The word “eleutheromania” is “a mania or frantic zeal for freedom.”

The mind of the Moon Maiden is dripping with sticky Eleutheromania.

The starting point for this piece is the Moon Maiden, the woman coming out of the moon near the top of the piece itself.

I found this image in one of my astronomy books. I was intrigued by this symbolism yoking a woman and the moon in union together as they arrive into duality. But where did she come from?

We have engineer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, astronomer to Sun King Louis XIV, to thank.

In 1679, Cassini published the world's 1st scientific map of the moon...using a telescope.

Telescopes were a relatively new invention during Cassini's time. But he was still able to use his powers of observation and creativity to expand human understanding of planets in our solar system as well as the one we live on. When creating the first published moon map, a tiny female silhouette is most likely the playful work of Cassini.

The maiden is the symbol of girlhood, purity, pleasure, independence, freedom of expression, unbridled energy, untamed wildness.

The moon is a feminine symbol, universally representing the rhythm of time as it embodies the cycle. The phases of the moon symbolize immortality and eternity, enlightenment or the dark side of Nature herself. It might reflect inner knowledge, or the phases of man's condition on earth.

It is the middle ground between the light of the sun and the darkness of night, and thus often represents the realm between the conscious and the unconscious.

In astrology, the moon is a symbol of the soul, and in the horoscope it determines the subject's capacity for reflection and adaptation.