What does July's SECOND Cancer new moon signify?
Monday is indeed an auspicious day as it hosts a rare second consecutive new moon in the moon’s home sign of Cancer. The forerunner, on June 21, was also a potent solar eclipse that catalyzed some major shifts and sparked significant revelations for so many people I’ve talked to, including plenty of you.
Before Leo season kicks off early Wednesday morning (ET), we’re treated to a second scoop of Cancer new moon energy as la luna makes an encore conjunction with the Sun in the sign of the Crab on Monday. This isn’t spooky or ominous; it’s simply the result of our tidy calendars not perfectly aligning with star time (“sidereal”). This is why we have a leap day on February 29 every four years to “rectify time,” an amusing life-on-Earth concept.
Cancer rules the home, family life, safety, caregiving, the sacred feminine, women in general and mothers in particular. The unconditional love a (healthy) mother has for her child is the idealized form of Cancerian energy. Cancer is a cardinal water sign, “cardinal” meaning one of the four goal- and future-oriented signs that are associated with the advent of each season. But Cancer doesn’t race ahead toward its target like Aries does. Have you ever watched a crab scurry across the sand? It may appear “sideways” to us, but that little crustacean knows exactly where he’s going.
Cancer is also our inner child, many of whom are still seeking the love, protection, praise and nurturing she never got growing up. Has this theme been coming up for you in a BOLD-FACE ALL CAPS kind of way over the past four weeks? Have you felt weepier or needier than usual? Alone without a lifeline? What actions have you taken as a result?
This rare second new moon in Cancer can help us resolve painful or upsetting emotions that arose since the June 21 eclipse (and long before). But it’s not a magic balm we can rub on our boo-boo and make it go away. Cancer is the wise woman of the zodiac. She knows that to heal, we need to go back to the source—as mature grown-ups—and renegotiate the contract.
But we have to be courageous and willing to look at some unsavory things—not rationalizing circumstances with our analytical left brains (‘cause how’s that worked out so far?) but by reconnecting to the original wounding and allowing ourselves to re-experience it energetically in a safe, protected space, ideally with a professional who understands trauma and knows how to hold space for an anguished soul. Good self-practices include journaling, doing a ritual to release the pain, and strengthening our forgiveness work until we can honestly find our way to gratitude.
While I hesitate to dip so much as a pinky toe into “ominous” waters, it is important to put all this into perspective. On Monday, Saturn (part of what astrologer Anne Ortelee calls the “Covid Cluster,” along with Pluto and Jupiter) will exactly oppose the Sun and moon, at 28º Capricorn. One way to view this polarity is everything Saturn represents (tradition, structure, social order, authority figures) facing off with the values of the divine feminine, which is about living in harmony with the cycles of nature and the Earth—and with our fellow humanoids.
Looking ahead, that conspiratorial cluster will play a round robin this fall, with volcanic Pluto meeting up with Jupiter in November before he in turn reunites with Saturn and they dance a pas de deux in December. How this reprise of the planetary alignments of early 2020 plays out is anyone’s guess. But if we don’t heed the nurturing, caring, loving, patient message of this second Cancer new moon, it may indeed be déjà vu all over again, again.
On a happier note, new moons are associated with fresh starts; of wiping the slate clean and giving it another go. They’re a time to wish, dream, hope, envision and clarify what we want to manifest over the coming six months. I’ve been keeping a “new moon journal” for more than a decade, hand-writing 10 intentions every month in a series of notebooks dedicated to this practice. Funnily, only at the beginning of this year did I think to go back and review the past couple years. I was surprised—delighted, really—to see how many of those wishes had materialized. Then a whole new (new-moon-inspired) idea struck me: In addition to “wishing” for things that hadn’t come to pass, I wrote my intentions as if they already had—and then I gave gratitude for each and every one.
If this old world starts getting you down a little too much, I’m always just a few clicks away. Use this link to book yourself a personal reading. Imagine an hour and a half where we only talk about you! And if you’re having a hard time “justifying” it, just call it self-nurturing!
Keep the faith!
