Art provides a powerful way to connect with our inner selves because it communicates through symbols, which constitute the language of the soul. This symbolic language speaks to us through art’s physical qualities of color, form, composition, and medium; it also communicates through an artwork’s content. In this way, form and content combine to express spiritual or mystical meaning, giving art a sense of mystery and inviting us to return again and again for contemplation. Over time, art can reward us with new insights and touch our souls through beauty of form and meaning.
Since ancient times, people have associated the Moon with feminine, receptive energies. For many cultures, she symbolized the Divine Mother, the celestial counterpart to the Sun’s masculine, active energies. As the Sun rules day, she rules night, the time of darkness, sleep, and dreams.
In astrology, the Moon rules Cancer, a water sign famous for its shifting moods and strong feelings. Astrology classifies Cancer as a feminine, receptive sign because of its watery nature; all water and earth signs rank as feminine, while air and fire signs constitute the masculine or active signs. As the Sun moves through the zodiac, it alternates between feminine and masculine signs, just as day follows night in every 24-hour period.
The Moon’s feminine quality also links her strongly with women, and her gravitational force influences women’s monthly cycles as well as Mother Earth’s watery realm through its effect on tides. The mysterious Moon reveals only half of herself to us: her movement around the Earth and her rotation synchronize so closely that we always see the same side of the Moon. Nevertheless, her appearance changes constantly because of her phases.
Blue Moonrise Evokes Cancer Themes
This painting, Blue Moonrise, helps us tap this ancient symbolism and wisdom. Through color, subject, symbolism, and brushstrokes, it gives us the beautiful story of Cancer, Blue Moonrise, And The Art Of Illumination.
It shows the Moon at her most dramatic, when her monthly cycle has reached its full phase and the entire lunar disk reflects solar light.
The Moon, recently risen in the east, dominates a brilliant night sky that changes color from indigo at the top to ultramarine in the middle to purplish blue near the horizon. Lunar light extends vertically and horizontally and creates a milky effect around the Moon via wispy clouds.
Blue Moonrise’s title and subject carry powerful associations with the astrological sign Cancer. The painting presents a night scene dominated by Cancer’s ruler, the Moon; astrologers often call Cancers “Moon children,” and many Cancers have round, Moon-shaped faces. Also, most of this image consists of a sky in varying shades of blue, a color linked with watery, tender Cancer and long a symbol of feelings, water, and the emotional plane. Where sky meets land, an undulating horizon line not only indicates Wisconsin’s gently rolling topography but mimics the effect of waves in water.
In addition, Blue Moonrise was painted from memory, as a recollection of childhood camping trips to remote lakes in Wisconsin. Cancer and the Moon are linked with childhood and memory: Cancers generally look back fondly or even nostalgically at their childhoods, and they tend to have powerful memories that can be expressed negatively as holding grudges for a lifetime or more constructively as a love of history and tradition.
Blue Moonrise also exhibits the mysterious or even strange quality associated with memory, imagination, and night. Although inspired by summer experiences, it was painted in autumn and shows an elm tree whose leaves have long since fallen; tiny, imagined structures at far left hint at a village or town from a distant era, adding another layer of time. In night’s world of shadows, the lone tree rises strange and vaguely threatening at right, and the few lights on the horizon suggest inhabited areas too far away to provide help if needed. The Moon’s cool light makes the land look milky and seem like water, an effect reinforced by ribbons of moonshine and earthglow just below and above the horizon. Unsure of what is real in such a setting, we may have the strongly Cancer experience of feeling like a child, afraid of the dark and the night.
Cancer Blue Moonrise And The Art Of Illumination
This very strangeness gives Blue Moonrise its peculiar power. Much as a dream may feel odd or unsettling when we first awaken into that halfway point between sleeping and becoming fully awake to everyday existence, so can art’s colors and symbols provoke feelings of being “in a different place.” That “place” consists of our inner, spiritual world, the realm of the soul.
Blue Moonrise brings us directly to that realm because, on the spiritual plane, the Moon symbolizes the soul (among other things). Also, the Moon’s monthly cycle symbolizes the inner process of spiritual evolution: at the beginning of each lunar cycle, the Moon is new or dark, and as the days pass she grows in light until the full Moon, the time of greatest light. Afterward, the light gradually diminishes until the next new Moon begins the process again.
This inspiring cycle symbolizes the inner self’s potential for illumination. Just as the Moon gradually increases in light, our inner self shines brighter and brighter as we grow spiritually and acquire greater wisdom. The monthly full Moon represents the climax of this process, giving us the time of greatest light and symbolizing spiritual illumination. After receiving light in the form of insight, intuition, or inspiration, we must share it in some way with others, as symbolized by the Moon’s diminishing light in the second half of her monthly cycle, as if she is emptying herself, giving away her light in order to prepare for receiving even greater light in the future.
These little monthly illuminations correspond to the Sun’s larger, annual cycle of light: fittingly, the Sun’s time of greatest light (in the northern hemisphere) occurs each year at the summer Solstice with its entry into Moon-ruled Cancer. This event often corresponds with emotional insights, dramatic outer events that bring change, or inner breakthroughs. Across a lifetime, this combination of monthly and annual illuminations gives us great opportunity to evolve spiritually. As we do, we reveal more and more of our soul’s beauty and shine greater amounts of inner light.
Blue Moonrise Painting Available As Gifts
This mysterious blue image is available as beautiful gifts in our online art store.
All gifts can be customized: add text such as your name, zodiac sign, or a special message, or adjust images and add background colors. Also, most gifts come in a many different sizes, shapes, and styles: seven mug styles, six pillow sizes with two fiber options, two ceramic tile sizes, four paper and canvas options for posters, and three card sizes. See individual product pages for full details.
Click any image or link below to see these gifts now:
Art and Astrology for Living in Harmony
This beautiful painting combines art and astrology to help you enjoy living in harmony.
Click any of the images or the yellow buttons here to see all the lovely gifts we offer based on the Blue Moonrise painting. And keep in mind: you can make these gifts your own, because all our gifts can be customized!
See all our gifts, for all zodiac signs and categories
See the other articles in the “Art And Astrology” series: Gemini And The Story Of Maat and Leo Deer Skull And The Cycles Of Life.
Remember: when you choose art based on your zodiac sign, you strengthen your astrology and help connect with who you really are and why you’re here. And when you give a loved one or friend a zodiac art gift, you help others do the same.
May Blue Moonrise touch your soul, and may its bright full Moon inspire your own process of introspection and spiritual illumination.
May you always enjoy living in harmony,
Although most cultural systems of astrology share common roots in ancient philosophies that influenced each other, many have unique methodologies which differ from those developed in the West. These include Hindu astrology (also known as “Indian astrology” and in modern times referred to as “Vedic astrology”) and Chinese astrology.
Yes, humanity has many types of astrology available–a rich tradition of wisdom and inspiration. Thank you for visiting and taking a moment to comment.