The lessons of The Moon card, like the hard lessons of the nightingale, can only be appreciated in retrospect -- at the actual time of learning we know only loss, uneasiness, and frustration.
This fable seems like it could be merely a dream the laborer was having, an idea reinforced by the accompanying illustration. It makes me think of how many dreams I've awoken from with a profound sense of heartache. Experiences I'd wanted to be real so badly, gifts I'd received, even actual friends I'd made whom I felt profoundly connected to -- all wiped away with the opening of my eyes. One time I found myself crying piteously when I realized I'd spent what felt like days getting to know someone whom I'd never meet again, at least not in this world.
These experiences, however confusing and upsetting, contribute something important to our lives that is difficult to pin down and articulate. They round us out, they inflate our inner worlds to the point where they are barely constrained by reality. Returning to that reality is almost always a let-down, but we return quite changed. Embracing these experiences and wringing meaning from them subtly alters the paths we take in our real lives, uniting our conscious and unconscious minds and inching us forward along the path to self-awareness. When you get there, you'll find plenty of evidence that all your time groping in the darkness and mourning lost dreams was time well-spent.
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