New Moon in Cancer 2 degrees 47 minutes
June 23, 2017
10:31 PM ET
The Cancer New Moon is woven in complex configurations that will take the sensitivity and care this sign is known for to properly unravel.
This New Moon packs a strong initiatory thrust. This is a lunar cycle of action and initiative that brings with it a purging and culminates in a grand-master experience of emotional purging at the Full Moon.
This would therefore not be the lunar cycle to physically indulge in comfort foods to stave off the experience of difficult emotion (Venus and Taurus and Cancer present tempting options in that direction). This would be the lunar cycle to squarely address the adjustments being presented at this time.
Cancer can be a sign of heart and softness, yet this New Moon brings with it some heat and contention. While broad segments of American society are trained to keep the peace, and women especially are largely conditioned to be polite and yielding, an undercurrent of conflict still exists in typical day to day life.
American society as a whole has plenty to keep it distracted, numbed and quiet — so that our arguments are increasingly digital rather than physical. America is a society that represses, and is trained to repress physically expressing conflict through healthy outlets. We are not explicitly trained to manage inevitable conflict in appropriate ways, yet in a strange twist it is fairly easy to access a small lethal weapon and as a result our day to day life is increasingly dangerous.
On an immediate level, the astrology present at the time of the New Moon describes the potential for conflict.
Mercury and Mars and the Sun are all very close together at this lunation. Mars is a hot planet, and the planet of physical expression. Someone with a Mars aspect to a personal planet needs to express that planet physically or risk “running hot” in their body, internalizing anger or rage, and holding toxic emotional residue in their body.
From now, Mars is under the beams of the Sun, increasing the probability of finding, creating, encountering, or expressing conflict, tension, or aggravation. This would especially come through in Mercury ruled things like communications, driving, and speaking.
Put Mars and Mercury together and you get a heated argument. Or, you could just as easily talk with your body, talk or think while working the body, or have a passionate discussion. The energy needs an outlet and this is a lunar cycle under a special kind of pressure — so it would be wise to develop an arsenal of mindfulness, conflict management tools to work with, things to think about passionately, and regular physical work for the body as remediations to the excessive martial energy in the sky.
In the opening week of this New Moon, Mars and Mercury join together to make a square to Jupiter in Libra (13 degrees) and near simultaneous trine to Neptune retrograde in Pisces (14 degrees). This is a sequence that describes that same energized, emotional communication requiring a non-biased, non-emotional, yet compassionate perspective as a touchpoint on the way to resolution.
Jupiter in Libra in this configuration describes working from a set of tenets, agreements, or rules that serve to bring about an adjustment or bring things to a balance. From there, the groundwork is set for wonderful, lucky, fortuitous growth based on mutually agreed upon terms or a basis of fair collaboration.
The water signs are traditionally considered “mute”, so it is possible that a lot of communication happens without literal words necessarily being expressed. For example, in negotiating the price of a car, it is said that she who speaks first loses, and the dealer acquires information about the buyer in front of them by being able to compose and maintain an atmosphere of steady silence. The natural urge is to fill in the gap, and since the topic is mutually understood, the space is filled with data that may be helpful to the dealer but unhelpful to the person seeking a deal. #TheArtOfTheDeal.
Mars and Mercury’s trine Neptune in the opening days of this New Moon describes compassionate, altruistic, sacrificing actions from someone who just simply and honestly wants to help, or simply and honestly seeks understanding, compassion and healing. It also describes motivations that are muddled or unclear, but that come from a place of desire, intuition or a hunch. It yet describes taking action to heal on the emotional and subtle levels. This would be a time to maintain a regimen of cleansing and protection, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Healing on the emotional level is the broader message of this lunar cycle. While words and communications can be threatening, or a potential danger to emotional safety and integrity, that same material is being asked to be sifted through in a process of review — whether this is with the person/situation that is the perceived threat, a therapist or healer, or just the journal and a candle, this is material that wants to rise to the surface for examination in the light of day (or by the light of the Moon, as the case may be).
This is a time to take strong steps toward the act of healing. It is a time to become acquainted with the softest, most tender, and most vulnerable parts of ourselves and to give them a home that is safe from all harm that could come their way. From that intimate place is the outside world met.
Cancer is associated with the past, inward and centering energy, and with memories. Pluto’s casting its intense retrograde rays of review at Cancer from across the sky means that for every ancient memory that is retrieved from the most delicately, carefully folded tissues of our bodies, units of pure energy are liberated, and we become on the way to understanding the ways in which we are inherently safe no matter what on the outside may present perceived threat.
Know that this is a time in which the many planets in Cancer are acting as kinds of mirrors, for the nature of the Moon is to reflect. What emerges now holds a truth associated with an ancientness — whether that is the ancientness of ancestral memory, or the experiences carried in the instinctual biology of each of us.
Like the first New Moon after the equinox, this New Moon presents a magnified dose of initiatory energy, as it the first New Moon after the Solstice. Gather up your bravery, be fortified by the love of those who care for you, and have the courage to follow your northernmost star.
Blessings for a wonderful New Moon cycle,
I remain,
Yours in the star-studded sky above,
Ichrak
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