The creativity associated with an Inferior Function does not flow easily and naturally as it does when it arises from the Dominant Function. It manifests in sometimes painful, strained, and embarrassing ways. There is a quality of strife and urgency associated with the expression of the Inferior Function, although it can be a source of great creativity. Singletons (and the missing function), tend to come out when the individual is under stress. For example, Al Gore’s Mercury singleton (only Water sign planet), shows up under stress as his proclivity for making exaggerated statements that distort the facts.

The singleton as an Inferior Function gives a focus to that function. For example, a singleton Earth Moon in Capricorn in the ninth house gives a narrow channel to focus the desire to be nurtured and cared for on the physical and worldly level. The person may only feel grounded and secure with structured (Capricorn), ideological concepts and perceptions (ninth house). Perhaps the childhood was spent in a boarding school or a strict religious school with a resulting desire in adulthood for freedom (ninth house), in a mountainous countryside (Capricorn). There is a strong connection between the physical level and the emotions and vice versa, a love and longing for the high country, for status and wealth, for perfection in all areas (Capricorn things). Otherwise, the person may be quite impractical and struggle with basic survival issues (food, money, sex, etc.) When the Inferior Function is missing, there is no focus, and so the issues tend to be diffused throughout the life and the psychology. The person with no Earth may be obsessed with money, sex and food, any one or all of these things. She may, for instance, be overweight through overeating (food addiction, an Earth problem), while being a stickler for detail when it comes to keeping her house neat and tidy (a Virgo trait), and balancing her checkbook each week (a Taurus tendency).

Some planets as singletons tend to be more problematic than others are. Mercury, Venus, and the Sun are rarely found as singletons because most of the time they are so close to each other from our earth perspective. If one of them is a singleton it should be looked at closely, for it is a rare and remarkable phenomenon.

The Sun and Moon as singletons are critical in the psychological makeup of a person! There is something special and unusual in connection with the mother or nurturing figure with the Moon. And with the Sun singleton there are special issues around father or the positive male role model. Men tend to project their Moon (and Venus), singleton onto the women in their lives, while women project the Sun (and Mars), singleton onto the significant men around them: father, husband, and the boss. 

With a singleton Moon, all kinds of lunar issues are emphasized. It is so crucial because the Moon represents the most primitive, innate, instinctual parts of our being. It is the “inner infant” and little child that never grows up. So when there is a Moon singleton, the person has a very active and alive inner baby who is insecure and needy, as well as playful, creative, and loveable. It is also the “inner mother” who has the capacity to nurture not only the individual himself, but other people and things as well. Our person with the singleton Moon in Capricorn has a “green thumb,” the capacity to nurture and foster plant life.

The Moon symbolizes our earliest preverbal memories, or the deepest, primary conditioning. These memories are stored in an area of the brain very close to the area associated with our inherent animal survival instincts. Because they are preverbal, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to articulate or even cognize these memories. They become the core of emotional complexes. The personal mythology of  “Mother” in a chart is linked to both the inherent need to be nurtured (some babies are needier than others are), and the perception and memories of how one was nurtured by the mother or nurturing person. The person with Moon singleton in Capricorn tends to feel, “I never got enough!” And, since the real mother has Moon in Aries, he is probably right! Moon in Scorpio will have myths around how seductive and secretive mother was, or how powerful she was and how she “drowned” him in her emotional aura.

The Moon represents the archetypal feminine figure or the anima. Because the Moon singleton tends to be projected by men, the anima complex is most common. He tends to be obsessed with a search for the ideal woman to complete him. He may, at the same time, subconsciously question his own masculinity because the feminine is so emphasized in his psychology. If he has a Moon Singleton in Scorpio or Capricorn, his ideal woman may be very unconscious, denied and repressed. He may think the ideal woman is a socially mandated archetype, such as a blond, blue-eyed, ebullient cheerleader. But what he gets repeatedly is a very different kind of woman, at least as he sees her. One man with a Moon singleton in Scorpio and a Venus singleton in Capricorn asked, “Why do I keep attracting [and being attracted to] “witches” as girlfriends?” He was not happy to be told that is what he would keep getting until he integrated those energies into his consciousness. Then he might actually see those same “witchy” women quite differently, or accept that he found them much more attractive than the cheerleaders, no matter what TV and magazine advertisements promote as sexy.

Questions of child bearing can be crucial for a woman with a Moon singleton. She may have very intense feelings about it: wants a baby, does not want any children, has a highly ambivalent attitude about it. If she decides to have a child, the infantile part of her comes up. She is confronted with having to give up her own childishness, of having to grow up and nurture and care for someone else instead of being ever the one who is taken care of by another. If she has been married for some years and has become “daddy’s little girl” to her husband and the biological clock is loudly ticking, she is in a real quandary! On the other hand, if she has become “mommy” to her husband, a real baby can demolish the marriage. A woman (or a man), may project the singleton Moon on the child or children. The crisis of the “empty nest syndrome” hits when the children grow up and no longer need nurturing or “mothering.”

Issues around dependency or “co-dependency” and security are exaggerated with a Moon singleton. Umbilical relationships are common, perhaps inevitable.  A man wants a secure job, a woman a secure marriage, or, these days, a secure job. Issues of meshing and merging one’s identity with that of another person is crucial.  Institutions such as the Church or the Military may become the projected Moon (family and secure nurturing figure). We see Moon singletons in the charts of religious people: Martin Luther (11/10/1483, 11:00 PM, Eisleben, Germany), initiator of the Protestant Reformation; St. Teresa of Avila (3/28/1515, 5:30 AM, Avila, Spain), who reformed the Carmelite Order; Pierre Teillard de Chardin (see last month’s article).¹

The person with a singleton Moon carries a feeling that, “My inner child is very special,” or, “I am the Divine Child.” He or she may have been made to feel special as a child, singled out within the family, given special responsibilities, duties, honors, or was a martyr, an abused child. Being “special” early in life is conducive to remaining an “eternal divine child.”

In the Introduction last month we looked at Bill Clinton’s Moon in Taurus, three times a singleton. His biography reveals he was the “special child” in his birth family. His father died in a car accident before he was born. His early security depended on his mother and grandmother. He perceived these women as powerful, nurturing, security figures. His mother worked, so he had to be responsible for himself early on. Later, when she remarried and had a second son, Bill took on the responsible role of surrogate father to his little half-brother. He had special responsibilities and, because he was a bright child and good student, special honors. Powerful women are always in his life: his wife, his only daughter, and a girlfriend who brought him to impeachment.

It should come as no great surprise that Monica Lewinsky (July 23, 1973, 12:21 PM, San Francisco, CA), also has a Moon singleton in Taurus. She “looks the part,” voluptuous, sensuous and oddly innocent. A woman will tend to “own” her singleton Moon, and she may build her life and career around it. Monica said that what attracted her most to Clinton was the “little boy” she saw in him (his Moon singleton).

Another woman with a singleton Moon is Martha Stewart (August 3, 1941, 1:33 PM, Jersey city, NJ). Her Sagittarius Moon in the second house of income and values is two times a singleton. It is the only planet in a universal sign and a personal house. She has promoted (Sagittarius), her talent for domestic arts (Moon), into a multimillion dollar empire (Sagittarius on the second house cusp). Sagittarius always does things in a very big way! Martha’s inner creative child may not be great for relationships because children are by nature self-centered and demanding. Martha is famous for her hot temper. Her “eternal inner infant” (Moon), is part of a Grand Trine in Fire, with Sun in Leo and Mars in Aries. It could be very easy (trine), for her to “get burned up” or “burned out.”  By over-compensating her Moon singleton, she has made herself an immortal household icon.

Women tend to over-compensate their anima planets, Moon and Venus, when these show up as singletons, but not necessarily. A man is more likely to project them, but, again, not necessarily. With both sexes the singleton Moon is the child who never grows up. In some ways and in certain areas of life the Moon singleton person will always be the “eternal infant” – demanding and needy for time, attention, and security. And both genders almost always have intense issues around the mother figure in their lives. The “inner child” at his or her best is highly creative, lively and playful, full of boundless energy.

There are other factors in the chart besides a singleton Moon that can correlate to the mother complex and the anima complex. Hard aspects between the Moon and Pluto or between Moon, not itself a singleton, and another singleton planet can produce behavior and attitudes similar to those associated with the Moon singleton. For example, a woman with a Saturn in Aries singleton opposed Moon in Libra had very ambivalent relationships with her daughters, yet she bound them to her with a tight psychological umbilical cord by belittling them and undermining their self-confidence (a negative Saturn trait). She was jealous of them because she had to compete with them for “Daddy’s” affection. Both girls had Moon in hard aspect to Pluto; so it was all too easy for them to fall victim to, or play into, the mother’s vicious games. The daughters felt Mother had nurtured them with psychic poison (their own Moon/Pluto myth of mother).

An individual with a Moon singleton needs creative, positive outlets. Go by how it is a singleton in order to focus on areas of activity. Martha Stewart is flamboyantly creative in the domestic arts. Monica Lewinsky now designs purses and luxury accessories for women and is on British television discussing U.S. “culture.” An earth sign Moon singleton man is a landscape architect.

A Moon singleton person can manifest the stereotypical best and worst traits of the sign Cancer. Mood swings and emotional hypersensitivity are inevitable with these highly emotional and feeling people. They respond acutely to Moon transits. Check this out with family members, close friends and co-workers – anyone with whom you have daily interaction. Observe their behavior. For example, a person with a Moon singleton has Mars in Leo in the third house. On days when the Moon is in Leo, she has angry thoughts, speaks harsh words, is impatient and gets into arguments and power struggles at the slightest provocation. A few days later with transiting Moon in Libra over natal Neptune, she may feel guilty over what she said or did, and almost always gets romantic and sentimental. Lunar progressions, too, will have an even stronger impact on the life of a Moon singleton native than they do on the rest of us.

Next month when we look at the Sun singleton, we will see how, while the Moon singleton may tend to be a ‘clinging vine,” the Sun singleton is often the signature of the loner.

¹ The dates for Luther and St. Teresa have been adjusted to make the charts correspond to those given by Lois M. Rodden in The American Book of Charts and Profiles of Women.

About the author:

Eleanor Buckwalter has studied, practiced and taught astrology in Los Altos, CA for more than twenty-five years, including three years with the late Richard Idemon, a psychological astrologer. Her primary astrological focus of interest is parent-child relationships and family dynamics. To contact Eleanor, send an email to psikey@sbcglobal.net