More on temperament

One important element of temperament assessment is the Moon, both by phase and by sign. There seems to be a disagreement among various authors as to whether these two factors, Moon phase and Moon sign, should be judged separately or not. Frawley gives predominance to the Moon phase while the Moon sign, whatever it is, cannot alter this basic temperament, he says, just mitigate it. Dorian Greenbaum judges these two factors separately, but gives 1 point to the Moon phase and 2 points to the Moon’s sign. She also takes into account the Moon Ruler, giving it 1 point. Even though I’m not yet convinced about which is the right way of assessing the temperament, I believe - for the moment at least – that the Moon phase is more important than the sign and I agree with Frawley’s method.

However, there is a problem. The real temperament of each of the Moon’s phases is not exactly what the books say. After the New Moon, the Moon is becoming increasingly hot and is gradually losing moisture. But we cannot possibly call a Moon, which is a few degrees ahead of the Sun, hot and moist. Moist yes, but hot? It has practically no light, so it is still very cold. As it moves, it is indeed gaining in heat, but it is by no means hot. All the possible Moon placements between the New Moon and the Full Moon are deemed hot, but there’s a vast difference in heat between a Moon just a couple of degrees after the New Moon and a Moon a couple of degrees before the Full Moon, isn’t there?

What seems even more absurd is to call the Moon a couple of degrees after the Full Moon cold and the Moon just after the New Moon hot, when it is really the other way around. True, the fact that the phase changes can be important in the sense that the Moon before the Full Moon is still, let’s say, optimistic while after the Full Moon there is a tendency to melancholy, since there's nothing to look forward to, but this Moon still has enough heat to fight away coldness.

I feel we need to be more precise and flexible when it comes to assessing the Moon’s temperament and take into account the exact distance of the Sun and judge accordingly. Take a Leo Moon, for example, a few degrees after the Full Moon. We would judge this as a moderately cold and very dry Moon, when in fact it is a very hot Moon, isn't it?