Moon Guiding Planet

You have a special knack for practicality and keeping things running

smoothly. The busy teacher, housekeeper and the resourceful manager

are examples of this type — their day is full of interruptions, adjustments

and problem-solving. You can best handle situations by going straight into

the heart of the matter and gently taking control. Your forte is an ability

to cope with a constant stream of demands and quickly changing

priorities. Moon Skill Symbol people are often do well in the fields of

education and counseling. On the other hand, you may be prone to

obsessiveness, over-work and criticism, tendencies which may be

balanced or moderated by keeping the big picture and your ultimate goals

in the forefront.

As Guiding Planet, the Moon symbolizes a reflective mind highly

sensitive to everything in the environment and to the ever-changing flow

of life and events. It places us in touch with our root power, which has a

natural source, grounded in nature and natural activity. Yet the busy

managerial and organizing functions of Moon as Skill Symbol, or its

tendency to focus on the needs and requirements of others, may get in

the way of tuning into your own needs and the larger issues and currents

operating beneath the pressing demands of your often quickly changing

mundane life. To serve us as a Guiding Planet, the Moon asks one to

schedule quiet time for meditation or for a peaceful and relaxing nature

walk.

The birth-chart of novelist Henry Miller features Moon Oriental, rising

about seventy degrees before the Sun, in the seventh house of

relatedness and conjunct the south lunar node, Mars, and Uranus. Henry

Miller spent much of his later years living a simple life in a cabin on the

remote Big Sur coast of California. His banned books did much to

compensate for the puritanical shame of the body and sexuality which

played such a large part in the American morality of his time.

The liberator of India, Mahandas Gandhi, was born when the Sun

was unaspected (humanistic astrologers use somewhat tight orbs,

revealing a clearer picture), and much of his solar power seems to have

expressed through the Oriental Moon in the tenth house (politics and

public life) Leo. With Moon as his Guiding Planet, Gandhi was able to

sense precisely what was needed at the moment and he was utterly

dedicated to his destiny of winning independence for his people. As Skill

Symbol, the Moon symbolizes the organizational and gentle managerial

skills, and a capacity for tuning into the needs and abilities of anyone,

required to unify a very large and diverse nation and to gear its people to

act in unison for a common goal.

The natal horoscope of J. Krishnamurti shows Moon Oriental, but a

very great distance from the Sun, 145 degrees, forming a bi-quintile

aspect between the two. The chart as a whole depicts a sharp "see-saw"

pattern, comprising two opposed planetary groups, with the Sun and the

Moon acting as a member of a planetary pair "enclosing" each of the two

groups. Additionally, the two groups are situated one above and one

below the horizon. Indeed, from the chart’s planetary gestalt, the Moon

seems to be in too strong contrast to the Sun to figure as a scout or

guide, too much space seems to "separate" the two bodies. And

Krishnamutri’s somewhat rigid, mentally crystallized philosophy and

outlook, which seems much rooted in negativism and denial, tends to

speak from a natal Taurus Mercury conjunct the Nadir, rising seven

degrees after the Sun, and from a natal Saturn retrograde in the ninth

house. Even if the Oriental Moon seems estranged and not fully functional

as Guiding Planet, much of Krishnamurti’s deeper side suggests he was

connected with it beneath the surface. For instance, Krishnamurti was

always very much interested in education and nourishing the mind and

spirit, which ties in with Moon as Skill Symbol. He established several

innovated schools worldwide, and founded Happy Valley School in Ojai

Valley with his friend Aldous Huxley. Krishnamurti also had a deep

appreciate of and trust in women, and in spite of his guru, holy man role,

he conducted a secret thirty-year liaison with a woman, a relationship he

evidently found so fulfilling that he wanted to continue it into his later

years.

The birth-chart of early woman of rock Stevie Nicksfeatures an

Oriental Moon in the tenth house rising a great distance before a second

house Gemini Sun. She wrote a song titled "Sister of the Moon" in the

late-70s when her fame was of the first magnitude and she epitomized

the "witchy woman." Stephanie's Oriental Moon is opposite natal Venus on

the nadir, and natal Neptune near the Descendant link-up with the two to

form a T-Square.