and discomfort

The Moon as a Lesson

As a lesson, The Moon is all about teaching us how to approach our own baggage. As we age, this baggage mounts up, so it’s important that we learn when to press pause and unclutter our inner world, in order to be able to keep moving forward with clarity and emotional stability.

Some lessons that The Moon may offer you are:

To learn take time out for yourself and always be open to inner exploration
To learn how to see the big picture, even if we are only emotionally invested in a small part of it
To learn when confusion is rooted in built-up trauma, negativity or stagnant emotions
To learn that all our conscious emotions stem from subconscious beliefs and thoughts

The Moon as a Redirection

The Moon is a pretty clear redirection away from the external or conscious world. If we’ve been looking for actions and ways to find the clarity we need and getting more and more lost and confused, then The Moon may show up to show us that the answers actually lie within ourselves.

As a redirection, The Moon could symbolise a need to:

Dive down deep into the inner world to find the cause of our problems
Embrace and accept difficult emotions and understand that they are as much a part of who we are as the positive ones, fighting them only causes us to fight ourselves
Look to intuition rather than a conscious knowing

The Moon - Number 18

The Moon is card 18 in the Major Arcana. To better understand the energy this brings to the card, we have to look at its individual digits of one and eight.

The number one is the number of creation, that initial spark that starts something new. The number eight is the number of long-term stability and fast action. The two together give us a spark of clarity that helps us feel more connected with the self. It’s fast, burns bright but continues to burn for as long as you need it to. The same can be said for The Moon. It is a spark of clarity offered up by the subconscious that helps us to better understand the self.

The Moon - Pisces

The astrological sign of The Moon is actually the water sign of Pisces. You may be mistaken in thinking it would be The Moon, but even though the idea of The Moon plays a big role, it’s the emotional depth offered by Pisces that really makes this card impactful.

Pisces are known for their deep well of emotional awareness and understanding. They are deeply connected beings and seem to have an understanding of the human condition that is frequently overlooked by others. The same can be said for Them Moon. It is a card intrinsically linked to human emotion locked away in the subconscious.

The Moon - Sage

I always associate The Moon with the archetype of The Sage because of the depth of knowledge it holds. It is like a tightly sealed safe, filled with all the information we know about the self, good and bad.

The Moon is simply a guide to help take us down to those depths. It is the keeper of our subconscious world and holds the keys we need in order to access all parts of ourselves. It’s this hidden knowledge that often holds all the answers we are looking for and shows us the many colours that make up the self.