Random Stranger: Steve, you are a total lunatic.

Steve: Why, thank you! What a nice thing to say!

That critical stranger perhaps had my belief in astrology in mind, although I can think of some other possibilities. For example: 

I believe that consciousness survives death. I believe that nothing in life is actually random. I believe in ghosts and spirits. I believe the dream-world is as real as this one – (and I believe there’s a great joke in that line too . . . how real actually is this world?) I believe that miracles happen. I believe in reincarnation. I believe that soulmates – or two feet or four – can find each other again across the seas of death and rebirth. I believe there are true psychics and mediums and that they are a blessing to any community lucky enough to shelter them. I believe that there are still saints among us. I believe in magic. I believe that certain shamans can journey into the astral worlds and impact the lives of people about whom they care or whom they hate. I believe in what we’ve traditionally called God. 

I have little to offer in the way of proof about any of those beliefs, at least not anything that would convince that random stranger. They are just things I know in my bones – and I am totally aware of how weak my argument of “just knowing” would sound to many “rational” people. They’d probably treat me like a mental patient who “just knows” that he is Jesus or Napoleon. But it works for me. And it comforts me. 

Astrologically much of my “lunacy” arises because I have a strongly-placed Moon. By the way, when we say “lunatic” today, we obviously mean a crazy person, but originally it was an adjective, not a noun – accent on the second syllable. And it didn’t mean “crazy.” It meant “lunar.”

Ask any group of astrologers what the Moon signifies and most of them will say “feelings.” That’s true – the Moon definitely resonates with your emotional body. When you’re sad or happy or proud or feeling tender, that’s Moon territory for sure. But when you meet someone and you “have a feeling” that you could become friends, that’s the Moon talking too. When a friend of yours starts seeing someone and you sense they are going to be together for a long time, that’s something you might say that you have a “feeling” about, even though it’s not exactly an emotion. 

In all of these situations, we use the word “feelings,” but it really has two meanings. Sometimes by “feelings” we mean emotions and sometimes we mean intuition or even psychic impressions. In any case, it’s all lunar territory – it’s just that the territory is a lot bigger and more mysterious than experiencing happiness when you get what you want and sadness when you don’t.

• To say it rigorously, the Moon represents a wavelength of perception on which you become aware of everything that slips through the nets of rational analysis.

Think of love. Most of us understand that love is a reality. But it is notoriously hard to measure or predict. It “slips through the nets of rational analysis.” Think of the idea that life is inherently meaningful. No one can prove it, yet many of us sense it. Again, meaningfulness itself “slips through the nets of rational analysis.” And what gives meaning to life? There’s more than one answer, but one that’s on everyone’s short list is love, so we’ve soon circled back to that “unmeasurable” reality.

I don’t want to attack academics or to sound anti-intellectual. I’m not really that way. But I think that it’s fair to say that among “highly educated, rational” people, often the dominant belief-system today is a kind of existentialist materialism. Ask them what happens when we die, and you’ll typically hear something with a hint of humor such as, “I guess I’ll find out” – that, or perhaps some variation on “everything fades to black.”

 . . . as if we actually were these fragile bodies. As if the brain and the mind meant the same thing.

That’s where materialism enters the equations. It’s not always about the pursuit of money. At an even deeper level, materialism is ultimately the belief that humans are only flesh, bone, and firing neurons, and death means “over and out.” Ask the Moon: we are more than that – but then ask the Moon to prove it, and the Moon just says, I know. 

Picture an old woman in a hospice. She’ s facing death. She’s led a good, loving life, but she’s not very lunar by nature. Perhaps she believed that life basically boiled down to what she saw on television. Naturally, death is a scary prospect for her. A “lunatic” friend comes to sit with her – someone who intuitively believes many of the things on that list I opened this essay with: life after death, and so on. This lunar person doesn’t preach to her dying friend. Perhaps they don’t even talk about the “elephant in the living room” – that this old woman is on death’s door. Perhaps they just sit quietly together. Maybe they talk about the weather or politics or some happy memories they share. It doesn’t matter what they say. Something precious is flowing from the friend’s soul into the heart of the dying woman. Let’s call that magical Moon-energy faith, but by that I don’t mean anything like religious dogma. 

Bruce Springsteen’s moving 2002 album, The Rising, had a song called Into The Fire. It was a tribute to the first responders on 9/11 when the Twin Towers were brought down and three thousand people lost their lives, including many of those brave firefighters. One simple line about those heroes still brings tears to my eyes: May their faith give us faith.

That’s a lyric about the Moon. That’s what is flowing from the visiting friend into the soul of that dying woman in the hospice. It’s not an idea. It’s not about words. It’s not about proving anything to anyone. It’s pure life-force, pure energy – something coming straight from the ancient Mother Goddess, through the lunar person, and into the hearts of anyone fortunate enough to be nearby.

If the Moon is a prominent part of your chart, your higher calling is to be a pipeline of this contagious faith – a faith in everything that slips through the nets of rational analysis – into the world. In any situation, your presence alone is half the magic.

Even with a prominent Moon, not everyone gets this right. Like everything else in astrology, we can respond to it weakly or well. A strong Moon can just be moody and whiny, obsessed with its own needs and fears. But it can be strengthened! It can evolve to a higher level! And even if the Moon does not play a big role in your astrological makeup, it too can be strengthened and begin to resonate on this higher wavelength. 

Everyone has a Moon, so how do we tune it up? How do we bring out the best in it? Your Moon occupies a certain sign and house. It makes certain aspects. It’s in a particular phase. At any given moment, it’s undergoing certain stimuli via transits, progressions, and solar arcs. It has a mysteriously symbiotic relationship with the south node – that’s of course the south node of the Moon, so the connection with the mysteries of karma and prior lives are intimately tied up with it. The point is simply that your chart contains a specific formula for how you personally can bring out the best in your Moon. Doing that is the secret of personal happiness, but it also strengthens your intuitive side. Do enough of that lunar empowerment and you soon find yourself seeing through the illusion of death as the end of everything. What a gift to give yourself! But there’s more: your very presence is a gift to everyone with whom you share time and space.

Want to know more? Please think about joining the rest of us lunatics at our Moon Retreat in San Diego in April. We will be exploring all of this lunar wisdom, and more. Click here for details: www.forrestastrology.center/moon

See you there, I hope – and if that’s not possible, we’ll all be feeling each other through the astral realms. That will be true whether or not our bodies are all there in San Diego. Tune into the Moon and you’ll know it too – you just won’t be able to prove it!