4.7.2 Comparisons of the Western Zodiac, the Medicine Wheel, and the Chinese Zodiac

• Greco-Roman Zodiac: Cancer; cardinal, water; ruler exalted
• Zodiacal associations: animal is Crab (Cancer; stone is Ruby
• Roman Zodiacal associations
  • animal is Crab, turtle, sphinx; plant, Lotus; gem, Amber, Moonstone
  • symbol is Crab; color is Yellow-Orange
• Amerindian associations:
  • animal is Flicker (woodpecker); plant, Wild Rose; mineral, Carnelian Agate; Pink
• Chinese animal associations: Horse, Cock or Rooster, Ox
• Eck-Vidya associations - Kamitoc, Ruby, July, Lenurig, Years of the Wandering Seas

4.7.4.2 Western Planet Associations: Moon (Walker 344-345)

• perhaps no other natural object so widely revered from extremely ancient times
  • as a rule, new or crescent is recognized as its symbol
    • full (a simple circle) carried solar connotations
  • apparent connection with women's cycles of "lunar blood"
  • supposed to give life to every human in the womb
  • Moon became prime symbol of Mother Goddess everywhere
• Greek name Europa, eponymous Mother of Continental Europe
  • means "full moon"; was former title of Hera or Io as the white moon-cow
    • and other versions of the Goddess as well as Demeter and Astarte (Graves, G.M.)
• Albion - an old name for Britain, meant "white moon" - referred to the Goddess
  • until Monk Gildes converted her to a fictitious male, St. Alban
• a primal deity of Pesia, Al-Mah, the moon
  • name became Bebrair Almah ("nubrile woman")
  • Christians insisted on translating it as "virgin" when applied to mother of Jesus
  • an other derivation is Latin "alma mater," living mother soul of the world
  • Romans revered primal Moon Mother as either Luna or Mana (Mania)
  • worship condemned by Christians as "madness" (lunacy)
  • she was mother of archaic ancestral spirits called Manes
    • annually propitiated at the Manalia festival
  • same goddess Mana ruled archaic Scandinavia, Arabia, and central Asia
  • Mana from Sanskrit manas ("mind")
    • an attribute of Ma, the primordial Mother
    • also related to Latin mens ("mind," "moon")
    • also meant the mysterious quality of spiritual power (nu-men)
• per Mases Maimonides, moon worship was religion of Adam
  • Bible contains many pre-Jahvistic references for the Moon (Buffault)
• Old Testament kings wore "ornaments like the moon" as did their animals (Jud 8:21)
• prophets denounced women for wearing lunar amulets (Isaiah 3:18)
• Agla, a "secret name of God" much used in Hebrew magic, usually translatted as "light"
  • but meant specifically Moonlight
  • Aglaia was an ancient name of the Moon Goddess
• a Talmudic tradition
  • Yahweh himself had to make a sin offering to the moon for offending it/her (French)
• the Moon Goddess showed little respect for Yahweh or any of his cohorts
  • according to "apocalypse of Baruch," when Adam and Eve wept over their sin
    • then everything else also wept with them
    • "The heaven and the sun and the stars, and creation was stunned
    • even to the throne of God; and the angels and the powers were moved
    • for the transgression of Adam, except the moon, who laughed" (Tennant)
• St. Augustine condemned women for their "impudent and filthy" dances
  • in honor of the new moon (Hazlitt)
  • yet timing so important to Savior tradition:
    • Christians insisted on a full moon shown on crucifixion
  • although there was supposed to have been a solar eclipse
    • which only occurs in the dark of the moon!
• lunar traditions continued to be associated with women throughout the Middle Ages
  • folklore and ballads show women encouraged to pray for special favor
    • not to God, but to their own deity, the Moon Mother
  • by whom they swore all oaths (de Lys, Wimberly)
• Jeremiah's opponents doggedly continued to bake cakes for the Queen of Heaven
  • (the Moon) despite his fulminations against her (Jer 44:19)
• women of Christian Europe continued to bake Moon cakes
  • called croissants or "cressents" by French - for their lunar holidays
• modern birthday cakes descended from Greek custom of honoring monthly custom
  • of Artemis the Moon with lighted full-moon cakes (Brash)
• witches continue to invoke the Goddess by "drawing down the Moon"
• in some areas, crops couldn't be sown or weddings celebrated
  • except at appropriate times of the Moon
  • everything having to do with domestic animal management seemed to depend on the Moon
• no sorcerer or witch undertook magical operations
  • without first checking the proper phase of the Moon (Hazlitt)
• Moon Goddess, so important to pre-Islamic Arabia:
  • her emblem came to represent entire country
  • still does as lunar crescent on Islamic flags
• as Manat, the old Moon-Mother of Mecca, she once ruled the fates of all her sons
  • who called her Al-Lat, the Goddess
  • now she has been masculinized into "Allah"
    • who forbids women to enter the shrines once founded by priestess of the moon
• in central Asia, her orb was described as
  • the mirror that reflects everything in the world (Jobes and Jobes)
  • it is still said that the Moons' reflection on the water
    • is the prime remedy for nervous hysteria