The sun is the light of day; the moon is the light of night. When one examines the bodies of the sun and moon, it is simple to see that one has a body of fire, and the other a body of earth. Fire radiates light naturally; earth is still and dark. The naturally luminous body of the sun spreads golden light on the earth in each day, and after night, its light reaches the earth-body of the moon and illuminates it.
Thus, by reflection, the undying light of the world-fire (the sun) is always with us. In the darkness of night, it is the earth-body of the moon that receives the light and mediates it to us. The moon is a mediator of a greater, more constant light. There is a mystery here, in the concept of reflection. The sun's direct, immediate light gives rise to life and abundance: plants need it to thrive as much as humans or beasts; the cold powers are driven away under the glaring eye of the day-star; life is made safer. Things become more apparent, as darkness is absent in the light. Seeing with clarity and seeing outwardly are the domains of the sun and its light.
But the character of that very same light is changed when it must be reflected first- what the moon gives to us is the same light, but fully changed by the moon's participation. The light of the moon is cooler and not as bright; it is no longer golden, but pale white- it is no longer a light of gold but a light of bone-white and silver. When the moon is rising, the light is building in it, and it is only yellow or orange. When the moon has risen, it is brilliant white. The sun's light in day builds power in the eye and body; it urges one to activity. The moon's reflected light, however, calms and cools.
And the same light that once called people to outward-seeing clarity in the day now calls people to inward seeing, under the spell of the moon-mediator.
It is curious indeed why this should be, but many lessons can be learned from it. In the dance of the light of day and the light of night, the Weird shows that anything received indirectly is seemingly changed quite radically. When another being must mediate something to us- knowledge, for instance- we must trust that what we receive is only a dim, pale reflection of what that person received. I may go further to say that what we receive is reversed, in a true sense- just as the moon reverses the sun's call to activity and outward seeing into a seductive call to calmness and inward seeing. The sun's light is for the eyes of the head, but the moon's light is for the eyes of the soul.
What does this tell us about the mystery of reflection? That reflecting things reverses their powers and virtues. It is not merely a matter of "things" becoming more tainted and diffuse the further they get from their source. They also change in character, mysteriously. You have looked at yourself in a mirror many times- but what are you seeing there? You as you appear, or "as you are"? Or perhaps, in the mirror, what you are seeing is a reversal of what you are, but after years of assuming that what appears is a perfect report of what is, you can no longer consider the deceptive nature of mediation. The mirror's spell can reveal the true face of essence to those who are no longer fooled by the glamour.
The Weird- the boundless deep of eternal power- is like a perpetual fire body, but its light is reflected in matter and arisen things, so what we think we know of the power of the Weird is not only impure, but even reversed. We conceptualize the strange space of the world-womb as the dark void that gives rise to all- but what if it is a constant light, which never gives rise to things- for indeed, how could perpetual things "arise"?- but perhaps it receives all perpetual things into itself, as a constant sustaining presence.
Thus I say that the crooked path, from one perspective, turns around and inward, but outward at the same time. It is a matter of the fact that our perceptions are themselves already reflections, one time removed and mediated to our minds in the form of impressions and ideas. There is reality and the reflection of reality, which is the appearance of reality to us. Everything and its opposite come together, one power with perception as their ephemeral divider- fair is foul and foul is fair, without fail or end.
