Solar-to-Lunar
Frodo himself, after the first shock, found that being his own master and the Mr. Baggins of Bag End was rather pleasant. For some years he was quite happy and did not worry much about the future. But half unknown to himself the regret that he had not gone with Bilbo was steadily growing. He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself: ‘Perhaps I shall cross the River myself one day.’ To which the other half of his mind always replied: ‘Not yet.’
So it went on, until his forties were running out, and his fiftieth birthday was drawing near: fifty was a number that he felt was somehow significant (or ominous); it was at any rate at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo. Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed too well-trodden. He looked at maps, and wondered what lay beyond their edges: maps made in the Shire showed mostly white spaces beyond its borders. He took to wandering further afield and more often by himself; and Merry and his other friends watched him anxiously. Often he was seen walking and talking with the strange wayfarers that began at this time to appear in the Shire.
This pathway describes any interaction between Solar and Lunar things
- a place they blend;
- a place one is influenced by the other;
- a place one is aspected by the other;
- a place one transforms into the other;
- a place that highlights specific oppositions and tensions;
Paths tend to be overloaded with meaning because there are typically many ways to travel between two points, and because travelling is where things happen. Because it is a path, it is active, vital and energetic. It is not stagnant - it is a place where changes occur.
What leads us out of the Village?
In this phase, the Seeker has left the Village seeking something. Perhaps she has been forced out, by a stagnant establishment which will not tolerate a challenger. Or compelled by her own unanswered questions. Perhaps she is leaving to say no to what her society is, but hoping always to find a way back.
She is a hermit seeking knowledge. She is a rebel, preparing to return and renew civilisation. She is a craftswoman, isolating herself to perfect her art. She will live on the outskirts, close and yet just outside. She wanders back and forth now in courage, now in doubt. She travels here and there between the otherworld and the everyday. She may become that strange fellow who walks too far abroad, or the community bridge to forces others prefer not to treat with. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, she just needs space to think for a while in the open air, blow the cobwebs away – to be alone and uninfluenced under the sky. She is sat alone on a hillside, looking over the land and into the sky. She is not seeking the Landweird, necessarily, – but a new way of being.
The Seeker steps out of the day-to-day and into adventure.
The Solar, Lunar and Stellar are fixed - the energy pools and stagnates. By contrast, the energy of a Path is in motion, tugging and shifting, and so a Path's question is always - will you step further, or will you go back?
Sometimes a little taste is all you need - you need to retreat to the Hillside to think, and go back with what you have decided; you need to aspire to the Light for enlightenment or practice in solitude to develop, and reintegrate you have come to understand into life. You have gone forth to petition the gods, and now you return to tell the community what they have confided in you. You have sought far and been long away and now your ship returns to a safe port. You have been outcast from the village, but now you have gathered your strength and are coming back in force.
This is the path of far-but-not-too-far, of coming-and-going.
Some who set forth never return.
What is Alchemy
In Fencraft, correspondences are not static. We expect things to flow between multiple aspects. If you bring together this kind of Solar with that kind of Lunar, you will find yourself in a certain place...with a certain energy...with a certain spirit...but if you select a different kind of Solar and Lunar, you will go somewhere else entirely. Like working through the figures of a cats cradle, or adjusting the knobs on a synthesiser. This enables precision and nuance in the magical system, and it is also truer to a magic that is alive and fluid.
At the bottom of each Theme, the alchemy box indicates the contrast between Solar and Lunar which
As well as elemental symbols you recognise, there are a couple of additional concepts. ᚠ may be a synonym for the meeting of land and fire under the Solar - it is materials that have been transformed by some kind of human intervention, as in worked metals, worked wood, worked glass and stone. It is a dry, non-lush, heavy, dark, warm element. DAG refers to light itself, which may be a synonym for the meeting of fire and air under the Solar Lunar, and is typically neither warm nor cold (but more cold than hot), dry, non-lush, bright, insubstantial element.
Themes
Humanocentric
Both Lunar and Solar can suggest ways of relating to the mortal world; in turn this energy is about people, society, and human behavior, and can be considered the least wild and strange – here, all things are within man’s ability and cleverness. As such, it is a powerful protective energy. A lot of religions tap this current as their primary current, promising confidence and success.
This point is placed opposite the Stellar on the map, and it represents both ways the primacy of man is to be celebrated – our creativity, compassion, intelligence, ability – but also its close-mindedness, how shut off man can become from nature and the true weird, too artificial and enamoured of the things of men: our wars, our books, our tools. If the Solar village is too worldly of the earth, the Solar-Lunar path can be too worldly of the fire and air - being too self-directed, too-ambitious, too-skilled, that you are no longer open to influence from the great Outside. Overly focused on tension between ☉ the Community and ☽ the Self, one can become blind to that which is quite beyond this human perception-range.
Alchemy
- ᚠ - the City
- ☉ The human world; community
- ☽ the self
- ✺when placed on the Map in a certain way,
opposed to and absence of the weird
Craftsmanship and Skill
From craft skills, to writing, to art and music, to plumbing, electronics, science and knitting – and of course, magic. Solar-Lunar is always learning or doing something – it’s a naturally curious energy. Gods of craft and the forge are typically assigned to this point on the Map. It combines the Solar of human pastimes, abilities and traditional skill, with the Lunar of new invention and possibility.
This point also governs “craftiness” more broadly – cunning, cleverness, tricksters, wickedness, using your words to sow division and dissent.
Although this point represents craftsmanship broadly, it is most associated with that which is transformed through fire: metals and the forge; glass and lenses; coal and that which is powered through coal. This point is the least-wild, and therefore it is associated greatly with mechanisation – often to the detriment of the natural world, or our relationship with that which is greater than ourselves.
Too be a craftsman is to not accept things as they are but to see what they can be. This leads us to:
Alchemy
- ᚠ & 🜂 or DAG - the Forge
- ☉ Human skills, tradition
- ☽ Change, invention, future
Revolution vs Chaos
The Solar-Lunar is the chaos and change the Solar fears and will do anything to prevent - for to the stagnant, tradition-bound Solar, all change IS chaos. In this theme, the Lunar is the steps taken away from the known into the different, unusual and new
This energy governs anyone changing the world through the genius of their new ideas and unusual perspectives - for the greater good, or for their own delight. Artists, scientists, writers, and rebels all.
The Solar-Lunar is the responsibility of fire, both as a renewer and destroyer. On the one hand, its hope and hunger and deeply-held truth to fight power; but on the other hand, its chaos, destruction, over-turning, burning.
Figures on this point might be the leader of an alternative power structure – as Robin Hood is, as Mordred is, as Lucifer is – and this alternative force could be good, or bad, or both.
Alchemy
- 🜂 - the Lightbringer
- ☉ Human society as it is
- ☽ Change
Renewal
In the Solar frequency, we see a mortal figure who lives and dies and lives again. But there’s something trapped and cyclical about it, kings dying – their work unfinished, their reign corrupted – only to be replaced with their sons, who will fail in the same way in their time. The Solar-Lunar also has a return of the light theme - but here it is a new light breaking through.
How do we tell the difference? To a certain extent, we can’t, and some figures could plausibly move between the two categories. Some characteristics might be:
- the Solar-Lunar light comes from outside rather than inside
- the Solar light is doomed to fade, even to decay and corrupt, whereas the implication of the Solar-Lunar is that it brings a New Jerusalem, a hope too perfect to be fully realised and sustained
- the Solar light is stagnant, whereas the Solar-Lunar light reflects a definite disruption or change
We might consider that Arthur drawing Excalibur from the stone is a Solar-Lunar phase (it’s a sword, it’s hope, it’s an unexpected outsider), but then Arthur the King in Camelot is a Solar phase of the myth, something static behind walls, in contrast to which Mordred becomes the new Solar-Lunar.
Similarly, we might draw an important lesson about the importance of Solar-Lunar as a force that is always needed.
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of Fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.
Alchemy
- DAG - Lightbringer
- ☉ Mortal cycles, the Sun King, stagnation
- ☽ Change, outsiders
Inside and Outside
Solar energy is communal, while Lunar is solitary. The Lunar is of the self, and the Solar of the collective. The Solar-Lunar is seeing Solar structures from the outside, and benefiting from passing into and out of the Solar world.
In our lore, the court Wizard or village Witch often embody this tension – people who are within the community but on the fringes of it, who travel between two places. This energy often produces Tricksters and Fools – figures who are both within society, and yet somehow set apart - the outside voice, the uncomfortable truth. Priests can be Solar-Lunar - they are the bridge between the everyday and the sacred.
Alchemy
- 🜃 & 🜁 - the Hillside
- ☉ Community
- ☽ Outsiders
Certainty vs Doubt
The best of Solar and Lunar combined produces daring, courage, enlightenment, new ideas, and needed renewal. The worst of it produces evil sorcerors, mad scientists, those who pursue their goals at all costs, chaos and disruption, and a general sense of “going too far”; and with too much emphasis on the Lunar, those who are paralysed by indecision, over-cautious, mentally or literally trapped, or wholly insular and cut off from any notion of social good or responsibility.
Keep that image in your mind of a person on a hillside, its openness to all directions, its far-seeing vision, its blow-away-the-cobwebs-clarity - that it is the reward for one who has first climbed the hill. This image comes to me, but rarely as a champion at a summit – more as a person who has not yet fully decided what to do. To step outside of the Village is scary. Your basic understandings of the world have been shaken. It’s going to take time. It’s going to take doubt.
Alchemy
- 🜃 & 🜁 - the Hillside
- ☉ Continuity
- ☽ Change
Ambition & the Willpower.
The Solar is stagnant, permanent, unchanging, so the influence of the moon and a step outside of the village is needed to access these active energies.
There is a certain egotism to this energy too. The energy you need to carve a new way of creating art, or to dare to overturn society, or to take on the religious establishment. The doubt of the self-hating artist resolves itself into the adrenaline-fuelled certainty of the master at the top of his game. This frequency represents those kinds of magic where “will” is an important factor. It is a dazzling silver sword piercing the dome of the heavens. It is the fire that burns in the heart. Pride, confidence and drive. It is, perhaps, good that this energy is also characterised by doubt, because when its uncertainties are resolved it is unstoppable.
Alchemy
- 🜂 Lightbringer
- ☉ Stagnation
- ☽ Release
Here Phaethon lies who in the sun-god’s chariot fared.
And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.
– Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Goodness
In many ways, this is the point on the glyph most concerned with ethics and what it means to be good. Because it is the most mortal, and thus most interested in mortal ethics and values; and because of that doubt, that walking between two poles and holding both in mind, attempting to synthesise the best of what is Solar and Lunar to ask – what ought a man be? How should we organise society? How should we behave towards one another? Under the Solar, we assume that is already known and obvious; but take one step outside, and that is no longer clear.
The Solar exemplifies goodness too, it is All That Is Good, a perfect world which is changeless and routine and structured. It implies tradition, repetition, stasis, authority and establishment power, civilisation, and the myths such civilisations tell themselves about their own goodness, their own power, their own destiny. But the Solar Lunar exists to challenge it. We might say, Solar is an assumption of goodness linked to things that feel comforting and familiar; but the Solar Lunar is the doubt and hard questions which interrogate such certainties – is it truly worthy of glory? What of it must be burned away so that the true light can come through? Is the Solar vision of good truly good in practice and for all?
“Alas! you poor blind earth-moles, you strive to take away my livelihood and the liberty of this poor weak frame my body of flesh, which is my house I dwell in for a time; but I strive to cast down your kingdom of darkness, and to open hell gates, and to break the devil’s bonds asunder wherewith you are tied, and that you my enemies may live in peace; and that is all the harm I would have you to have.”
Gerrard Winstanley
Alchemy
- DAG & 🜁 - the Celestial
- ☉ Human society
- ☽ Ideas, judgement
Enlightenment
The blending of the Sun and the Moon is light, in all senses, from challenges to established knowledge to the personal revelations which upend your world. It is the light of truth, especially of the forbidden kind – the kind once learnt cannot be forgotten or unseen.
You might not want this knowledge – but you cannot deny it, and there’s only one way to respond.
The Solar-Lunar, paradoxically perhaps, is the energy wielded by atheism & is the current tapped by occultists and neo-pagans who enjoy their craft but without deep belief, engaging as pure symbol. There is nothing more Solar-Lunar than the desire to take God down, or set yourself up in his place, or free all humanity from his dominion.
Alchemy
- DAG - the Lightbringer
- ☉ sunlight, that which is visible clearly and obviously
- ☽ moonlight, that which is hidden and discovered only by the curious
Hope and Freedom
Freedom from social restrictions, committing social transgressions and taboos; as well as the imagery of Lucifer cast down and trapped in Hell, and the breaking of yokes and chains and shackles, be they real or symbolic. And hope, the ability to imagine a better future and then fight for it. This is one of two points on the Map representing hope, and this one is specifically hope’s fire – its powerful, burning love for all humanity, its fight and drive.
Part of the story of hope, however, is failure: and a great many major spirits in this archetype are cast out, killed or come to close to the sun. Fire is fragile. But what they represented can never be defeated, for the hope they lit survives.
Lord give me grace and dancing feet and the power to impress; let me outshine the moon
Tonight make me unstoppable
And I will charm, I will slice, I will dazzle them with my wit
Tonight make me unstoppable
And I will charm, I will slice, I will dazzle, I will outshine them all
Alchemy
- DAG and 🜂 - the Lightbringer
- ☉ human society; also safety and goodness
- ☽ change
art Jamie McKelvie/colour Matt Wilson
Travel
Wanderers, travellers, explorers – both of the land and of the mind – are especially embodied by this energy. Solar energy is typically settled, in a kingdom, city or village. Lunar energy evokes a hermit’s retreat, and the presence of a gate, which no decent folk would step beyond. So this energy is made by those who come and go from the village as they please, and are unafraid of walking where they will.
This energy is going places, not just metaphorically but physically too. It can manifest as a people with somewhere to go, often with enthusiasm as in the “speed of light”. Think Gandalf on Shadowfax, and Hermes of the roads, Ged and Earendil on their boats. There are many faces of Hermes, but several of them are governed here: Hermes as a magician, patron of travellers and commerce. Solar-Lunar governs purposeful travel, rather than a call to wanderlust (which is more of a Solar-Stellar mood).
Along with travel, this Domain governs speed, a great heating up and a happening. This is the energy of doing things! It is the active to the Solar's passive.
Alchemy
- 🜁 & DAG - the hillside resolved
- ☉ staying at home
- ☽ motion; the near-strange and forbidden places
The touch of grace
The SolarLunar watches over seekers and wanderers, weird people, and those ordinary folk who have or seek a deeper spiritual connection. A priest with a devotion to his Lady, an aspiring wizard, and an old woman who remembers older prayers are momentarily silvered by their searching. Connections between teachers and students, elders and children, gods and mortals are all expressed as this point of touching across a great gap.
Alchemy
- 🜃 & DAG
- ☉ mortal lives and capabilities
- ☽ magic and the otherworldly
War
Several aspects of War can be evoked in this position, picking up on the correspondences of upheval, fighting, very human-centric (man vs man), the forging of weapons, people bearing swords and spears. In contrast with the Sun King, who is a defender of boundaries his by traditional right, this path is outward-facing, as in a war of ambition, greed, and expansion - or for glory and its own sake - or for needed change. If you have ever watched sword practice, you will see how the motion of swords on a sunny day sends shards of Light splintering all over the house.
Protection magic is a large topic, and there are forms of protection under each Domain. But the Solar Lunar light of fire in air is the dwelling place of terrifying warriors, like the trumpets of angels, like a blasting with holy fire, like a smashing of the forge hammer - the best defence being an unimaginable offense. Anger is good and gets you places.
Alchemy
- 🜂 and ᚠ
- ☉ staying at home
- ☽ motion; the near-strange and forbidden places
When you hold all these ideas together at once, you have a sense of the Solar Lunar's presence - its desire to escape the Solar and its obsession with returning and renewing it, the explorer on the prow of the boat on the wind equally eager for the horizon and home, moments of clarity in the chapel brief breaks in the mundane, new revelations so bright they blot out the sacred dark. It is a messy, tumultous, thrilling, active, unstable, powerful, frightening energy - but no more frightening, at the end of the day, than the discovery you have a choice.
It brings together themes you might recognise as related to Fire and Air in other systems, under the greater influence of the Solar and the Lunar. It is at moments shiny, metallic, glinting, brilliant, and at others cold and blustery and purposeful. As you handle this energy, you can tip it in any of these ways - now towards the Solar and the known, now towards the Lunar and a new calm of purpose.
In the next essay, we will look at some of the (many, many, many) spirits who emerge from the Solar Lunar.