A quick question re Moon talismanry and related operations: Given that the Moon's gender reliably changes across cultures, being generally male in ancient Assyrian, Anatolian, Arabic-Islamic, Indic and various Native American contexts but generally female in Greek, Incan and Javanese ones, for example, there seems to be a fundamental gender ambiguity in radically cosmopolitan, melting-pot environments. This includes in the first place the Islamic: in Arabic the Moon is strictly grammatically male, in classic Harranian and Indian style, yet overlain with Hellenic female attributes too -- hence his/her status as almost a second Hermes/Mercury in the Ghayat al-hakim/Picatrix. This ambiguity only becomes more intense in the early modern era of Moon-decked empires, when he/she becomes the ultimate Persianate symbol of the divine Beloved. In my own talismanic and devotional practice, I similarly experience the Moon as male, female and hermaphrodite, equally empowering for battling and for boozing, though also with a strong trickster-transformer vibe Coast Salish-style :)
Such cultural syncretism is par for the course in human-god relations, as you've shown. In the case of the Moon specifically, however, is it better practice to formally code-switch genders in invocations depending on situation, instead of just stringing them together as I currently do, Picatrix-style? Should Selene be invoked separately from Sîn?
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-09-25 02:26 pm (UTC)A quick question re Moon talismanry and related operations: Given that the Moon's gender reliably changes across cultures, being generally male in ancient Assyrian, Anatolian, Arabic-Islamic, Indic and various Native American contexts but generally female in Greek, Incan and Javanese ones, for example, there seems to be a fundamental gender ambiguity in radically cosmopolitan, melting-pot environments. This includes in the first place the Islamic: in Arabic the Moon is strictly grammatically male, in classic Harranian and Indian style, yet overlain with Hellenic female attributes too -- hence his/her status as almost a second Hermes/Mercury in the Ghayat al-hakim/Picatrix. This ambiguity only becomes more intense in the early modern era of Moon-decked empires, when he/she becomes the ultimate Persianate symbol of the divine Beloved. In my own talismanic and devotional practice, I similarly experience the Moon as male, female and hermaphrodite, equally empowering for battling and for boozing, though also with a strong trickster-transformer vibe Coast Salish-style :)
Such cultural syncretism is par for the course in human-god relations, as you've shown. In the case of the Moon specifically, however, is it better practice to formally code-switch genders in invocations depending on situation, instead of just stringing them together as I currently do, Picatrix-style? Should Selene be invoked separately from Sîn?
Thanks as always for Magic Mondays!