Crone Moon Basecamp
Reference For Moon Science and Crone Moon Tarot Basics
This post is here as a reference. And like any good reference, it is long, it has sources, it is here for a reason, and you can skip around and refer back over time.
You’ll notice my last post was a Crone Moon Tarot Spread. This is here to explain it as I will be pulling these tarot spreads each Crone Moon and giving you journal prompts for reflection going into the next month.
You may be asking yourself WTF is a Crone Moon? Why tarot and what is it? What does she mean by “in Pisces?” This is my attempt to explain to you. We will go from moon science, to moon mythology, to a little astrology, to why tarot, and end with an explanation of the spread. Feel free to jump around and refer back in the future. You don’t have to memorize it. In the end, the moon and the crone moon are a vibe. You can always refer back here for a nerdy vibe check.
Moon Science
Back to the basics. Websters dictionary defines the moon as: The earth’s natural satellite that shines by the sun’s reflected light, revolves about the earth from west to east in about 29½ days with reference to the sun or about 27⅓ days with reference to the stars, and has a diameter of 2160 miles (3475 kilometers), a mean distance from the earth of about 238,900 miles (384,400 kilometers), and a mass about one eightieth that of the earth.
That is a mouthful, and it is doing a lot of the work for me. I was just going to say the moon is a really big, really old rock and crack a joke about green cheese.
Fun fact. The moon has been in constant free fall towards the Earth for about 4.5 billion years. Gravity constantly pulls it towards us, and it is moving just fast enough not to death spiral into us making us go the way of the dinosaurs. It is also moving slow enough to not go flying off into the great beyond.
Every culture has their own myth about the creation of the moon. Modern Science’s current theory is the Giant Impact Hypothesis. Click here for a very scientific reference from Nature (top scientific journal). Click here for laymen’s terms from Wikipedia (easy to understand but not always accurate).
Remember how the moon has been in freefall for 4.5 billion years? Well, it all started when a planet about the size of Mars smashed into the Earth. The Earth then flung rocks into our orbit that eventually coalesced into the moon.
There are so many cool things about that.
The moon is actually made from the Earth.
The moon is in constant freefall. Remember that scary stress dream when I described The Moon Tarot Card in the Crone Moon in Pisces Pull. Constant freefall for billions of years sure sounds like a fever-dream to me. Symbology can be based in reality.
The planet that smashed into earth is named after the Greek Titaness Theia who was the mother of Selene, the moon goddess. I love Greek mythology. Stick around and you will hear more of it.
Another cool moon fact. The moon does not create its own light. Moonlight is actually reflected sunlight. Ever heard of the “dark side of the moon?” One half of the moon never receives sunshine because the sun can only illuminate the side facing it. We see different moon shapes during the lunar cycle because as the moon rotates around the earth, the angle between us, the moon, and the sun changes. This changing angle shows us changing proportions of the light and dark side of the moon.
We typically think of the moon phases starting with the new (dark) moon. This is when the moon is directly between the sun and the Earth. The sun shines just on the side we cannot see, and we only see the dark side of the moon. As the moon orbits the Earth we begin to see more and more of the illuminated side (waxing phase) until the moon is on the opposite side of the Earth as the sun. At this point none of the dark side of the moon is visible and we see the entirety of the illuminated side (full moon). As the orbit continues, we again see more and more of the dark side of the moon in the waning phase until the moon returns back to a new moon after 29.5 days.
Once I got more into the woo, I found myself asking why the zodiac cycle is a different length than the lunar cycle. Like, I literally had a hard time falling asleep one night thinking about it. In case any of you have that burning question, I looked it up for us.
Turns out that the zodiac cycle (sideral month) is 27.3 days because it is based purely on the Moon’s orbit relative to the fixed stars. This orbit makes the moon appear to move in the sky about 13 degrees per night (or between each 30 degree zodiac sign every 2-2.5 days).
But—this is what made my head explode until I looked it up—the lunar cycle (synodal month) is 29.5 days. It is the same moon moving around the same Earth, right? Yes—but remember that the moon phases change because the angle between us, the moon, and the sun changes? That “little” bit of extra distance the moon has to travel is what adds the extra time.
Making Meaning of the Moon
Throughout time, humans have been obsessed with the moon.
The moon, however, is much more mysterious. First off—it only comes out in the dark. Already spooky. When the moon returns each night, it looks different than the night before. And if you watch it closely, you notice there is a pattern to the way it changes shape. Interesting…
The moon starts as nothing and grows until it is fully round and then it shrinks back to nothing. It isn’t a big leap to tie this to the life cycle, whether it is crops, animals, or people. So, cultures around the world did exactly that, mapping the moon cycle onto the life cycle. New Moon=birth/beginnings, Waxing=growth, Full=peak/adulthood, Waning=death/endings.
Moon and Greek Mythology
Remember how I mentioned the planet Theia smashing into Earth to make the moon? Well, it was named for the Titaness Goddess Theia in Greek Mythology. Theia was the mother of Selene, the goddess of the moon. Selene’s siblings were Helios, the sun god, and Eos, the goddess of the dawn and together they represented the day/night cycle. Selene made sure we saw the moon in the night sky every night by flying her moon chariot across the heavens driven by two snow-white horses.
But wait! Selene isn’t the only Greek moon goddess. The most recent moon mission was appropriately named. Artemis is the goddess of the moon, hunting, and wilderness. Unlike Selene who is depicted as the full moon, Artemis (a virgin/maiden goddess) is depicted as a waxing moon.
And then there is Hecate. The OG Crone of Greek mythology. The titaness goddess of magic, witchcraft, and the night. A psychopomp who lives in liminal spaces and thresholds. In classical mythology she is associated with the waning crescent moon. However, at some point, our girl Hecate transformed into the triform goddess—or triple moon goddess.
I’m not a historian, so I don’t know how to really dig into the sources for this to tell you when this happened. I found sources saying it was in the 5th century and others saying it was the 20th century. So, I won’t pretend to know. All I know is that now she can either be just the waning crescent or she can be all 3 phases.
The Triple Moon Goddess
We do know that it wasn’t until the 20th century that Robert Graves popularized the concept of the Triple Moon Goddess in his book The White Goddess. This is when the modern neopagan community shifted to map the waxing, full, waning moon specifically onto women as the “Triple Moon Goddess” rather than the life cycle in general.
In this tradition, the waxing, full, and waning moons map to stages in a woman’s life: Maiden, Mother, Crone. Note the subtle difference between birth, fertility, death as a cycle of ALL of life and maiden, mother, crone. Basically he was saying as soon as women leave childbearing age they are crones—negative connotation at the time. Patriarchy? It is no wonder that the reclamation of the word crone started not much longer after that.
The Moon and Our Emotions
Moon phases are thought to connect to our energy and inner experiences. Tracking them can allow us to feel more connected with nature and give us regular cues for reflection and growth. Despite tracking all moon cycles, culturally, people focus on the new and full moons.
When we talk about New Moon energy (Maiden), we talk about setting intentions, potential, and preparing for what is ahead. When we talk about Full Moon energy (Mother), we talk about reflecting and releasing. These moons mark the halfway points in the cycle.
Nobody talks about what a crone moon is or what to do in one. But if we are going to talk about a triple moon goddess—we need to ask why doesn’t the crone get a moon too?
As a crone myself, I want to know, and I want to find a specific time in the moon cycle to honor this archetype in us all.
The Crone Moon
The new moon and the full moon happen at very precise times, making them easier to track and to use for our reflection and growth. But there isn’t one specific date that is THE date of the waning crescent moon. The crone could claim the entire waning phase if she wanted.
So what’s a calendar conscious crone to do?
Is there a certain point in the waning crescent we would say is precisely the Crone Moon? When is the crescent crescent-y enough? I decided to short circuit this trap by claiming the last quarter moon as the Crone Moon.
Why the last quarter moon? The last quarter moon is the threshold to the waning crescent. It is perfectly liminal being half lit and half dark. The crone lives at the threshold, in the liminal, and thrives in the shadow work. Using the last quarter moon as the Crone Moon is an invitation for the crone to walk through the threshold into her power.
And here’s the thing. The Crone Moon isn’t special for being liminal. The moon is almost always liminal. Fully lit and fully dark are the rare moments. The crone has just stopped pretending otherwise.
What Does it Mean When a Moon is in a Sign?
When I post Crone Moon readings, I also discuss their astrological sign. Most of us are familiar with the 12 astrological signs but stop at knowing our sun sign. Ex. I was born in late November so I’m a Sagittarius. That just means that in the 360-degree circle that is the night sky, the Sun appeared to be aligned with the constellation Sagittarius when I was born.
As much as we hate to admit it, the world didn’t stop the second we were born. The moon keeps on moving and grooving through the sky, and in the world of astrology, the sign it is in changes the way we feel it.
Each of the 12 zodiac constellations have about 30 degrees of the 360-degree circle of the night sky. If a planet or the moon is in that 30 degrees, it is said to be in that zodiac sign. As the planets and the moon go through their orbits, their position in the zodiac signs change—some faster than others. Remember how I said the moon moves at about 13 degrees a night? Well, that correlates to it being in a zodiac sign for only 2-2.5 days at a time.
When a planet or the moon are in an astrological sign, the sign “flavors” it with different personalities or qualities. On its own, the moon represents emotions and inner life. And during the 2-2.5 days the moon spends with each sign, our emotions take on aspects of the sign.
For example, the most recent Crone Moon was in Pisces. This gave it more of a dreamy, fluid, intuitive feeling as compared to the next one in Aries which will have a more driven, impulsive, and bold feeling.
Whether you believe the moon changes behaviors or zodiac signs flavor personalities doesn’t matter. What matters is that using the framework can help you reflect on those specific aspects of yourself and your situation. We all can use more self-reflection. Astrology and the Crone Moon framework are as valid as any other framework to assist in that self-reflection. AKA shadow work.
And a crone is only as strong as her self-knowledge.
Tarot for Self-Knowledge
We just talked about how the moon can help a crone in self-reflection, but it is just one of many tools. Tarot is another useful self-reflection tool for Crones who are so inclined.
This crone doesn’t read tarot as prophecy. Just like astrology, I think of it as a tool to help in self-reflection and to understand my own mind. It helps me ask questions I would not otherwise ask myself, think about things I may be avoiding, and confront things I may not be ready to say out loud yet. Regular self-reflection is great for inner growth. The monthly Crone moon is a monthly reminder to pause and reflect on our crone journey.
I designed the six-card Crone Moon Spread as a tool to aid us in this reflection.
We will go deeper on tarot in general in another post. To help us comprehend just how nuanced it can be, check out these numbers:
Tarot is 78 cards, each carrying rich symbology. For a six-card Crone Moon reading, there are a potential 197,230,323,360 card combinations. If you read reversals, which I do, that jumps to 13,076,423,680,320.
Wow. I’d never calculated that before until I sat down to write this. My mind is kind of blown right now. When we combine this with one of the 12 astrological signs the number of combinations to interpret skyrockets. Each reading is a unique combination of symbols for us to sit with, reflect on, and use to deepen our crone powers.
The Crone Moon Spread
As I sat with the concept of the Crone Moon, I tried to think about what it can teach us. The cyclical nature lets us reflect on the prior cycle and plan for the upcoming one. I listed out concepts that went with these themes, and I chose themes for each of the six cards in the spread.
Each card can be read individually in relation to its theme. We can combine all the cards together with their themes for an overall impression of the prior cycle and the coming one. Adding the astrological sign of the Crone moon and how it flavors the reading is an extra layer of interpretation.
Each month, I will pick a deck that speaks to me (I have collected way too many decks) and draw these six cards. I will walk you through my interpretation, and you are free to interpret however you see fit. In fact, I prefer you interpret it for yourself as that is the first step to self-reflection.
In the self-reflection vein, I will also provide optional journal prompts for us to dig deeper in the themes that arise from the reading. No journaling required. Just available for those who are inclined and want to do more self-reflection.
So, without further ado, here is the spread:
Card 1: Celebrate
This card is a reminder to pause and celebrate the previous cycle and what it taught us. As we prepare to go further into the darkness and self-reflection, what should we honor in our growth through the previous month?
Card 2: Examine
Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, this card asks us to reflect on ourselves and our current situation. What are we holding on to, and is it a positive or negative in our life? This could be logistical, emotional, spiritual, or something else. What are we clinging to, and does it make sense for us anymore?
Card 3: Release
Card 2 helped us think about what we’ve been holding on to and if it is still benefiting us. This reflection helps us with Card 3 which asks us to use our intuition to decide what we need to quietly set down before we go further on our crone journey.
Card 4: Threshold
The half-illuminated and half-dark Crone Moon is a liminal moment perfectly representing a threshold. When we reach a threshold, we have to decide if we are going through it or not. This card helps us reflect on what our threshold is and how we will proceed.
Card 5: Intention
As the moon gets darker, the distraction of the light and what we had been building melts away. It is a time to rest, reflect, and recover. If we are still and quiet in this darkness we may be able to hear our inner crone whisper to us about potential intentions and directions for action when the light returns.
Card 6: The Crone Speaks
You’ll notice cards 1-5 make out the shape of a waning crescent moon, and card 6 is off to the side. In the photos of the spread, this card is with a statue of Hecate—the OG Crone. This card is a summary of the reading. If you jump to her card, she will give you the bottom line up front. She tells us that if we take only one thing from the reading, it is what our inner crone has to say about it.
Wrapping Up
I will be pulling the Crone Moon Tarot for you each month on the last quarter moon (Crone Moon). You don’t have to remember any of this for those posts, but I will provide a link here for those who are curious. Come back whenever you need to.
The Crone is all about Audacity, Nerdiness, and Wisdom. So today I nerded out about the wisdom of the moon and tarot. Next time I will serve you more audacity.