Sunshine Challenges 2022 #3: Luna Rocks

[silveradept]

sunshine_challenge has made it to the third prompt, where I know a little bit more about the alternate some than the primary one, but can talk plenty about what the legendary origin of the prompt stone is.

Prized for its blue to white adularescence—a billowy, moonlight-like sheen—Moonstone has been closely associated with the Moon. The ancient Romans believed it was frozen moonlight, a gift from the goddess, Luna. Therefore, some consider it an alternative birthstone for those born on Monday, the “Moon’s day”. Due to this lunar association, as well as its calming influence, this gem is considered an excellent aid for those with trouble sleeping. Moonstone is a stone of inner growth and strength; it soothes emotional instability and stress and stabilizes the emotions, providing calmness. Because of all this, Moonstone is often associated with wisdom and dreams.

The properties that this description attributes to moonstone also basically describes Garnet, from Steven Universe. Coincidentally, Garnet is the bonus stone. Although, Garnet's balance and calmness is due to being a fusion of a hotheaded Ruby and a cold-hearted Sapphire. She's got both of their strengths (Rubies are strong soldiers, Sapphires have the ability to see the future) and their weaknesses, but they complement each other well. Garnet is often the one that the other Crystal Gems (and Steven) look to for advice on how to do things or how to maintain a calm state during scary or upsetting things. Garnet certainly isn't perfect, but she is a good example of a couple that loves each other and are compatible. (Contrast Lapis and Jasper, who hate each other, creating Malachite as a hostile and fighting fusion.)

Garnet is not the first lesbian couple in animation, but Steven Universe allowed them to get away with showing Garnet lots because being a fusion meant only one character on screen at a time. Gems are technically genderless, and the "she" pronoun applied to a Gem is mostly a matter of convention. Gems tend to take shapes that human observers would find feminine, so those same observers use the feminine pronouns of the language. And, later on, when we find out that the idea of Gems of different castes fusing together on Homeworld is treated with the same vitriol and horror that a queer or trans couple would be treated with here on Terra, it's not difficult to see what Rebecca Sugar wanted us to think about for our own situations. There's a lot that goes on in Steven Universe about finding your authentic self and staying with it, regardless of what other people believe about you or who they think you are, or who they insist you are. Garnet only exists if Ruby and Sapphire are in harmony with each other, and they're not always that way throughout the show. And then there's Stevonnie, but we're getting farther away from the prompt if we chase that.

I think it interesting that the summary above talks about the association with the moon being good for sleeping and for soothing emotional instability and stress, because there's an equally utilized association with the moon that would be the opposite of such things, as both werewolves (and some other were-creatures) and lunatics are transformed into their more harmful or insane selves through the moon's rays. Depending on which culture's lens you look at Luna through, you can have the princess (goddess, really) who presides over our dreams at night and helps us fight off the bad ones, or you can have Nightmare Moon, the corrupted and destructive princess who let her jealousy get the best of her and has to be sealed away for a legendary amount of time before she can be restored with the magic of friendship. (Later material suggests that, when she wants to, Princess Luna can still assume the Nightmare Moon form. And it's not coincidental that in the Equestria version of A Christmas Carol, Princess Luna appears in the role of the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet To Come, as she's really the only one who has already been seen on screen as playing the frightening and prophetic role.

Astrologically speaking, in a natal chart system derived from a Terra-centric understanding of the universe, the sun sign associated most closely with the Moon is Cancer, the crab. As the cardinal water sign, connected to the moon, Cancers are supposed to feel the tug of their emotional states much like how the tides are a result of the moon's pull on the water of the Earth. Tides are super-necessary for life on earth, but for Cancers, the moon's influence on their emotional states can sometimes be more like rip tides that pull the unwary underneath the surface and drag them along, whether they like it or not. Unsurprisingly, in a society that doesn't particularly approve of the display of emotion, except in very specific methods and places (and by very specific gender identities), Cancers are known both for shelling up and refusing to let anyone get close enough to see them visibly emote and for holding grudges and holding on to emotional injuries long past when the people who committed them have forgotten about them. (As also befits crabs, if you're foolish enough to antagonize them while in range of their pinchers, it's going to hurt.)

All of the things that moonstone wants to promote (emotional regulation and wisdom) are extra difficult to navigate for people with disabilities like ADHD or ASD, or any other person who had to grow up trying to understand how the other people around them worked and getting mocked or teased when they didn't effortlessly mirror what was expected of them, or failed to intuit some unspoken rule that everyone else assumed was common sense and didn't need to be explicitly taught. Or were in a setting where the only thing that mattered was the product and not the process that went along with it, leading to the reinforcement of the idea that skill and talent is an innate and fixed quality, rather than a thing that can be learned and improved and developed with time and practice, regardless of how easy or difficult the process or the underlying concepts are. By the time a young adult gets to the point where they can branch out and start making individual decisions for themselves about where to put their time and energy (and money) into, they've been exposed to a barrage of messages, implicit and explicit, about who they should be and what parts of them are worth cultivating and what parts should be hidden. For many ASD and ADHD people, the message is that they're too intense on the things that have their interest, and the things that have their interest are often seen as socially unacceptable or "weird" compared to the entirely "healthy" interests the society has around them. (Remember, guns, bitches, and bling were never part of the Four Elements, and never will be.)

I was reading something that made intuitive sense to me yesterday, that trans people have a higher likelihood of being autistic as well. If you're already at a point in life where you exist as someone outside the strictures of what you're supposed to do and act like, according to society, why wouldn't you also have a different way of looking at the world on the other assumptions they make about people? Unfortunately, that can also mean having many of the same things that come for anyone who lives outside the boundaries. Rejection sensitivity brought forth because being wrong or doing something that turns out imperfect has been the way that everyone else makes fun of you, either because of you or as a proxy for you. The assumption that you are a monster (Latin monstrum, itself derived ultimately from the verb moneo, "to remind, warn, instruct, or foretell") and your very existence is a warning to other people that the world is more complex and contains things that they do not want to acknowledge in it. Or that they want to treat as exotic and strange and sexualized, because humans absolutely are monsterfuckers, attracted to the things that are forbidden, that are outside, that are perfectly normal variations in humans and what they find attractive that have been infused with the aura of the Other, because "normal" people don't. The assumption that your existence is corrupting to children and society, a license to behave outside the social order and still exist in the social order, rather than being exiled or required to conform to other people's expectations of you. (Even as the people who are most interested in controlling you tend to be the people who venture farthest from the social contract they claim to be championing.)

It's no slight to the writers of the challenge, or of the resource the challenge creators drew from in building this, that the shadow, the dark, and the nightmare parts of the moon aren't present in the stone description. People looking for the energies in stones are rarely looking to tap into their shadows, but instead to capture them and send them away or transform them into brighter or more positive entities and energies that can be used constructively. (Which can become toxic if taken too far, as Eve Forward's Villains By Necessity depicts.) It seems like the shadow may be needed more in the days to come, especially for those who have classically had their menstrual cycles defined in terms of the moon, as well as those of us existing outside what a very narrow band of powerful people believes is normal and real. Well, either that or assembling a team of heroes based on celestial bodies using the powers contained in makeup compacts.

Comments

[enemytosleep]

I loved these insights into Garnet the character. I'd seen enough of the show to appreciate the relationship between Sapphire and Ruby, and the way their fusion symbolized their union, their harmony. Garnet was always a calming, grounding energy in the beachside gem home. I also love the way the show handled gender presentation, relationships in general (same sex, queer platonic, and otherwise) and how these translated to real world people and real world boxes and labels (and how those categories are doomed to fail in that humans are far too complex to slap a sticker label on).

I also love these thoughts on the dark side of the moon, and how light doesn't exist without dark, as much as some folks would like to avoid troubled times (and with good reason).

[silveradept]

It's very much there kind of show that were look back on, understanding more about what was going on there, and say "How did that show manage to stay on the air?"

Thinking about the shadow side is important, sometimes, especially when you're living in that kind of era.

[dr_zook]

*high-fives you for Thou Shalt Always Kill* :D

Also, thank you for taking us for your brain's ride, it's always fascinating! (And probably helping me along with what to do with the prompt, haha.)

[silveradept]

I was introduced to that song a few years ago, and it stuck with me. There's a more US version of it done with De La Soul, too.

I can't do much but showcase my brain, and if it turns out to be helpful to other people, all the better.