LUNA

When mysticism stirs the imagination, the result pulsates with life. This is what happened when I was painting - LUNA, the Moon (Goddess in Greek.)

My connection with Moon? It's as intimate as the moon's connection with mysticism, as strong as the moon's sway on the tides, as deep as an old Piscean soul!

Blue Moon. Ruler of the waves. Temptress of the tides. The Moon is getting a lot of airtime lately. But the wonder-eyed girl in me has always been fascinated with the waxing of the crescent into a big shining orb, waning back to a sliver and then disappearing into complete oblivion. As a kid, gazing at the night sky was my favorite pastime. As a teenager, I noticed, I was out of sorts around the same time each month (we all are). It's much later, I understood the moon's scientific sway not only on oceans, and crops but even on our moods! No wonder this celestial body has marked the passage of time, and been studied and worshipped from time immemorial. Throughout nature, we find a cavalcade of energetic counterparts: light-dark, male-female, increase-decrease and the Moon takes her place in the balance as the counterpart to the Sun. The Sun is symbolic of the fraternal, the male, yang aspect of guidance; and so logically the Moon stoically stands as the maternal, female, or yin influence. This gender association is a generalization but as with most symbolic meanings, there are exceptions. Many native American tribes such as Navajo, Eskimo, Pueblo, along with African, Japanese, Maori, Teutonic, Oceania, and Sumerian-Semitic groups refer to Moon as a masculine force.
More intriguing than gender, is the means by which the moon wields her force and influence. She is considered a luminary, but she produces no light of her own accord. She is reliant upon the Sun's light to reflect her image to our earthly eyes. This mirrored reflection makes the moon a symbol of subtlety. Where the Sun boldly bears down its blaze upon a given philosophical subject; the moon softly draws our attention, illumining our psyche in a gossamer glow that is more open to esoteric impressions.

The word “luna” essentially means “moon”, but it also means that you have moved away from logic. In the West, anything illogical gets labeled as madness or insanity. Hence the English word - lunatic. If you have moved away from logic, if your system is not well established, you will move towards insanity. But if you are well established, you will move into intuitive perception.

In Indian culture, we always saw the limitations of logic. Logic is very useful to conduct the material aspect of your life. But there is a dimension beyond logic, without which the subjective dimensions can never be accessed. As one shifts from the calculations of the logical mind to intuitive ways of looking at life, the moon starts taking precedence.

The moon is a reflection. A human being or human perception is also a reflection. Any perception is actually a reflection. And as reflection is the nature of the moon, the deeper perceptions of life have always been symbolized with the moon. More symbolic moon facts are derived from myth, lore, and culture as we see lunar associations tied with deities and cyclical events in the human collective consciousness. Shiva, the Adiyogi wore a piece of the moon on his head as his ornament. Thoth, Diana, Kwan Yin, Isis, Virgin Mary are just a few amidst a global pantheon of symbolic archetypes that embody the illumined movements of the moon.

If you've stuck this far, reading a lunatic's scribbles and feel being swept off by the moon's momentum, I urge you to connect with the many faces of the moon and apply your findings to your own life experience. I guarantee the lunar depths you dive into will instill you with inspiration, expansion, and liberation.

Signing off on the note - may all your lunar encounters be illuminating ones!