Latin word for moon is luna,from the word leuk,meaning “bright” or “shining.” The
Moon is visible because it reflects light from the Sun. A bright full Moon can cast
shadows. Modern words that come from lunainclude lucid, luminous, and lunatic.The Sun and the Moon are paired in most mythologies throughout the ages.
Pairings have included husband and wife, father and mother, and brother and sister.
The European culture that developed from Hellenistic Greece believed the Moon was
a female deity. However the early European, Oriental, and indigenous American cul-
tures often choose to portray the Moon as male in gender. In all cultures the Moon is
linked with fertility and conception. The female menstrual cycle is clearly linked to
moon cycles and the period of the month when a woman is able to conceive. Farmers
often sow their crops during specific times of the Moon’s cycle in order to reap the
most beneficial harvest. Just as crops require the Sun to grow, it was the Moon that
ensured that the seed would germinate. While the Sun rules the day, the Moon rules
the night.
In Sumerian mythology, the Moon is the son of Enlil (Saturn) and Ninlil.
Ninlil’s mother had warned her daughter not to bathe in the irrigation canal. Ninlil
did not obey her mother and washed herself in the water. Enlil, the god of air, saw the
beautiful and naked girl, and quickly took advantage of her. His punishment for the
rape was exile to the underworld. He left the city, but Ninlil followed. Enlil knew that
the girl carried his son, the Moon god Sin. Enlil wanted a bright child (Full Moon)
and not a dark child born in the underworld (New Moon). In one version of the myth,
he impregnates Ninlil several more times to effect the order and timing of the birth, or
appearance, of the Moon. Sin is the bright Moon and his brothers are the dark and
waning Moon. In Sumerian mythology, the Moon is best known as the father of
Innana, the planet Venus.
In ancient Greece the Moon was associated with three different female deities:
Selene, Artemis, and Hecate, known collectively as the Three-faced Goddess. Selene
is the goddess in the sky, Artemis is the earthly form, while Hecate is the goddess of
the underworld. These manifestations represent the phases of the Moon: Selene is the
waxing Moon growing in brightness, Artemis is the full Moon illuminating the Earth,
and Hecate is the waning or dark Moon, lessening in light until it is not visible. This
is symbolic of the phases of human life: childhood, adulthood, and old age.
Selene is one of the ancient Greek gods, born of the primordial gods called the
Titans. She is associated with sleep. Artemis is also ancient, and there is evidence that
she was worshipped in Minoan Greece, although she must date from far earlier. She is
called a virgin goddess, but this is misleading. She is properly called the unmarried
maiden and governed female rites of passage such as reproductive maturation, mar-
riage, childbirth, etc. She is called the Goddess of the Hunt and Mistress of the Ani-
mals. Her animal is the deer. If Selene is the expression of the Moon in the heavens,
and Artemis is the expression in the physical world, then Hecate is the expression of
the Moon in the underworld. She is a chthonic goddess belonging to the graveyard.
Hecate is the goddess of the dark Moon and rules witchcraft, potions, crossroads, and
death. She is Persephone’s attendant during her yearly stay in Hades known as the
season of winter. In all her forms, the Greek Moon goddesses are connected with fer-The Moon
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