The Pestle of the Moon (Tarot)

On the Taurus New Moon, I put my Sacred Rose deck back into its butterfly book-box and switched over officially to the new Smith-Waite deck, which has been under my pillow every night for a couple of weeks now. I've been pulling a "card of the day" from it ever since I got it, to help with the bonding. I feel very comfortable with this deck now, especially since it gave me all three of my so-called Life Cards - Empress, Hanged Man and The World - on three consecutive days as card of the day, in their chronological order.  That was rather astonishing.

Starting on the New Moon, I began something called "The Pestle of the Moon" which is not really a divination but more of a meditation or exercise. This was described in the Katz-Goodwin book on the Smith-Waite tarot.  The purpose is to "regenerate your intuitive abilities". It derives from W.B.Yeats' poem called Phases of the Moon where he gives attributes for the Moon's phases. Katz and Goodwin describe it as "an entirely off-book method that may or may not even register consciously as to its effect." They suggest that it be done as a meditation, for relaxation and enjoyment.  They also suggest that dreams be recorded during the Pestle of the Moon cycle, naturally.

On the New Moon, according to directions, I laid out the High Priestess and Moon cards with the High Priestess above Moon. Then 8 random cards were drawn and placed around these two, starting at the right which is New Moon, then going widdershins to Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full, Waning Gibbous, Last Quarter and Waning Crescent. Each phase lasts about three days and nights.

I found a free lunar phase app to download to my phone, yippee! Ready to go.

The meditation or exercise is simple. Take the card of the current phase and put it by the bed. Before going to sleep, glance at it and let intuition pick out one thing from it as a focus. Eyes closed, visualize the card, then open eyes and glance at it again. Repeat until the card is clearly visualized. Then while falling asleep, repeat the keyphrase of the moon phase, derived from Yeats' poem, while seeing the image growing larger. As it grows and takes you in, merge with the scene. Let the keyphrase turn into sound, a chant, or music and take you deeper into sleep and into the card's image.

The first two nights after the New Moon, I did this with the World card. The keyphrase for the New Moon is "Cradle". Two things stood out to me in the Smith-Waite World card. The four figures at the corners of the card (which to me represent the fixed signs of the Zodiac) seemed cartoonish. One is a man (Aquarius) but the other three seemed to have human features, which struck me as a little silly and whimsical, but it was ok. The second thing was that the wreath around the dancing figure looked scaly to me, and I kept picturing it as an ourubourus snake even though I know its supposed to be leaves, ideally with roses. Why did Pixie leave off the roses, I wondered. The first night was very relaxing and I enjoyed the meditation, especially connecting the "cradle" idea with The World, being rocked gently to sleep. I did dream but couldn't remember it.

The second night (last night) was completely different. Instead of relaxing, it was vaguely scary and the meditation kept me awake instead of soothing me. I couldn't stop thinking about the snake-like wreath, which didn't really bother me. I like snakes. But it just kept coming back into my mind and preventing anything else from occurring to me. Even the 'cradle" rocking didn't help me to get into the right state, which got more tense as I continued. Finally I gave up and just let myself go to sleep without even trying to visualize anything.

Tonight is a new card for the Waxing Crescent phase, whose keyphrase is "The Dream". The card is the Six of Cups, a pleasant card for a dream. Meanwhile I transcribed the Yeats poem into my Moon journal for handy reference. So we'll see what happens next.

I'm looking forward to regenerating some intuitive abilities, as Katz and Goodwin describe in their intro. I feel that I'm intellectualizing too much - which is my nature, with natal Moon in Aquarius and Gemini Rising. However, this is supposed to be an "off-book" exercise for renewed intuition, and here I am doing research, looking up the Yeats poem, studying moon phases, even re-reading my old notes on Florence Farr and Golden Dawn, to prepare for this lunar cycle working. Wrong? I guess I should just let it flow, without any expectations or pre-fabricated ideas, and give my rusty, hide-bound intuition a chance to emerge from the shadows.