Moon

The Moon is about 1.28 light seconds away from Earth on average. The orbital velocity of the Moon is almost exactly one kilometer per second.

“The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet,[f] with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of Australia).[16] The Moon is a planetary-mass object with a differentiated rocky body, making it a satellite planet under the geophysical definitions of the term and larger than all known dwarf planets of the Solar System.[17] It lacks any significant atmosphere, hydrosphere, or magnetic field. Its surface gravity is about one-sixth of Earth's at 0.1654 g, with Jupiter's moon Io being the only satellite in the Solar System known to have a higher surface gravity and density.” (wiki)

“The Moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), or about 30 times Earth's diameter. Its gravitational influence is the main driver of Earth's tides and very slowly lengthens Earth's day. The Moon's orbit around Earth has a sidereal period of 27.3 days. During each synodic period of 29.5 days, the amount of visible surface illuminated by the Sun varies from none up to 100%, resulting in lunar phases that form the basis for the months of a lunar calendar.” (wiki)

“Due to tidal locking, the Moon has a 1:1 spin–orbit resonance. This rotation–orbit ratio makes the Moon's orbital periods around Earth equal to its corresponding rotation periods. This is the reason for only one side of the Moon, its so-called near side, being visible from Earth.” (wiki)

Many cultural meanings have been given to the Moon. In the Hermetic Tradition, the Moon is called the Foundation (Hebrew יְסוֹד, Y’sod. ). The meaning of it is generally accorded to the way that energy surrounds and is intertwined with all matter—especially since they are 2 forms of the same thing in some ways. The energy of this sphere is said to contain the physical blueprints of each thing. There is of course an aspect of truth to this—energetic patterns are the invisible road map of reality-to-be; but there is a very real sense in which physical things themselves contain their own blueprints and create these energetic fields which surround them.

In Physics, Energy can be described as a mass applying a force to another mass for a given distance. The energy involved happens when one thing is accelerated out of its own trajectory by another. The distance it is moved helps to describe the energy or work involved.

In human affairs, when you make a blueprint or a plan of action you are also making an energetic map to help you understand the effort involved. You get an idea of what resources you may need as well as some of the problems that may be involved. You are mapping a program of work out into the future.

Part of the idea of Hermetic practice is that if you are working to change yourself then you might want to think about consistent and planned effort to do so. It is not an exhortation to think that if you connect with the Moon Deity you will know the Divine Plan of Creation. You may seek a vision of such plans at any time, but it still won’t mean that they are anything other than some working concept of reality. This sphere hints at the massive workload and the seemingly endless ages of lives cyclically manifesting in profoundly diverse forms until life can flourish and survive the seasons and ecology of the terrestrial world it is a part of.

In some ways, the traditional ideas of the Moon as an influencer of emotion and mood can be easily supported as a cultural carry over from the fact that the moon is so close that is larger than all others from our view of the heavens. It is also the fifth largest moon in the solar system that we know of. The moon is known to influence the tides of the oceans and the reproductive cycles of nearly all mammals on earth and likely much more than I can recount here.

One idea to take home is that since the Moon establishes a regularly repeated rhythm both in our perception and very physically in the cycles of creation and destruction on earth, it is a very omnipresent and even subtle musical factor in all life on earth in an as real a way as it gets for a celestial body. But it draws into the discussion how the other bodies discussed here might factor into this equation in a similar fashion.

The idea of the Musical Cosmos Project was originally to simply establish what sorts of music the planets share. Since it is based on the properties of cycles and the harmonics that they describe in a very physical and real way, it became clear that all the planets are a part of this fantastic harmony which in some ways is the key to their shared longevity (4.5 billion years). Their path was in some sense established for millions of years before they were even formed fully as planets as we know them today.

Cultures have the same sort of dynamics here on earth. Before any being is born as we know it today, many things had to come to be and establish a profound harmony to get there. Harmony is fundamentally about sharing a space and playing a very particular part in that common space. There is no real harmony when there is only one voice. What had to come about in order for humans to create language and cities–a nearly countless number of beings had to come together great and small to pump life into the language and the culture that supports it. It doesn't mean that they all chose that path. Some were forced, co-opted or coerced to serve a human end. One may indeed call it godly that we have what we have–but I wouldn’t go so far as to pretend that our lives are more valuable than the lives of other species that we eat for our own survival and pleasure. We can be longer lived beings than flying insects or birds for instance but their lives are lived much more intensely (faster heart rate and physical actions) and in a shorter frame of time.

We also know now that a God didn’t make the fruits we eat, nor the vegetables–they were cultivated by humans for many millennia before they became what we know now today as apples and pears and corn. To say that God did it is to spit on the efforts of so many people and other lifeforms that went into creating them. Perhaps this is why we found it so easy in the past to praise our God for his ability to make such good corn, and yet enslave the real botanists who worked to make such good corn. And then we said,”See, our god was looking out for us. He gave us food and all we had to do was tell these gardeners about the whole thing. They will understand that our god is the most powerful.” In these cases all we should understand is that either greed or desperation has ruled the minds of humans who will do whatever it takes to get what they want. And their inspiration is the power which you can get when you force others to be slaves to ideas which empower you over them. It is a child’s game. But there are many children who only like to play games which they will always win at. And so sometimes those who are thought to be the most powerful really are the weakest of souls. They will never play a game at which they will lose, and so they often simply do not play any other game except the game in which all is fair to break any rule if it suits your own empowerment over others.

Perhaps ideas of God have always been so harmful to other cultures as they are a great power to the culture that carries them. A god of war is a divinely simple sort of justice–if you lose at my game, you are my slave. Still this is the most popular game of the rich, the desperate and those who wish to be rich.

The cycles of the Moon speak to the power of primary harmony as much as Mercurial cycles speak to the second harmonic and of Octave Harmony. Just as Mercury is the first to hint at a form of harmony or of a harmonic system by comparing solar day length to year length, so is the Moon an expression of primary harmony in the comparison of the sidereal day length (27.3 days) versus the year length (27.3 days). The moon gives a 1:1 harmony in one aspect and also gives a sure support to the harmonic system of Venus and Mercury combined into one specific harmonic system– 2^(x/18). Since Venus makes a ratio of 1.924197 when you compare year length to solar day length, you have a ready harmonic system created with Mercury. Since 1.92 is between 1 and 2 it is already an interval or musical number in a particular harmonic system with an octave length of 2. The system is an 18 note system and Venus is to within .13% of the 17th interval or note of that 18 note system. So with Venus the half step is created. The Moon is within .16% of a whole step in that same system (or 2^(2/18) or 2^(1/9)) suggested by Mercury and Venus. In fact the entire solar system fits in that same system half are closer than 1 percent and the other 6 i studied are within 3%. The idea is that there is a musical system that describes the harmonic structure of the solar system that is shared and implied by their own cycles compared to one another in a similar fashion, and the moon is very much a part of that (even more so than the earth because the earth fits very roughly in that same system).

The moon establishes primary Harmony or the first Harmonic (likely a pattern that applies to all tidally locked bodies that are close to a larger body). The first Harmonic speaks to the power of matching a thing precisely and intensifying resonance with that thing. Primary Harmony in praxis can be as nerve-wracking as it is soothing and empowering: it depends on the circumstances. But there is also very much a pattern of carrying on a very deep harmony with all the other planets in an easy flowing harmonic form as well. So Venus makes the gypsy like wavering dissonance of a slightly changing octave drone. The moon picks it up into twice the jump and a sort of linear quality is established harmonically.

Primary Harmony

Planning