The Moon is the ruler of Cancer, cardinal water, and is exalted in Taurus.

The Moon is traditionally associated
with womanhood and the Sun with
fatherhood, although the Moon probably
has more to do with the roles woman
have played (wife and mother) than with
women themselves. As the Sun stands for
the positive self-expressive part of our nature, so the Moon stands for the feminine, indrawn, receptive, and imaginative side. It tends towards carefulness, prudence, and sensitivity although the lunar person is often shrewd and practical in business. It is maternal, affectionate, sympathetic, impressionable and yet tenacious and enduring in regard to its

Along with the Sun and the ascendant the Moon is one of the centers of the chart. The Moon can be considered as a medium or container in which an energy may become manifest.

The Moon is connected to all forms of motherhood and represents the idea of where we have come from: the source, the womb, the Great Mother. It is also bound up with our ideas of country and native land. Hence the tendency to treat the homeland as mother and the feminine endings on the names of many nations.

Since the Moon as a nurturing principle affects one most strongly at a time of life when one is not very conscious the action of the Moon tends to be unconscious. The Moon relates to unconscious assumptions that we have made about life from the beginning – attitudes picked up from our parents, positive and negative. The Moon also represents the emotions; aspects of ourselves that cannot be understood by purely rational means must be understood through feelings and emotions, emotions being a strong sign something deep within us is being stirred.

The Moon is also said to indicate the people of a country as opposed to its rulers, who are supposed to be solar. An individual with a strong and well-placed Moon is able to appeal to large groups of people and make them feel that they are one of them. This is a requirement for politicians, actors, writers and salesmen. The Moon is also one of the indicators of psychic ability, a mode of perception in which everything, everywhere is in some way connected.

The Moon will manifest as whatever activity in a person is spontaneous, and it is usually more obvious in a sign than the Sun.

The Moon represents our urge to nurture and be nurtured and protected. Aspects to our Moon have a great deal to say about the ease or difficulty we have in nurturing ourselves or in finding sanctuary and safety for ourselves.

The Moon along with the IC and it’s ruler, describe where we are coming from in the widest sense; our past, childhood, family, roots, history and heritage. The Moon as significator of home also has a bearing on how “at home” we feel with ourselves, and this affects how we respond to others and how others respond to us. The Moon should describe how we felt safe as a child, and even if we didn’t feel particularly safe, we still tend to gravitate to whatever our Moon represents, for the planet describes habitual patterns which we get attached to, because they are familiar.

The Moon is a major significator of the mother, our early experience of her and our experience of all our early care-taking.

Our first bond is with our mother for we are carried around within her, we absorb her feelings and her moods in the same way we are nourished by her food. She is the first person we are bonded to and therefore the first person we turn to for unconditional acceptance. Our Moon, by sign, house placement and planetary aspect will have much to say about how we felt as a child, and more especially whether we felt safe. How we feel safe now, how we feel protected, how we protect and care for others and the ease or difficulty with which we are able to do so are influenced by the Moon.