The first three are the most important

 

This is a sentence from an advertisement which has been broadcast in all our national media. It has very ably presented some facts that have been already concluded by numerous psychological studies. Indeed, the first three years are very important in development of every person – in that period of our life we soak up ,like a sponge, everything that happens around ourselves. The impressions created in this way are stored deep in our memory. Astrologically, that period in our lives is associated with the Moon. The Moon symbolizes our spontaneous, instinctive reactions. It indicates how we show our feelings and what we need to feel safe and protected. The Moon – perhaps it would be  better to say Luna (moon in Latin) – represents the receptive, passive, female principle. It doesn’t have its own source of light but reflects the Sun’s light.  Also, in astrology it represents the most important person in the first years of our life – our mother. Or, more accurately, it describes the way we she appears to us. But regardless of what kind of a person she is, we will be especially sensitive to her behaviors and characteristic that correspond to the position and aspects of the Moon in our chart and those particular behaviors and characteristics will be committed to our memories. So, for example, if your Moon is in aspect with Saturn, your mother will appear to you like a demanding and serious person but at the same time she will also seem a strong and stable person. The opposite example would be if your Moon is aspecting Venus. Then the image of your mother will be much softer – she will appear as a person who tries to meet all our needs and tries to teach us how to enjoy the beautiful things in our lives. On the other hand, she will also avoid disciplining us and teaching us practical skills. But, and I would like to mention this once more, the point is that the Moon describes a very subjective image. Maybe the best example for this are families with numerous children. Every child probably has the Moon in different sign in his/her chart. So, the perception of the mother for each individual child is different. And that perception of their mother will mark them for the rest of their lives. Perhaps by reading what I have written so far you have gotten an impression that there is not much one can to change the image of their mother. You could say there is a bit of truth in that but there is also remains some space to do some constructive activity.

But first let’ s got back to the Moon symbolism. Among other things it represents the unconscious, instinctive principle. And that means it is a rather subjective principle. So, the image of our own mother is, by necessity, a very subjective one. In the stage of our development when to us she is the most important thing in the world, we are at the mercy of her behavior and her moods, we are fully exposed to the storm of her own feelings. In the first three years of life, the child thinks that he/she and the mother are the one and the same person since in that period the child hasn’t yet developed his own sense of “I”. This early lack of individuality will be more than made up in  coming years with every occasion when the child tries to demonstrate his own will and stubbornly provokes his parents’ patience. Relationship with mother is our very first emotional relationship. The experiences and feelings from that relationship will replicated in our mature emotional life and we probably won’t even be conscious of it.

But regardless of importance of our relationship with our mother (whether it was a pleasant or traumatic experience) we can’ t expect her to protect us all our life and we can’t blame her for all our failures. Remember, she’s only made of flesh and blood, and she has her own problems, complexes and childhood traumas, too. A mature and truly grown up person can take care of his own emotional needs by himself, by embarking on an exploration of that really complicated area of life. Each one of us knows how unpredictable our reactions and behaviors are sometimes so that it seems as if we are governed by some invisible hand. This is related to Moon symbolism in astrology which describes the Moon as unconscious, irrational, and instinctive. Our spontaneous reactions are described by the position of the Moon in our horoscope. For example, persons with the Moon in Aries will react quickly and  often angrily but fury of this reaction will weaken very soon. Other persons, with a Moon in Capricorn will react quite differently. Their reactions will be quite restrained at first – what they truly feel will be kept for themselves and they will act in a way they thinks is proper for a particular situation. We all know very well how hard it is to control our spontaneous reactions. In fact, there is often no reason to control them, but our life would become a very chaotic affair if we let our emotions lead us without influence of our conscious control. We are „forced” to constantly return to our regular behavior patterns, looking back at our past behavior, unready to accept any constructive innovation in our lives. But, sooner or later this leads to monotony. And when we reach that point, it would be good to understand and keep in mind that we are the ones who are in position to do something to move ourselves from stagnation. We are not like little children waiting and expecting somebody else to do it instead of us. We must remember that we are all grown up now and responsible for the direction of our lives.