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Native American Moon Shield

Usually, the moon is personified in myths as a female deity, but it is also known in some cultures as a male figure. Lunar symbolism brings together powers associated with the cyclical patterns in nature: the tide, the fertility cycle of a woman, the shedding of the snake’s skin. All of these repetitive modes of change, death and rebirth, are associated in lunar symbolism. The moon represents a force that expresses itself indirectly and through endurance rather than through direct aggression and oppression. It is the power of water to wear away the stone, the survival of the snake that disappears into the earth as it flees the hungry eagle, and the power of healing that comes through a connection with deep, vegetative forces in the psyche. The medicine shield of Chief Arapoosh of the Crow Indians offered physical and spiritual protection through the powers of the Moon, who is portrayed as he appeared to the chief during a vision quest. A deer tail and eagle feathers wrapped in red trade-cloth are fastened at one side of the shield. The head and neck of a crane are tied to the opposite side, together with crow or raven feathers, a length

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Chandra The Lunar Deity

Chandra (Sanskrit चन्द्र lit. “shining”) is a lunar deity in Hinduism. Chandra is also identified with the Vedic Lunar deity Soma (lit. “juice”). The Soma name refers particularly to the juice of sap in the plants and thus makes the Moon the lord of plants and vegetation. On the inner level on consciousness, Chandra is the reflective light of the mind, and Soma is the sacred nectar of higher states of awareness. Chandra is also the word in Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indian languages for moon and means ‘shining’. Originally a feminine deity, representing the goddess or the female archetype in general, Chandra has been depicted in a male form in many sculptures and images as a symptom of patriarchal dominance in the the Hindu society. The name Chandra and Soma are still common names for girls in India. Chandra is described as young, beautiful, fair; two-armed and having in it’s hands a club and a lotus. Chandra rides on a chariot across the sky every night, pulled by ten white horses or an antelope. She is connected with dew, and as such, is representative of fertility which draws back to it’s origins as the mother goddess of the universe.

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Horus : Egyptian God of the Sky

HORUS served many functions in the Egyptian pantheon, most notably being the god of the sky. Since Horus was also said to be the sky, he was considered to also contain the sun and moon. It became said that the sun was his right eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he, a falcon, flew across it. Horus Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the contestings of Horus and Set, originating as a metaphor for the conquest of Upper Egypt by Lower Egypt in about 3000 BC. In this tale, it was said that Set, the patron of Upper Egypt, and Horus, the patron of Lower Egypt, had battled for Egypt brutally, with neither side victorious, until eventually the gods sided with Horus. As Horus was the ultimate victor he became known as ‘Horus the Great’, or ‘Horus the Elder.’ In the struggle Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, which Set represented, is infertile. Horus’ left eye had also been gouged out, then a new eye was created by part of Khonsu (the moon god) and was

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