2.1.7. The Moon

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
— The Dhammapada

The moon has always held a curious power over human imagination. It changes yet remains the same, appearing full, then broken, then gone, then back again. Its rhythms influence tides, moods, and the unspoken mystery of the night sky. But in the symbolic language of alchemy, the moon is never merely the moon. It points toward something within us—something beautiful, reflective, and prone to illusion. In this chapter, we follow that thread back to its source and consider what the moon reveals not about the heavens, but about the mind.

The Moon as Symbol

All symbols are partial translations. A symbol is chosen for its established meanings—because it takes us some distance toward deciphering the truth it seeks to convey. So when the moon appears in myths, dreams, and sacred texts, we must always ask: what does it mean here?

To build an understanding that is both clear and coherent, we start by seeking some shared consensus. What did the moon signify in the ancient world? What ideas, emotions, and cosmologies gathered around it?

In cultures attuned to seasonal shifts and tidal rhythms, the moon’s role was obvious and essential. Its pull on the oceans, its gentle guidance through cycles of growth and decay, and its visible phases would have been intimately known. Without artificial light, people were also far more sensitive to its shifting brightness—observing not only its fullness or absence but the mood it cast on a landscape, the quality of its shadow.

The moon, unlike the sun, does not shine by its own power. It reflects. In that difference, a whole hierarchy emerges. The moon becomes secondary, subordinate—still divine, but in a gentler, more receptive way. Often it is associated with the feminine.

Its symbolism carries this gendering. The moon becomes an image of the divine feminine—pure and luminous, yet also changeable, vulnerable, and in later patriarchal traditions, portrayed as tempted, fallen, corruptible. Eve becomes this feminine moon: beautiful, reflective, and just slightly disobedient—the one who is both blamed and desired.

Yet none of this is fixed. The moon appears now as a serene goddess, now as a seductress, now as a cold, distant light. The image is never stable—which is perhaps the point.

To take symbols literally is always to miss the message.

The Mind as the Moon

The alchemical moon does not ultimately point to the night sky but to the mind—more precisely, to the discriminative mind. This is the part of us that reflects appearances, analyses, judges, and compares—yet forgets it is reflecting. It takes the images it mirrors to be real, and in doing so, it falls.

This fall is not a moral collapse but a perceptual one—a forgetting. The mind remains functional so long as we remember it is reflective, that its true nature is empty, shining with borrowed light. But when it forgets, it begins to believe in its own illusions. When belief hardens, a particular version of reality is born.

This forgetting—this mistaking of reflection for substance—is the engine of saṁsāra.

Karma’s Reflection

It is not just the moon that reflects. Karma reflects too. Like an echo, but made of actions. Every choice reverberates through time, returning not as sound but as circumstance—shaped by intention, steeped in consequence.

The difficulty is not only that we create karma, but that we fail to recognise its echo. We treat this echo as real. We react to it—especially when it hurts. Pain causes the mind to recoil, and so the pattern repeats, unnoticed.

The alchemist at the threshold of Albedo begins to master karma by doing two things. First, they reduce the creation of new unwholesome karma—they become less reactive, more deliberate. Second, they learn to face the echoes of past karma with equanimity and curiosity. They begin to ask: why does this pain arise? What is it showing me?

This reflection—and the discipline to remain with it—settles the mind. A quiet clarity emerges. Tranquillity becomes possible. Meditation deepens. Jhāna becomes accessible.

And from that stillness, insight arises.

Silver Begins to Emerge

This is not insight as mere theory or thought, but insight as transformation—the kind that opens the door to transcendental awareness. Then, without seeking it, something curious happens. The base metals of experience begin to change. What was crude becomes refined. The moonlight becomes silver.

But that is a mystery we will explore in the next chapter.

In the language of alchemy, the moon is not a celestial object but a mirror to the mind. Its phases echo our mental fluctuations, and its reflective nature reveals that the mind does not generate reality—it merely mirrors it. To mistake these reflections for reality is the beginning of suffering. But to see them clearly, to recognise karma’s echo, and to meet experience with quiet clarity—this is the alchemist’s work in Albedo. And in that clarity, silver begins to appear.

This text is excerpted from the upcoming book Albedo: A Course in Modern Alchemy. The complete volume will include additional study guides, glossaries, and extended teachings. Learn more about the book here.