In the culture where I grew up, the Sun is feminine and the Moon masculine, just like in Tolkien's universe, so I tend not to "gender" them.
I do the Planetary Week reading, and I have often had "solar" cards on Mondays and "lunar" cards on Sundays. That's always a sign that I have to be more open, mix things more, warm up my coolness and cool down my warmth - in a way, a little Temperance is needed.
Thinking about the celestial cards, I think about the celestial bodies first (and RWS is not my first frame of reference, to be honest I like other depictions of Sun and Moon much more than RWS). That sounds trivial and maybe it is, but it helps keeping it in mind.
What is the Sun for us humans? It's dominant and when the Sun is up, we don't see any other stars. It's a metaphor of the divine in many cultures. The Sun warms us but can burns us - enlightens and illuminates us (makes us recognize the truth) but can blind us - and without the Sun, there is no life.
The element associated with the Sun is obviously Fire.
In the daytime, we're awake, we interact with others, we deal with survival, we use our batteries.
So the Sun can be vitalizing, empowering, illuminating, warming - and when there's too much of it, drying, exhausting, blinding, dominating us.
The Moon is first of all change - it's much closer and more intimate than the Sun - our cycles (men and women) are influenced by the Moon. We're made of water, and like the sea's tides are influenced by the moon, so is our body. That's a strong relationship. The changing moon and the magical moon light are metaphors for life's cycles and the hidden sides. The night is quiet, in dreams we fill up our batteries and recover, and hidden thoughts and longings come up at night (making us recognize hidden truths - or feeding us illusions and fears).
The element associated with the Moon is Water.
In the nighttime, we sleep, we are alone or only with our most intimately connected people, we recover, sleep and dream.
Sun and Moon give us the most fundamental rhythm of our lives. Even in utero, we recognized when the surroundings were dark or bright, when there was movement or quiet, relaxation or action. They're the poles of our existence.
The celestial tarot cards are powerful, and because they're so fundamentally important in our lives, they're difficult to interpret - they could mean anything. The Sun speaks to the needs of the active, wakeful person who sees and recognizes what's around. The Moon speaks to the passive, dreaming person who intuits and remembers what's inside.
Thinking of the
Myer-Briggs basic traits, we have extraversion, sensing, thinking and judging on the Sun side, and introversion, feeling and perceiving on the Moon side. The cards can tell us which side we need right now (as of course each of us has all the faculties).
Much depends as always on the surrounding card, the question, the deck the cards came from.
When both Sun and Moon appear in a reading, it's a powerful message to get your daylight and nighttime selves in harmony.
On a personal level, I try to be as much in tune with the Sun and the Moon as I can, and I use tarot cards for that. That reminds me... I took a picture an hour ago of the tarot calendar I keep.
The Arcana of Astrology card shows me the Moon phase we're in right now - waxing crescent.
The Tabula Mundi Sun card means that we're in a decan ruled by the Sun right now (last decan of Capricorn).
The Saturn card from the Cosmos Tarot and Oracle reminds me that today is Saturday, ruled by Saturn.
All three decks have very beautiful celestial cards that speak to me more than the RWS iconography.
I update these cards all the time to keep me in tune with cosmic rhythm. It was easier for our ancestors who were not confused by artificial light etc.
