The Moon in Sagittarius

the Moon in tropical Sagittarius

What the tradition reads

The Moon holds no domicile, exaltation or particular weakness in Sagittarius by the scheme Ptolemy sets out in the Tetrabiblos; the sign belongs to Jupiter, and the Moon there is read as a feeling nature borrowing the host planet's own appetite for a wider horizon rather than its own instinct to stay close to home and to what is already familiar. Sagittarius is a mutable fire sign, read by the tradition as travel, belief and the reach past whatever field a person grew up inside, and the Moon set there is read as an emotional life that needs, above nearly everything else, room to move. Cafe Astrology's delineation describes Sagittarius Moons as cheerful and optimistic, hungry for new experience and new company, holding what the tradition calls a kind of "blind faith" that things will generally work out, and quick to escape a difficult situation rather than sit inside it. The tradition names a dislike of routine as the placement's ordinary cost, an emotional nature that can mistake nearly any settled arrangement for a cage, though the same restlessness is credited with an adaptability and an optimism that carry it comfortably through changes that would unsettle a more home-bound Moon considerably more.

The story

One tradition holds that Chiron, the wise centaur who tutored Jason, Achilles and other heroes rather than fighting alongside them, set both Sagittarius and the constellation Centaurus in the sky himself, purely to help guide the Argonauts on their long voyage in search of the Golden Fleece, a teacher who chose to keep helping his students find their way even once they were fully grown and far from home. Selene makes the same nightly voyage herself, crossing the whole sky in her chariot behind two white horses, or in some accounts oxen, before descending again at dawn, an unbroken, self-renewing journey she has made every single night for as long as anyone has kept track. Where Chiron's guidance was a single act aimed at one particular crew on one particular quest, Selene's is simply constant, offered to anyone who happens to look up on any given night rather than reserved for a chosen few heroes. The Moon in Sagittarius is read as combining both instincts, an emotional nature that genuinely enjoys teaching and guiding others toward a wider world, while reserving for itself Selene's own habit of never actually settling anywhere for long, always already partway through the next crossing before the last one has properly finished.

Written from

Corpus key planet-in-sign:Moon:Sagittarius.