The Sun & Moon

   Now, the moon dies into the sun once a month, to be born from it again, just as the body of the first sacrifice died into the earth, to be born again as food.  In this early, goddess-centred mythology, therefore, the sun, like the Earth, is female.  Or, according to another image, the male moon begets itself in the sun: the creative fire of the sun and creative fire of the womb and of menstrual blood being then the same.  Equivalent, as well, is the fire of a sacrificial alter.    G xviii

 Female Sun & Male Moon

Let me say a word here about the female sun and the male moon.  Later on we will be coming to the male-oriented mythologies in which the sun is masculine and the moon feminine, but this earlier Neolithic and high Bronze Age system shows the female sun and the male moon.  In German, one says der Mond, (“moon” – masculine), and die Sonne, (“sun” – feminine).   In France, one says la lune (“moon” – feminine), and le soleil (“sun” – masculine).  If you know and appreciate with equal pleasure the two systems, you will recognize the source of this deep, dark quality in the German sense of the tragic.  It is a mystical culture with a mystical language, whereas French is characterized by la clarite du francais, the light and the shine of Gallic reason.   G44