Episode 221: The Moon
/Look up at the night time sky. See the moon? Human beings have been doing the exact same thing for centuries, and there’s plenty of moon deities to show for it. So we’re rounding up some of our faves for a truly celestial episode.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of animal death, pregnancy and birth, virginity, societal misogyny, sex, heteronormativity, genitals, vomit, physical injury, regurgitation, social hierarchy, conspiracy theory, and menstruation.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey.
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And this is Episode 221: The Moon.
Julia: The Moon. I'm very excited about this episode. I really like the reason we're doing it. And I think we touch on a lot of really cool areas and a lot of good myths like we usually do in roundups.
Amanda: You love a roundup. I always get so excited when that's what we're recording that day.
Julia: I'm glad. I'm glad. I know the audience also loves a roundup. So, this makes me happy.
Amanda: I also get excited whenever we get a new patron. It's true. I see the email and I'm like, “Yay, thank you.”
Julia: Yay.
Amanda: So, thanks this week to Jacob, Chanda, James, Jenny, and John. Wooh! Quite a J week. And, our supporting producer level patrons who support each week, we treasure and value and keeps the show going; Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Debra, Hannah, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Liz, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Polly, Sarah, Skyla, and SamneyTodd, and, Julia, those legend level patrons we love so much; Audra, Drew, Jack Marie, Ki, Lada, who had to deal with some import tax issues this week.
Julia: Wow. Really?
Amanda: So, thank you, Lada, for your patience. You're a star.
Julia: Thank you.
Amanda: Mark, Morgan, Necroroyalty, Renegade, Sanna, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: If I had the power to do so, I would name a crater on the moon after each and every one of you.
Amanda: Hmm. There are certainly enough. That's a good idea.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And, Julia, I know that you have been doing a ton of reading this year. What do you have to recommend this week?
Julia: Oh, Amanda. Amanda, I feel like I've recommended Sarah Gailey’s stuff on the podcast before. They're an excellent writer. They do a lot of speculative fiction, which I'm a big fan of. And I just started, last night, reading their book, The Echo Wife, which is about a scientist in the field of genetic cloning who finds out that her husband is having an affair with her clone.
Amanda: Whoa. I love it so much.
Julia: And that's just the beginning of the story. It gets much more intense later on. I'm about halfway through at this point. It's very, very good. Highly recommend. And I have a feeling it's gonna be a quick read. It's a bit on the short side, but it's very digestible. It's a good way to describe it.
Amanda: Yeah, I love like a short story or novella, particularly in Sci-Fi because it feels like you're just inhabiting that world and it's not a world that I can linger in for too long. But it's one that's just long enough for him. Like, holy shit, like, I want to go back there.
Julia: Yeah, it's perfect, honestly.
Amanda: Beautiful. And, finally this week, we wanted to remind you that we have a lot of really fun stuff for sale on our merch store. We are currently in the process of restocking our glowy logo shirts, which are definitely our top sellers. We have beautiful pins in partnership with Shaker & Spoon. We have spooky posters of our, like, haunted national parks, which are amazing. And, listen, when you guys buy merch items, it tells us what you like and what you want to see more of. So, as we sell out of the things we have, we're able to make new hats, and flasks, and pins, and shirts, and posters, and digital coloring books, and all kinds of fun stuff. So, if you haven't checked it out in a while, we've tons of beautiful items there for you. It is at spiritspodcast.com/merch.
Julia: My favorite is the pocket tee. I love a good pocket tee. And the fact that it's got our kind of repeating logo on the pocket is very, very cute.
Amanda: I know. We wanted a pocket tee for so long and then we made it happen. And it's just so lovely.
Julia: Dreams come true.
Amanda: Yeah. And, when you were your Spirits merch on the world, tag us on Insta. We'd love to see you.
Julia: I want to see it. Get us in those stories.
Amanda: There's nothing more flattering than somebody tagging you in their stories. It's true. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you for your support, whether that's through merch, Patreon, recommending the show to a friend, checking out the other shows on Multitude. All of it is so valuable and we really appreciate it so much.
Julia: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, guys.
Amanda: So, without further ado, please enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 221: The Moon.
Julia: The Moon.
Intro Music
Julia: So, Amanda, there was a viral screenshot going around a while back from Wikipedia – the article has since been edited to kind of remove the section that I'm going to be talking about – about how elephants ritualistically worship the moon.
Amanda: Really? Is it removed because it's wrong or removed because it was just like said weirdly?
Julia: Here's the, the quote from the screenshot. It was, "Ronald K. Siegel has studied the precursors of religious faith in African elephants and concludes that 'elephants are aware of natural cycles, as they practice moon worship, waving branches at the waxing moon and engaging in ritual bathing when the moon is full.' Observations by Pliny the Elder also note supposed elephant reverence for the celestial bodies." As you might imagine, Amanda, Pliny the Elder has not been the best source for this kind of thing. The man thought lamps grew out of the ground like dandelions, for example.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: But the quote from Ronald K. Siegel comes from his book of The Psychology of Life After Death, which was written in 1980 and is contentious, to say the least.
Amanda: A lot of orange flags at best that I'm seeing here.
Julia: Orange getting towards salmon, I would say.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Something like that. Some blood orange, perhaps.
Amanda: Some amber.
Julia: This isn't to say that elephants aren't cool on their own because, like, elephants have been known to, like, mourn their dead in ways that are similar to humans. They can understand human gestures and are even capable of mimicking human speech in a limited capacity, which I think is insanely cool. That's wild.
Amanda: Wild.
Julia: But, unfortunately, they aren't worshiping the moon.
Amanda: See, I asked before you said that anecdote because I didn't want to get my hopes up.
Julia: Like the internet did.
Amanda: Yeah. I don't know. To me, like, marking the passing of time and doing rituals and doing things like bathing for a reason that is not because you need to bathe or because it feels good is, to me, like, another level of consciousness. And I'm sure people actually study this, but that, to me, is kind of like, “Whoa. I did not know that.”
Julia: Yeah. No, I totally agree. Like, the idea of ritual, I think, is a very human thing. So, if we start discovering that animals also do ritual in the same capacity that humans do, that's gonna be like a big deal.
Amanda: And, again, I'm sure that, like, birds mate in a certain way or, like, you know, when – they have routines and habits. And that, I think, is a different thing.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: But, doing ritual sort of as a group because you want to and not because there is some kind of, like, tangential purpose or, you know, like, holdover reason why you do it, that to me is, like, next level.
Julia: Absolutely. But, Amanda, even though elephants aren't worshipping the moon, this did get me thinking about moon worship in general because, as we know, from doing this podcast for over five years now, people have been worshipping the celestial bodies and the moon in particular since practically the origins of religious worship. So, true to Spirits form, we are doing a round up about our celestial mom, the moon.
Amanda: The roundest roundup of all.
Julia: Not always round.
Amanda: True.
Julia: That's the cool thing about our mom.
Amanda: Yes, she is always round. But, sometimes, dad casts a shadow over her and she looks like a sliver of herself, which is a metaphor that I'm going to just let go right by.
Julia: Also, fun fact, not a perfect sphere. Kind of, like, more oblong from when they actually measure it.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: But it looks nice, and round, and full in our sky. So, who can say?
Amanda: For sure.
Julia: So, before we get into the specific moon deities, though, why is it that we see moon worship. Besides the fact that humans are drawn to worship nature and natural phenomenon, the moon itself is connected to, like, kind of the rhythm of life. The cyclical nature of the moon, for instance, was something that humans would have noticed really early on. Early civilizations realized that the moon had influence over the tides, which would often lead to its association with agriculture and the cyclical nature of the harvest. In early civilizations where hunting was key or where the culture was nomadic, the deity that represented the moon was usually associated with being typically male. Conversely, agrarian and agricultural societies were much more likely to view the moon as feminine. This isn't like a hard and fast rule by any means, but it is common enough of a thread that many scholars have taken notice of it, which I think is kind of neat.
Amanda: I think that's another sort of mark in the column of gender is socially constructed, because it depends not on the moon but on the people characterizing the moon.
Julia: Exactly. And this is something that, when I was reading mythology really early on before I kind of got an idea of, you know, gender being a social construct and stuff like that, I spent a lot of time kind of thinking like, “Well, why is the moon a lady? And why is the sun a man? And why is this person in charge of this and this person is in charge of that?” And, very much, I was, like, thinking about gender roles before I knew really what gender roles were.
Amanda: Mhmm.
Julia: I just think it's really interesting to be able to prescribe a certain society having a certain mind frame when it comes to a deity.
Amanda: For sure.
Julia: So, let's get started. The first place I want to start with is Ancient Egypt and the duality of Khonsu and Thoth. Now, Thoth, we've talked about before as the Ibis-headed god of wisdom and judgment. When we spoke about him in the past, it was in the context of his role in the afterlife and how, during the weiging of the heart against the feather of truth, it was his job to kind of write and scribe the outcome.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: He was like the court stenographer of Ancient Egypt.
Amanda: I think that would be a really fascinating role to have because I'm not in charge of the proceedings and I'm not affected by them, but I do get to watch. It's like the fourth wall role.
Julia: Yeah, he's very, like, scholarly in that sense where he can, like, take himself out of the situation and just be the impartial judge there. I really like that. What we haven't talked about before with Thoth is that he was originally a moon god and Egyptian mythology credits the 365-day calendar to Thoth’s invention, which replaced Egypt's 360-day calendar which had previously been used.
Amanda: Really.
Julia: Yeah. And this is where Khonsu comes in. So, Khonsu was worshipped as the god of the moon and time and was one of the Thoth’s companions. The story goes that the goddess, Nut, had become pregnant, but the god, Ra, had forbade her to give birth on any day on the Egyptian calendar. You might see where this is going.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: So, Thoth came up with a plan. He gambled on a game of dice with the crescent moon – here, represented by Khonsu – in order to earn extra days on the calendar. So, Thoth, in the game, managed to win a portion of the light of the moon, specifically, 170 second of the light of the moon, which equated to five new days added to the calendar which allowed Nut to then give birth to her five children on each of those days; Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys.
Amanda: I love that origin story so much. And I also love thinking about the person who was like, “Ah, shit. Ah, shit. Oh, no, it's too short,” and perhaps coming up with a more poetic reason.
Julia: Yeah, I vaguely remember – and I, I might be wrong about this. But, with the 360-day calendar, they used to just – every couple of years, would have just like a week-long festival where they celebrated the fact that it wasn't any of the days technically. Like, outside of time.
Amanda: Yeah. Obviously, there are so many calendars, particularly lunar-based calendars that make a lot more sense in different, like, religions. But I always like to read the sort of speculative internet people answers of like, “You know, what would a better calendar be? And, like, what if our weeks were all five days long, or 10 days long, and blah, blah.” Things that are kind of easier to divide in your brain.
Julia: Yeah, that's fair. I feel like everything's easier to divide if you set everything to the same number. Like, yeah, 10 is easy to divide. But, like, if all of our things were by sixes, or twelves, or sevens, it would be much easier to divide. You know what I mean?
Amanda: We're in Star Dew Valley where every season is 28 days long.
Julia: Exactly. If we just got on the same page as everyone else, everything would be easy.
Amanda: I have so many coconuts. So many bananas. I could summon my horse to me with a flute.
Julia: Okay. So, Khonsu is represented by different forms depending on the phases of the moon. So, on the new moon, he is known as the mighty bull. Whereas, on the full moon, he is associated with a neutered bull, which is interesting. I would have thought it would be the opposite, but it's not.
Amanda: Yeah, builds the vitality, but, instead, you start strong. And, like me, over the last 13 months, it just kind of decreased, you know.
Julia: So, as the crescent moon, he is thought to help women conceive probably because of his association with the story that I just told you. Also, he’s known to help livestock breed successfully. Khonsu, as a god of the passage of time, is also characterized as a youth at the beginning of the year and an old man by the end of it, which is kind of, like, the Ancient Egyptian version of baby, New Year, and old man, Time.
Amanda: I love that or the Sphinx’s riddle.
Julia: There you go. As we do, we are going to travel across the Mediterranean and talk about the many moon goddesses of Greece and Rome next. Specifically, we're gonna focus on Artemis, Diana, Selene, and Hecate. Artemis was not originally the moon goddess of Greek mythology. That was usually portrayed by Selene. Selene was more ancient. She was the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and was the sister of Helios, the sun god, and Eos, the goddess of dawn. So, much like Helios, she drove her moon chariot across the heavens. But, by classical times, Artemis had usurped her as the goddess of the moon as well as the goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, and chastity. Chastity is just particularly funny because, yes, she preferred to remain a maiden. But, also, the concept of virginity in Ancient Greece was very different from what we mean now.
Amanda: Really.
Julia: And I just – I want to just go into this. This is fun for me.
Amanda: No, it's interesting.
Julia: So, based on Athenian social structure and the understanding of virginity, which translates from the word parthenos, a virgin was an unmarried woman who still lived with her father and was thought not to have sex, which didn't mean that they weren't having sex. It just meant that they were probably having it, but no one but their partner knew.
Amanda: Yeah. And it's more of, like, a legal status from what you're describing, which makes sense because marriage is a legal contract.
Julia: Sure. And it's like a societal understanding thing. So, it was more like you've had sex and, even though only you and your partner know, you're still a virgin. Whereas, like, modern society is like you've had sex and, only if you and your partner know, you're still not a virgin anymore. You know what I mean? And virginity, obviously, a social construct.
Amanda: Yeah, I feel like it was very helpful for me to learn that when I first learned it on early proto-tumblr or whatever. And it’s, it's important to know.
Julia: And, obviously, this version, even the Athenian version is a super heteronormative definition of virginity. There was a philosopher who was specifically talking about, like, penetrative penis into a vagina sex as opposed to other forms of sex. So --
Amanda: It's a beautiful buffet out there, folks.
Julia: Beautiful buffet. But, to get back to Artemis, Artemis’ symbols included the bow and arrow, which later kind of translated into the symbolizing of the waxing moon, which that is really cool.
Amanda: That is awesome.
Julia: We also recently talked about Hecate in our Advice from Mythology episode, but I didn't mention during that that her aspect of the moon was also, like, a really important part of her. So, offerings to Hecate, who is the goddess of crossroads and magic – if you haven't listened to the Advice from Mythology episode, you should. Often, offerings were made to her and were left out at the New Moon in order to protect people from evil spirits. And this was because the Greeks believed that the dead were particularly restless on Nights of the New Moon. So, I think that's kind of neat. And, quickly swapping over to Rome, Diana was the counterpoint to Artemis and, as such, absorbed a lot of her background and patronage. Diana was a triple goddess though to the Romans. So, the three aspects being Diana, Luna, who is the moon and counterpart to Selene, and Hecate. So, according to the scholar, C.M Green, “These were neither different goddesses nor an amalgamation of different goddesses. They were Diana...Diana as huntress, Diana as the moon, Diana of the underworld." So, in her aspect of Hecate, she is seen as the, the crossroads because the paths that hunters encounter in a dark forest can only be seen by the light of the full moon. And I really love that imagery.
Amanda: Nice. Me too. Also, every time I hear the phrase triple goddess, I think of like a pinball machine. Getting like a – you know, like a triple [Inaudible 15:57]. Yeah.
Julia: I like that. That's interesting. Not how I picture it, but I’ve seen a lot more just statues with three heads than you have, I suppose.
Amanda: Yeah, that's for sure.
Julia: So, heading north, let's talk about Máni from the Norse and Mano from the Sami. So, Máni from the Norse was the personification of the moon and is the brother to the sun goddess, Sol. In the Poetic Edda, here is how he's described. So, “The sun from the south, the moon's companion, her right hand cast about the heavenly horses Arvak and Alsvid. The sun knew not where she a dwelling had, the moon knew not what power he possessed, the stars knew not where they had a station.” And then, in the Prose Edda, Máni was said to "guides the path of the moon and controls its waxing and waning." So, like, very typical kind of personification of the moon. Not a lot of personality when it comes to Máni and Sol. They're just kind of there.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: There's also the goddess, Nut, who is night personified and was the grandmother of Thor. But, again, she's not specifically the goddess of the moon. Just night itself. But what I would love to talk about is the Sami’s Mano. So, last time we talked about the Sami was when we talked about Beaivi. So, this is her counterpoint as the goddess of the moon. So, Mano, however, was portrayed as unpredictable and dangerous. Unlike, Beaivi, who is obviously worshipped because of her return and the hope that she brought after a long winter.
Amanda: Mhmm.
Julia: In particular, Mano was worshipped during the time of the new moon and especially around the winter solstice, which, obviously, is the longest night of the year, which could be, you know, multiple days-worth of night that far north. On the winter solstice, honoring Mano meant that it was tradition not to make any noise the entire night.
Amanda: Oh, geez.
Julia: Which is, like, intense because that's like a long --
Amanda: That is.
Julia: -- long time.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I – actually, I want to look up how long that is real quick. So, like, for instance, in a Nordic country in Murmansk, which is a port city in the northwest part of Russia, the literal sunrise and sunset in the 22nd of December in 2015 was zero. There was zero light on the day of the winter solstice that year.
Amanda: Wow. I don't know if night is defined by time or just by sun in that category. If you don't experience any sudden, that would be like many days on end, like you said.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: But that seems like a really – I don't know. That's like a really interesting form of worship to me because it is something that takes discipline, you know, and, like, focus the whole way through. And it's not just like a prayer or a feast, you know, or like a ceremony that you do.
Julia: I will say, in a city slightly south of the one that I just mentioned, they got 49 minutes of sun that day.
Amanda: Geez.
Julia: So --
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: So, you can see how the likelihood that it's the entire day is extremely high. So, after this, we're gonna go head east and talk about China, Japan, and India. But, first, let's grab a refill.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Midroll Music
Amanda: This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. We love them. They're our oldest sponsor. And we so appreciate that they are back for another year of sponsorship because they're amazing. And I – actually, I love the platform so much that I made a class of my own. It is all about podcast marketing, but I think it applies to any digital project and just thinking about who your audience is, and where they hang out online, and how you can add value to their lives, and not just kind of, like, buy an ad that gets stuck in their Instagram feed. And people are taking it every week, which is pretty exciting.
Julia: That is really, really cool. I'm proud of you.
Amanda: Thank you. And, if you, conspirator listener, go to skillshare.com/spirits, you can get a free trial of Skillshare premium membership. That gives you two weeks free to check out all of the classes that Skillshare has to offer. They have unlimited access to all the classes during your premium membership. And, if you like it, go ahead and subscribe and learn something exciting, and creative, and good for your career, or a mix of all of them.
Julia: Yeah. Again, that is skillshare.com/spirits. You'll get a free trial of premium membership for two weeks. And it's great. We love Skillshare.
Amanda: Absolutely. So, with Skillshare, you can find inspiration in the moment, learn how to express your creativity, bring color, beauty, and fun to your year, skillshare.com/spirits.
Julia: Amanda, I feel like I'm always talking about my sleep patterns here on the podcast. But, my god, I have been sleeping so well since I got my sheets from Brooklinen. And, each time I washed them, Amanda, like, I'm actually motivated to wash my sheets because they just get softer, and butterier, and velvetier every time I do.
Amanda: I, with my own human money, Julia, bought not only a bunch of t-shirts from Brooklinen, which I've talked about before, but a hand towel. And, now, I'm kind of like, “Oh, man, do I need to replace all my towels with Brooklinen and towels? Because it's amazing. Like, how was the towel that soft? Truly, honestly, honest to god, they are incredible. You need Brooklinen sheets, and towels, and robes, and duvet covers.
Julia: Yeah. So, they have a variety of sheets, and colors, and patterns, and materials that fit both your needs and your tastes. I really love our pinstripe gray white combo that we got.
Amanda: Oh, I have that too.
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Amanda: brooklinen.com and use promo code Spirits at checkout. And, finally, this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Spirits listeners can get 10 percent off their first month of counseling at betterhelp.com/spirits. I do therapy through BetterHelp. You guys know it. You guys love it. I talk about it every week. And I'm proud to because one of the things that makes me happiest in terms of making the show for so long is seeing people write in and say that they got therapy for the first time, or they asked for help, or they kind of felt less alone in dealing with some of the things that we deal with. And that I think is the stuff that therapy has to offer. It’s knowing that you're not alone. The things you feel and might be ashamed of, or worried about, or anxious over are actually completely normal. And a trained professional can help you be like, “Hey, friend, don't worry. This is how it is. And this is how we can help you achieve your goals, be happier, just be, you know, more content in your body and your brain,” which, honestly, that's the dream. So, please go ahead and check out betterhelp.com. If you want to read reviews of people other than me, you totally can at betterhelp.com/reviews. There are over a million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional and you deserve to as well. So, go to betterhelp.com/spirits to get 10 percent off your first month of counseling. That's betterhelp.com/spirits. And, now, let's get back to the show.
Julia: There are a lot of moon-themed cocktails out there, but I wanted something kind of different and interesting. So, I went with one called the Blue Moon, which is basically like a gin sour but with, like, one half ounce of crème de violette which adds this really beautiful floral flavor. So, if you pair it with an equally floral gin, I think it's just perfect. It just feels like – I don't know – like, I'm sitting on a nice summer day and, like, all the flowers had bloom during the day. So, it's very fragrant out and I'm just looking at a big moon in the sky.
Amanda: As I love the color and I definitely associate the moon with like blues and purples. So, I appreciate this color family.
Julia: You're welcome. But, speaking of the blue moon, we're heading off to China. And we've already done a whole episode on the goddess, Chang'e. If you haven't listened to our Myth Movie Night for Over the Moon, get on that. It's an extremely fun and wild ride. So, I'm going to spend this time talking about Changxi. So, Changxi is also a moon goddess who was worshipped in Traditional Chinese Pantheon. She was the wife of Di Jun and was first mentioned in the canon of The Mountains and Seas, which I just really love the name of. She is said to have given birth to 12 moons. I kind of assume one for each of the months, but it doesn't specify. Di Jun, who was the god of the eastern sky was also married to two other women. His first wife gave birth to sons and Changxi bore him those 12 moon daughters who are each unique in their own way. And Changxi and Di Jun’s wife, Xihe, were kind of a representation of yin and yang, kind of balancing each other out. She gave birth to 10 sons. Changxi gave birth to 12 moons. It's a nice kind of balance thing. I like that. Unfortunately, Changxi’s importance in Chinese mythology kind of waned over the years as new gods and goddesses kind of came into popularity. And that is why we see Chang’e much more heavily featured than Changxi is.
Amanda: Make sense.
Julia: In India, Chandra is worshipped as the moon god and is shown riding a chariot pulled by an antelope through the sky, which I really liked the antelope. That sounds cool.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Julia: He is also the lord of night, plants, and vegetation, which I find particularly interesting because the latter is usually given to a separate deity or to a sun deity in most other traditions. Like, usually, you don't associate night with plants.
Amanda: Yeah. No, me neither. Except, the very, very cool, like, night-blooming ones.
Julia: Yes, agreed. Those are very cool. So, he is portrayed as a beautiful young man with two arms, which I clarify because many of the Hindu gods and goddesses are often multi limbed, and is shown carrying a club in one hand and a lotus in the other hand.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: One of my favorite stories about Chandra involves the god, Ganesha. You might remember Ganesha. Ganesha was returning home from a feast where he had just gorged himself on the sweet dumplings. So, he's riding through the forest by the light of the full moon on his mount, but a snake crosses his path and causes the mount to buck and throw Ganesha to the ground before it runs away.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Julia: So, Ganesha falls to the ground, lands really hard on his stomach, which caused him to just throw up everything that he had eaten at the feast.
Amanda: Oh, beans.
Julia: Chandra, as the full moon above, just starts laughing at Ganesha’s misfortune, which enrages Ganesha who breaks off one of his tusks and hurls it at Chandra.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Julia: So, the tusk injures Chandra as well as curses him so that the moon will never be whole again. So, this is the story that kind of attributes the waxing and waning of the moon as well as the dark craters on the moon that are visible from the Earth.
Amanda: I love that story. And I'm getting real vibes of, like, taking the subway or a cab home from a party when you've like had a few too many drinks. And then they had to vomit and you’re like, “Oh, no.”
Julia: You’re like, “Oh, no, open that window.” Just --
Amanda: Give me some night air. I'll be fine.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah, classic. He probably had a couple of cocktails while he was at that feast too. That probably didn't help.
Amanda: Yeah. And, you know, anytime that I have fallen on the sidewalk, anytime somebody comes to, to check up on me, I'm like, “I'm fine. I'm fine.” Like, I'm, I’m so embarrassed that I don't wonder that Ganesha got really mad when someone from up above is like, “Haha. You [Inaudible 26:55].”
Julia: Yeah, usually, people don't laugh at you throwing up on the sidewalk. Usually, they're kind enough to, like, rub your – the small of your back and be like, “You okay? You okay, bud?”
Amanda: Yeah, exactly.
Julia: Meanwhile, in Japan, the moon deity is Tsukuyomi, which translates to moon reading or moon counting. It could also be read as watching the moonlit night, which I really think is beautiful.
Amanda: Lovely.
Julia: As you might remember from the Izanagi and Izanami episode we did, Tsukuyomi was born when Izanagi was cleansing himself of his sins after escaping from the Underworld. When he washed his left eye, he bore Amaterasu, the sun goddess. And, when he washed his right, Tsukuyomi was born. At one point, Tsukuyomi was said to have killed Ukemochi, who is the goddess of food. Basically, the story goes that Amaterasu had asked her brother to represent her at a feast with Ukemochi. And Ukemochi had provided food for Tsukuyomi by spitting out the food onto a plate.
Amanda: Aaah.
Julia: So, at one point, she turned to the sea and spat out a fish. She turned to the land and spat out some game. And Tsukuyomi is like, “Oh, that's disgusting.” I hate that. Even though the food that came out of her mouth was, like, extremely beautiful, and well-cooked, and looked delicious like it was from a goddamn cooking anime. But Tsukuyomi saw how it was made and, so, became so enraged that he killed Ukemochi.
Amanda: That's not a proportional response.
Julia: No. I'm sure it's a hospitality thing, where it's like you are supposed to provide food in a way that is appealing to your guests. And, if I see you spit out, like, an entire – I don't know – broiled fish, which looks beautiful but I saw it come out of your mouth, probably not the best.
Amanda: Yeah, that feels like a kind of conservation of magic situation, where it's like this might look like food, but, if you eat it, you actually lose energy. That'd be on my mind being scared of fairy bowers, you know.
Julia: Fair enough. Fair enough. This, unsurprisingly, pissed off Amaterasu because she had sent Tsukuyomi in her place and, so, very much dishonored her by killing the host. And, so, she told her sibling that she would never look at him again, which is said to be the reason that day and night are separated.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: Classic.
Amanda: Make sense.
Julia: I read several differing sources on this, but Tsukuyomi is usually referred to as male. But, also, sometimes, translations use she-her pronouns. One of Tsukuyomi’s epitaphs is Tsukuyomi Otoko, which is moon reading man. If you're using that epitaph, you're going to be referring to him in the male form. But, you know, I've seen mixed things. So, you never know.
Amanda: The malleable, y'all.
Julia: Malleable. Heading into the Pacific, here's a couple of Hawaiian and Pacific Islander moon deities. In Hawaiian mythology, there is the moon goddess, Hina. Hina is a common name for goddesses in the Pacific in general, but the one we're talking about is the Hawaiian goddess. And there's three specific goddesses in Hawaiian mythology that can be differentiated between who all use the name Hina. One was the mother of Maui and was a moon goddess and was married to the mortal chief, ʻAikanaka. She was also said to be known as Lona in this version. And she bore the chief many children before he died of old age probably because Maui brought about death for mortals, but that's a different story.
Amanda: Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep, too bad.
Julia: The Hawaiian word for moon, which is Mahina comes from the goddess’ name, which I think is very cool. In one story, Hina created a beautiful Kapa cloth out of the bark of Banyan trees. Kapa or Tapa was used for clothing primarily. And the quality of the cloth depended on one's place in the social hierarchy, which is like, you know, pretty classic. But, like, the way it was patterned and the way it was made depended on just where you were on the caste system, basically. However, Hina was just tired of living on Earth, living on the land. Not a big fan of it. So, she decided to do her work elsewhere. So, she travelled along a rainbow to the sun but, as she approached the sun, decided this is too hot for me. Not into it. She's not gonna do it.
Amanda: Yep, it's better to have the devil I know, I guess.
Julia: So, instead, she traveled to the moon and remained there where the story say that she continues to make Kapa for the gods out of the Banyan trees that grow on the moon. So, fun fact. Banyan trees grow on the moon.
Amanda: I love that. I, I would love to picture the moon as a craggly, scraggly tree-covered place.
Julia: I do too. I mean we can't see what's going on up there. There's a lot of texture. Who's to say if it's trees are not? The people who landed there. They can say. I'm not a, a moon --
Amanda: No.
Julia: -- landing disbeliever.
Amanda: Or maybe like in DuckTales. Spoilers for DuckTales, I guess. Skip, skip forward 30 seconds. Maybe there is a whole other subterranean situation going on in the moon and the banyan trees are down, down there.
Julia: Or it's just on the dark side of the moon.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: The part we never see.
Amanda: Pink Floyd. Yeah.
Julia: So, let's jump over to the Americas to kind of wrap us up. The Maya worship Awilix, which was the goddess of moon and night. Though, there have been, again, some studies that refer to her as male. I think that's interesting. There's a lot of, like, fluidity going on here in terms of the lunar deities. As well as the goddess of moon night, she was associated with the Underworld as well as sickness and death. Less seriously, she was also the patron goddess of the Mesoamerican ballgame, which is referred to in modernity as Ulama or pok-ta-pok.
Amanda: Amazing.
Julia: I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it. It's kind of like handball and – if you've ever seen the movie, The Road to Eldorado, the game they play in that, that's the game I'm referring to.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: So, the Maya also had a 20-day cycle in their calendar, which was basically their month and her day was ik’ or moon. In her night aspect, she was represented as a jaguar. Though, in her moon aspect, she was represented as an eagle, which are both very cool animals. And I'm all about that.
Amanda: I like that.
Julia: The Aztec worshipped Metztli, which was most likely associated with a few other gods. But we're gonna use this name in particular for this god. Again, the gender of the deity is not super clear. Mostly, they use she and they in modern translations. But it was said that they feared the sun because they feared the fire of it. And, so, the moon and the sun were never seen together. Again, there's a lot of that. Like, we need to explain why the sun and the moon are very rarely seen together, if at all.
Amanda: But they are sometimes in the sky at the same time.
Julia: I know. I know. But more to represent the change over from day to night, I suppose, is the --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- is the big one.
Amanda: And I also want to say that, if your gender is the moon, that's good enough for me.
Julia: That's fine. Just tell me those pronouns. Your gender can be whatever you want.
Amanda: Exactly.
Julia: Another version of the story said that Metztli attempted to sacrifice themselves so that they might become the sun. However, the effort failed and they became the moon instead, which was not as bright in terms of light and magnificence. But --
Amanda: I also wouldn't want to live on the sun. It's on fire. So, I think that everybody in this roundup who has gone for haven on the moon is really just – that's very relatable to me.
Julia: Big move. Another version of the story says that the moon and the sun were once the same brightness, but it was not right that the gods be, like, equal in that way.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: So, the sun threw a rabbit at the face of the moon, which darkened it and became the moon as we know it now. And this is another, like, rabbit on the moon myth that is very similar to the story of Chang’e. So, there you go.
Amanda: Amazing. I love that.
Julia: These are just some of the moon deities that can be found around the world. Unsurprisingly, the moon's influence is super important to humankind. So, it's not surprising that the internet believes and got really into the idea that elephants worship the moon. I don't blame them. I get it.
Amanda: There are so many variables that are right. Like, elephants that we know are smart. Just kind of enough of a stretch that it's surprising but not shocking. And, also, the moon, like, yes, we all have some kind of relationship to the moon, whether it's in our religion or cultural background or not.
Julia: Yeah. And there's just something about in the sky night after night seeing the moon something otherworldly that – something bigger than us. Like, quite literally. But something bigger than us and something important. So, when you look at the night sky, you just look at the moon. You're like, “Damn. Yeah, that is – that's got to be something, right?”
Amanda: Also, compared to the sun, you can look at it. And, so, I think that's good for attachment and relationship warming.
Julia: True.
Amanda: Whereas the sun is like, “Oh, I have to do things now. Like, oh, you might wither my crops. Ugh, you might not be out enough and then I just can't grow anything. Like, ugh.” The moon is there for you, man. The moon is just there.
Julia: The moon is just there.
Amanda: Making the tides rise and fall, you know, coming back again. Reminding you about things you have to do every 30 days or so. And it's just I appreciate that about the moon's constancy.
Julia: I do too. I was recently thinking about just my growing up on mythology. And I realized that my preference for silver, like, in terms of jewelry and stuff like that and accents and whatnot, comes solely from the fact that I read about Artemis and Apollo. And I was like, “This woman, I pick her.”
Amanda: That's the one.
Julia: Give me the moon. Give me silver over gold and the sun any day.
Amanda: Incredible.
Julia: It's just like big queer kid energy.
Amanda: You got to have your lodestone and maybe it's the moon.
Julia: Maybe it is. Maybe it's the moon. And I mean, like, we can talk about the association with, like, the moon and menstrual cycles and stuff like that. It feels very, like, gender-essential to me to kind of --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- refer to that and bring that up.
Amanda: It’s kind of first wave feminist. Yeah.
Julia: But, like, it is something that was noted early on by humans. They’re like, “Oh, yes, cyclically, just like the, the moon, the people who menstruate, they also do that in 28-day periods usually. No one's period is the same.
Amanda: Roughly, asterisk-ish. I think human beings will find patterns where, you know – and associations where they may or may not be. And, so, especially as you're kind of working out, you know, your place in the natural world, it's like a, a fun coincidence that those two things are roughly the same amount of time.
Julia: I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the show before. But, before I, like, really understood periods as just, like, what they actually are, I genuinely thought all women had their periods at the same time of the month. That's why people said time of the month because we all lined up at the same time and just did it.
Amanda: Incredible.
Julia: Aaah. The moon. Love my moon mom.
Amanda: The moon. I love that everybody has figured out and known that the moon has some kind of interesting origin story and/or power. And there's something to be said about, you know, whether or not the moon has a feminine association for you. To me, there is a real - like I was saying before, like, a real kind of power and being there every night, in being reflected – you know, taking someone else's kind of overzealous light and getting illuminated just enough. Like, to me, the kind of physics of the moon are so interesting. And I, sometimes, when I'm feeling, you know, a little lonely or overwhelmed, looking at the moon definitely calms me. And I'll, I’ll take that.
Julia: I also do – like I mentioned in our notes, but I didn’t want to say. Like, there's not a lot of kind of ambiguous gender in mythology. So, the fact that several different moon deities did not have a very specific gender was very cool to me and says a lot about, like, the phases and the kind of fluidity of the moon. So, I, I just wanted to point that out. I think it's really interesting. And I think it's more of a reason why I aligned myself with the moon than with the sun.
Amanda: I love that. Well, Julia, thank you for this around, round --
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: -- world tour of moon mythologies. And, if you have a particular relationship with the moon or if you're listening to Spirits on a moonlit night, we always love to see your photos. Someone tagged us on our Insta story yesterday about the view that they had while watching and I was just like, “Ah, this is – this is so good. I love this so much.”
Julia: And, next time you are sitting outside and looking at the moon, remember to stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.
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Amanda: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
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Julia: Thank you so much for listening. Till next time.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil