Do your Moon and your Sun will thrive
“A good relationship with the Moon will not spare us anxiety. But it may offer a capacity to feed ourselves with the right kind of nourishment, which in turn allows us to cope with anxiety in a reasonably creative way.”
Liz Greene & Howard Sasportas
The Moon is our mediator between spirit and matter. As the Cosmic Weaver, the Moon speaks to our human story of transformation. From New to Full, and from Dark to New again, the Moon’s perpetual movement reminds us that our thriving is linked to the ebb and flow of life.
Through understanding our Moon Sign, we gain insight into our own unique needs and nature. The concept of Self-Care / Self-Nurturing is related to our ability to provide for ourselves the nourishment needed for us to satisfy ourselves and develop our individuality.
When we tend to the needs of our Moon Sign, we’re better able to nourish our Sun Sign’s vitality and better express it in the world. Conversely, without tending to the needs of our Moon, we’ll move through life in a misaligned manner – striving but not thriving.
Our Emotional Foundation
The Moon represents the fertile parts of our psyche, that which gives our life juice and resiliency. Our Moon Sign speaks to our instinctual ways of caring for ourselves and others, as it also connects us to our instincts to survive, feel and create with our imagination.
Our general health conditions, both in body and soul, and how we feel about and care for ourselves, are governed by the Moon. In addition, the Moon describes our early childhood experiences, our habitual response patterns; these habitual patterns are developed from our early environment and parental relationships, especially with our mothers or primary caregiver.
This is why self-care isn’t as simple as getting a massage or improving your eating habits. Working with your Moon Sign to address your self-care needs involves also addressing what we’ve learned from our mothers about self-nurturing. Because in the beginning, Mother was our whole world. We learned to perceive the world in light of our first experience with her.
While the Sun teaches us to forge ahead and bring forth into the world elements of our self-expression, the Moon pulls us back. The Moon speaks to our needs around safety and protection. A large part of our stress is linked to our unfulfilled Moon needs.
How moody are you?
Understanding your Moon Sign will help you be more aware of your body’s survival needs and appetites. The Moon is our connection to our bodies and our safety needs.
Our compulsive behaviors and moods reflect a lack of our lunar expression and nourishment. Because our Moon speaks to our need to feel safe, nourished, and sustained, our moods and compulsion indicate how we’re achieving (or not) these needs.
Moods serve as messengers from a deep part of ourselves, leaving us clues to what needs to be tended and nourished. But, as messages, our undelivered and unacknowledged moods will turn toxic (and cranky), thus we become MOODY – a lunar word.
The more we nourish ourselves, the less resentful we are when someone isn’t doing the ‘feeding’ in the way we want.
Since the Moon reflects our instinctual side, the Moon is essentially inarticulate, so what manifests are ‘moods’ and (minor) illnesses – if we are not conscious of our needs.
However, when we tend to our Moon’s needs, the best qualities of our Moon Signs are revealed. Otherwise, we meet the unconscious, often crabby, and more negative aspects of our Moon Sign.
To get you started in exploring your Lunar needs, let’s take a journey around the wheel.
Self-care around the zodiac wheel
Needs to Nurture – doing one’s own thing; solitary tasks to affirm one’s strength; doing pioneering acts; feed oneself new experiences; ask for minor favors as a way to learn vulnerability and how to rely on others.
Best Lunar Food – find a balance between independence and proper emotional ties.
Needs to Nurture – self-improvement programs that require routine; establish a sense of security and protection via a regular regimen; have ‘life rewards’ for each of the way to celebrate successes.
Best Lunar Food – establishing a good routine – health, money, and home/relationships.
Needs to Nurture – having another with whom to verbalize emotions; activities that involve wordplay; humor; journaling (also vlogging); find ways to bring the world of feeling and the world of the mind.
Best Lunar Food – use the rational mind as a tool to understand one’s emotional needs, NOT as escapism from feeling.
Needs to Nurture – keeping some separate space and time every day for oneself; develop a healthy sense of privacy; a sense of safety/security through contact with water; having an important conversation near one’s own ‘territory’; learn to use food to help confidence, not as a way to ‘stuff’ emotions.
Best Lunar Food – navigating the darker aspects of one’s familial emotional themes that get passed down through generations – the family belief around nurturing/care/love/belonging.
Needs to Nurture – build one’s vitality through creative self-expression (i.e., hobbies); romantic gestures, courtship, anything that makes one feel special; support system that includes friends/colleagues who are very expressive and free with affirmations.
Best Lunar Food – development of self-esteem, personal pride, and self-expression.
Needs to Nurture – being organized, developing healthy habits for mind/body; learn to appreciate one’s shortcomings as opportunities (and not slam down the hammer on themselves); establish positive self-talk.
Best Lunar Food – learn that their imperfection is an asset and opportunity for growth; learn to take steps (small and consistent) towards creating the life they want.
Needs to Nurture – finding music and other artistic outlets to help soothe the psyche; ‘buddy system’/partnership in things they want to succeed; beautifying projects is essential.
Best Lunar Food – need to re-own and express one’s whole nature, not just the socially accepted parts, or the part that aims to avoid unpleasantness.
Needs to Nurture – alone time is essential; sort through one’s feelings, vent and gain an understanding of their inner world; rising to the challenge – need to exercise toughness/tenacity; ‘face the dragon’ as a way to test themselves; embrace the catalyst in themselves.
Best Lunar Food – transforming liabilities into assets – emotionally and materially. Look beneath the surface and become aware of one’s feelings and habit patterns.
Needs to Nurture – having both emotional and physical space to relieve stress and alleviate pressures; need to feel the ‘door’ is open; develop a spiritual/religious connection; look for the silver lining in difficult situations.
Best Lunar Food – learning the art of ‘good enough’; giving up the idea of perfection, and developing a tolerance for oneself and others.
Needs to Nurture – exercises to build self-esteem, as a way to minimize the inner overdeveloped critic; pay attention and receive compliments paid to them; surround themselves with people who value they are, not just what they do.
Best Lunar Food – responsibility is a core issue (either too little or too much.)
Needs to Nurture – learn to change one’s perspective to find new options, especially under stressful situations; develop the tolerance muscle through learning to truly listen to the other side.
Best Lunar Food – consciously and diligently doing the balancing act between head and heart (logic/feelings.)
Needs to Nurture – learn to redirect one’s need to help others through empowering them, not through self-sacrifice; engage in activities that help one strengthen their sense of value in their empathic gifts, thus reflecting others how they can do the same; allow for deep nourish solitude as a way to clear away impressions received by others.
Best Lunar Food – learn to differentiate one’s own emotions from others and not continue to carry the emotional burdens of others while weighing one’s spirit down.
The path of self-care is illuminated by the Moon
Tending to the specific needs of our Moon Sign is our way to strengthen our relationship with self-care. Not to mention that it also helps us understand the unique needs of our beloved ones.
We achieve our destiny and our Solar purpose through the Moon’s daily rhythm. The Moon is the ground on which our Sun walks its heroic journey.
