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Exaltation is the second of the dignities, and today it is not a general condition but a specific one. The Moon crosses out of Aries into Taurus at 08:01 UTC and spends the rest of the day in the sign the tradition raised her highest in. Eighty percent of her face is lit, and falling.
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Taurus does not belong to her. It belongs to Venus, and a planet can be exalted in a sign it does not own, which is the whole point of the term. Domicile is ownership. Exaltation is welcome, extended by someone else, and it carries more standing than a stranger would be given. Ptolemy in second century Alexandria records the scheme of exaltations. He did not invent it.
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The older tables did not stop at the sign. Each exaltation carried one specific degree, and for the Moon that degree is the third of Taurus. She occupies it today between roughly 11:30 and 13:15 UTC, a window of under two hours in a month of movement. Al-Biruni in eleventh century Persia is among the writers who carry that table forward intact.
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A Moon in Taurus was the standing recommendation for anything meant to stay put: planted, built, buried, settled. The reasoning sat in the sign rather than in the Moon, since Taurus is fixed and earthy and slow to be moved. Set against that is the light, which is decreasing, and a planet losing light was counted a debility. What today holds is a strong placement carrying a weak condition. The tradition rarely handed over anything clean.
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