Mommie Dearest: Moon, Mother and Child is Martin Sebastian Moritz’s second book, after Pandora’s Box – The Mysterious 8th House. He digs deep into the complex relationship patterns between mother and child, as symbolised by the Moon in the chart. By giving biographical case studies using synastry, and going through every lunar placement (sign, house, aspect), it offers a fresh and intriguing insight for beginners as well as advanced and professional astrologers.
Mommie Dearest is a really thoughtful, deeply human exploration of the Moon. Martin blends personal story, therapeutic insight, and clear archetypal language. The writing is warm, compassionate, and easy to read, with touches of quiet humor that make even tender material feel relatable.
Dr. Stormie Grace
This isn’t just another cookbook of Moon placements; it’s an invitation to participate in your own lunar journey with both rigor and compassion. If you’re ready to explore the Moon’s shadow and light with honesty and depth, this book will meet you there.
Tony Howard – Astrology University
Martin Sebastian Moritz
Martin Sebastian Moritz lives in Hamburg and Berlin. He started out as actor and dancer before his life took a different turn and he decided to study ...
Show moreThey say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ and this came to my mind from the very beginning of Mommie Dearest – I think maybe this book was ‘born’ because Martin Sebastian Moritz needed to write it. Overall, it presents a fascinating exploration of ‘mother – child’ relationships and how astrology can shed light on them. In his introduction, the author tells his own story – a child of teenage parents, he found the stability and security which they could not provide in the home of his great-grandmother. This personal account draws you in, as does the description of the author’s extended family dynamics – all sensitively put into context of Moon placements and synastry.
This feels like a book of two halves: the first – a ‘cook book’ style presentation of the astrology of the Moon – in signs, houses and aspects; the second – ten case studies of mother-child relationships of well-known figures. In the first section there is a comprehensive, well-structured and thoughtful exploration of the Moon in each sign, including ‘mother issues’ and ‘impact on adult relationships’. A very brief analysis of the impact of square, opposition and quincunx aspects makes helpful observations on the interplay with the other signs involved. Initially I questioned the author’s choice of the quincunx, as the only ‘minor’ aspect to be considered. Why not the semi-square/sesquiquadrate which are generally accepted as being ‘harder’, more challenging aspects? However, the subtle friction and uncomfortable nature of the quincunx does seem quite relevant when considering difficult mother-child relationships and this is a complex aspect which doesn’t always receive the attention it deserves. Planets have nothing in common by sign (element, mode, polarity) and simply may not see each other. I found it quite refreshing to find that the quincunx is covered more comprehensively in the section on planetary aspects to the Moon. There is plenty of food for thought in the ‘Moon in Houses’ section also, although I found some parts a bit repetitive or straying into ‘advice giving’.
Personally, I found that the case studies provided the most value, both for the revelation of how dysfunctional and damaging some mother – child relationships can be and from the point of view of astrological insight. As the author states in his Introduction, “Moon issues go deep […..] to the core of our being […..] Nobody had an ideal mother […] comparing our stories with those of others can bring acceptance and give some soothing perspective”. One cannot help considering one’s own chart and experiences in the light of these case studies, which include quite detailed and fascinating biographies (for example: Joan Crawford, whose daughter Christine’s book Mommie Dearest provides the title of this publication; Edward VIII, with his cold and severe mother, Queen Mary; the singers Cher and Madonna). These are all most revealing life stories, with insightful psychoanalysis of what was going on in the relationships – all linked to the natal charts, Moon placements and synastry of mother and child. If you have grown up in a supportive family environment, as thankfully I did, the descriptions of relationships in the ‘Abuse’ and ‘Ambivalence’ categories can take you by surprise and leave you asking, “How could a mother or carer act in such a way with their own child?” The other two categories ‘Adoration’ and ‘Absence’, are equally compelling and the answer to that question of course, expertly demonstrated by Martin Sebastian Moritz, is there to be found in the natal charts and the synastry between them!
Gill Beighton DFAstrolS. May 2026
Also from The Wessex Astrologer, is a newly published book by Martin Sebastian Moritz entitled Mommie Dearest: Moon, Mother and Child. This is structured in two halves, of which the first half is a thorough interpretative primer of the natal Moon, featuring separate sets of delineations of the Moon in the signs and in the houses, before exploring the Moon in natal aspect to the Sun and the planets. As such, this half of the book is likely to be immediately useful to both students of astrology and professional astrologers looking for hints as to the reading of particular lunar placements and aspects.
The aspect delineations are notable on account of giving separate readings for the conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition and quincunx between every featured lunar-planetary pairing, which reminds of the late American astrologer Robert Pelletier’s highly successful 1974 book Planets in Aspect, whose lead in this regard was not echoed by most books dealing with planetary or lunar aspects over the remainder of the 20th century, as it became common to lump readings together under hard or soft aspects.
As suggested by the title, maternal themes are prominently explored in many of the readings in this book, although not exclusively so. The Moon’s connection to feeling and emotion in general is not forgotten.
The second half of the book is composed of worked case studies that the author has divided into four alliteratively headed themes: Abuse, Adoration, Ambivalence and Absence, each theme yielding between two and four celebrity case studies, whose subjects range from pop stars (Cher and Madonna) to one of the UK’s most successful but divisive past politicians, the late Margaret Thatcher.
There is an abundance of existing English-language western astrological books on the Moon, among which some are focused exclusively on the natal Moon signs and aimed at the popular market or novice astrologers; some are focused on specific topics such as the lunar phases, the lunar nodes, the lunar mansions or the progressed Moon; some chiefly explore the 144 soli-lunar sign combinations; and others operate at a higher level of astrological sophistication than the Moon sign guides while being focused mainly on the natal Moon itself, into which category Moritz’s book arguably falls.
Even in this category, there is hot competition for attention from modern books past and present, with notable authors of acclaimed works in the arena since 1970 including Haydn Paul, Liz Greene & Howard Sasportas, Darby Costello, the late Donna Cunningham, Eric Meyers, Rev. Alice Miller, Julienne Mullette, Paul F. Newman, Steven Forrest and Deva Green, making this a brave choice of topic to explore afresh, but Moritz’s take is original and should prove complementary to the existing high-level literature on the astrological Moon in general, while the thorough, systematic approach to the delineation of individual natal lunar placements and aspects within the text should mark this book out as more immediately useful to students of astrology than some of the other titles in the marketplace on this theme.
Philip Graves
For good or ill and somewhere in between mother is the first relationship in life which stamps an emotional pattern and expectations on the adult life to come.
Mommie Dearest is the latest book from Martin Sebastian Moritz, author of Pandora’s Box: The Mysterious 8th House. Insightful, thought-provoking, filled with compassionate wisdom and illuminated by psychological awareness, it pin-points the Moon’s glide through signs, houses and in aspect, but is far from an astro-cookbook.
The author opens up about his own complicated childhood ferrying between his parents and a great grandmother and ‘aunt’, relating it to his 6th house Aquarius Moon. Victor Olliver in the foreword talks of his sensitive Pisces Moon and close relationship with his mother.
It broadened my understanding as I flicked through friends and family charts as well as my own as he relates how the mother’s temperament and often unfulfilled hopes determine the emotional leanings of the adult child ahead.
Almost half the book is given over to case studies of abusive mothers like Joan Crawford; the Duke of Windsor, product of a cold mother and a sadistic nanny; and Jennette McCurdy with a monstrous stage mother. Adoring mothers – with examples of Cher, Ronan Farrow, Proust and Anderson Cooper. Margaret Thatcher comes under ambivalent mothers. Madonna and Jane Fonda under absent mothers.
The breadth of understanding of the lunar experience in the book is remarkable and makes it a library must-have. I can see me referring to it for years to come.
Marjorie Orr www.star4cast.com
