What Your Moon Sign Shows About You and Food

Your Moon sign and aspects show a great deal about how you were fed and therefore how you tend to feed yourself and others. Let's take a quick look around the zodiac for some hints.Consider how the chart reflects your mother's ways of dealing with food and how you in turn learned to deal with it. (If it wasn't Mom who fed you, for some reason, but maybe Grandma, these readings could refer to the real cook.) Moon in Aries children may have had mothers who were impatient about meals and nurturing, wanting to get it over with as soon as possible. The grown Moon in Aries may eat too fast to enjoy the food or to let satiation signals kick in, so they may eat too much. Moon in Taurus children, except those with difficult aspects to their Moon, may have had a real apple pie type of Mom who made food a joy. Many of them love their food and have cushiony bodies. The Moms--or older sisters--of Gemini Moons were better at reading stories or playing games with them than at dealing with food. They may grow up considering mealtimes no more than a reason for good conversation. Food fads and gadgets interest them, but day-to-day cooking does not. Most Cancer Moons and other lunar types were deeply involved with food and Mom growing up, and remain so in adulthood. However, there is a tendency toward either extreme in weight. Many Leo Moons had mothers who did great dinner parties with showy dishes, but considered ordinary meals a bore. If they could afford a cook, fine. If not, it was catch as catch can while Mom did her own inimitable thing. (Remember that a Moon/Pluto conjunction in Leo is more like Moon in Scorpio.) With Moon in Virgo, Mom worried about nutrition and health, maybe because many of these children had food sensitivities. She would be critical of overeating, which is neither frugal nor healthy. Those with Moon in Libra had mothers who indulged a bit of a sweet tooth, but cared too much about appearances to let weight become a problem. Remember that Libra's symbol is the scales. This Moon sign may confer with the scale each morning, perhaps alternating between binging and fasting to keep the weight down. On the one hand, a Moon in Scorpio child's mother may have resented cooking. On the other hand, she may have half feared the child or the family wouldn't survive without her efforts. Thus, her messages about food could have been very crazy making, and a power struggle over food may have ensued. Sagittarius Moons may have had Moms who overindulged out of sheer joie de vivre, thinking they were blessedly exempt from the risks and the rules. As adults, Sag Moons also ignore health risks related to food and weight. Hardship or sparse nurturing may have been the lot of Capricorn Moons, and many of them are thin by nature or to maximize their chances for success. They tend not to be able to eat when they are depressed or anxious, which happens frequently. Aquarian Moons may have had erratic mealtimes growing up, with a Mom who tended toward the quick and easy approach to food. As adults, they probably had the first microwave in their peer group and may be the queens and kings of the takeout meal. Some people with the Moon in Pisces come from dysfunctional family backgrounds, and food may or may not have been Mom's drug of choice. In adulthood, it may be a haven when confusing or unmanageable feelings come up. These are only some possible expressions, and maybe the scene around your dinner table was different from the one pictured here. Maybe the differences were only external--some families eat off paper plates while others dine on fine china. It's the emotional experience of food that counts. If these readings don't ring a dinner bell, try the ones related to the hard aspects to your Moon, as given in Chapter 4. For instance, if you have Moon in Libra and that scale is tipping way, way over, maybe you have a Moon/Neptune conjunction in that sign--that is, if you were born between 1942 and 1957. Or, if you are a Leo Moon born between 1938 and 1958, consider that Pluto was in that sign. If your Mom wasn't the hostess with the mostest but instead was an isolate, you probably have a Moon/Pluto conjunction. What if your Moon sign or aspects show a propensity to eat not wisely but too well? Your food upbringing does not doom you to a weight problem, any more than your genetic makeup does. It merely means you must take a conscious approach to food and be sure not to use it as an emotional outlet. There are many tools in this book to help soothe the lunar beast so that you don't have to deaden it with food. Additionally, the Moon sign calendar can be a friend. The transiting Moon sets off fluctuations in feeding cycles for everything from the most primitive organisms to human beings. By following the transiting Moon around your chart regularly, you can discover when you are most vulnerable to binges. At those points of the Moon's cycle, call more heavily on your support systems and on the tools learned in my book The Moon in Your Life. In addition, the more you work to balance your lunar side over the course of time, the less food catastrophies you should have.