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A planetary meditation for the Moon

a planetary meditation practice addressed to the Moon

What the tradition reads

The Western planetary tradition treats a meditation to the Moon as an appeal for emotional clarity, rest and a settled mind, worked in the Moon's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on a Monday, dressed in white or another pale colour, with camphor burning if it can be had, camphor being named among the fumes Agrippa's own chapter gives the Moon. The tradition reads the Moon as governing the tides of feeling rather than the fixed points of will, and treats a Moon practice as an act of listening to what is actually felt rather than forcing a mood to change on command; the working asks for steadiness within change, not for the change itself to stop. The Vedic remedial tradition reads the same working through Chandra, also called Soma, and prescribes it most often for whoever stands in a Moon dasha or whose lagna lord is the Moon, or whose own Moon is weak or afflicted: the name mantra recited on Mondays, charity of rice, milk or white cloth given on the same day, and, where a jyotishi has examined the whole chart and prescribed it, a pearl worn on the little finger, for a trial period, removed if the trial does not go well. Both traditions read the practice as calming water rather than damming it.

The story

The ninth hymn in the standard Orphic sequence addresses the Moon under the name Diana, calling her goddess queen who diffuses silver light, bull horned and wandering through the gloom of night, mother of ages and fruit producing, asked at its close to shine on the rites with prosperous rays; the hymn's own instructions name aromatics generally as its fumigation. Thomas Taylor's English translation of the whole collection, made at the close of the eighteenth century, remains the version most commonly read. The Vedic tradition's parallel verse, from the Navagraha Stotram attributed to Vyasa, calls Soma born of the ocean of milk and the ornament of Shiva's own crown, an origin that sits alongside a second account, given on Chandra's own Wikipedia page, naming the sage Atri and his wife Anasuya as his parents; the honest telling keeps both births rather than choosing between them. Two unrelated hymns, Greek and Sanskrit, each address the same changing light as a nightly ornament of the heavens rather than as a fixed and constant one.

The practice

1. Begin with the blessing of the room, cleaning the space, setting out salted water and an unlit lamp, and asking the One who made the lights that the place be clean, quiet and kept. 2. Sit in the Moon's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on a Monday, or by actual moonlight if that suits better, with white set out and camphor burning if available. 3. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, twelve rounds, letting the breath find its own rhythm. 4. Say the address aloud: in the name of the One who made the lights, turn to the light of the Moon, and to its angel or deva, asking for steadiness of feeling and rest, and that it be given in the light and harm no one and ask nothing against anyone's will. 5. Recite the mantra, Om Chandramase Namaha, one hundred and eight times on a mala, or read the Orphic hymn to the Moon slowly three times instead. 6. For the sitting, notice whatever feeling is actually present without trying to change it, letting it move as the tide moves, neither held back nor pushed away. 7. Sit for five to twenty minutes, then give thanks, put out the lamp, and carry that same gentleness toward the next feeling the day brings.

Written from

Corpus key practice:Moon.