The Full Moon in Cancer hits today at 4:33pm PST. This is likely to be a pretty emotional Full Moon, as Cancer is the sign that invented feelings at the personal level. Ruled by the Moon itself, we are deeply connected to our internal landscape any time the Moon is in this sign. But it’s a Full Moon, which means we are releasing things from below the surface of the unconscious that no longer serve us. If the Capricorn mansion is all about climbing the mountain of our desires and ambitions in the outside world, what we release in a Cancer Full Moon is anything in the inner landscape that keeps us from a powerful expression of those desires and ambitions in the outside world.
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Cancer is the mansion of self-care, where we learn to put our own oxygen mask on first before helping others. The problem with this is that many of us were born into family dynamics where our needs were not put first, and we learned to abandon ourselves because our survival may have depended on having very little needs in the face of caretakers who could not meet them in the first place. Even if this was not a traumatic experience – not everyone was born into violence and chaos as I was – Cancer is where all of our emotional patterns have their roots, and it can be extremely vulnerable to reveal your tender underbelly in a world that doesn’t feel emotionally safe.
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But we are no longer children, and our emotional safety is in our capable, adult hands. In order to be powerful in the outside world, we now understand that vulnerability increases our emotional intelligence, and fosters more personal power when dealing with life on life’s terms. Cancer is also the memory of the zodiac, where we can stay so attached to the past, we can’t move effectively in the present. Because Cancer is the sign of home, hearth, and family, this is a Full Moon that can help us release some truly deep attachments. But of course, deep releases and healings can be painful, and this is the most emotionally tender of all the signs, and so this passage may have all the feels rising up in a big way.
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Fortunately, Venus is in a beautiful Trine with Neptune, and both of these planets operate in the world of love. Venus is love at the personal level, and through Neptune we understand the love of the Divine. When they are operating in this harmonious geometry, then love at every level is easy to tap into. What that offers in this lunation is a kind of emotional trust. All the movement of Venus this past year may be helping us stay open and loving right now because we have done some mighty healing work through her retrograde last spring, and an eclipse season where both eclipses were ruled by Venus. This Full Moon is offering a bit of a psychic surgery for more emotional freedom, and this transit is the anesthetic that allows us to lean into the process, even if it is vulnerable and scary to do so.
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So, our hearts are open, but the mind is in some big challenges with the most confusing and potentially difficult triple transit of Mercury’s retrograde cycle. He is Squaring Neptune, and just as the two octaves of love are in harmony (Venus and Neptune), the two octaves of the mind are in breakdown. Mercury is the mind in our heads, and Neptune connects us to the Divine Mind, but the 90-degree geometry of the Square is the hardest in astrology, an angle of conflict and breakdown. Neptune connects us to flow, intuition, guidance, and spirit, but his shadow is pure fog, cloudiness, confusion, misperception, and deception. Glance back to November 27th, give or take a day or two, and see if there was anything confusing or unclear in your narrative, and you may find a connection to something that is playing out now.
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This retro has Mercury crossing over between Capricorn, where Mercury is clear and focused on what you are attempting to create with goals and ambitions. But he is Squaring Neptune from Sagittarius, a sign of his detriment, where he is already susceptible to overstimulation and confusion. There have been some stabilizing and helpful triple transits from Mercury, but the wonky side of this cycle is strong, and these few days will be a peak of mental confusion as we are still in the thick of it all. The Sun in a Sesqui-Square with Uranus today is also adding a bit of friction, nervous restlessness, and challenges with understanding the points of view of others. The feels could be very strong today, but the mind is unlikely to be in any position to offer stability or grounding, so just surrender to what comes today in both mind and heart.
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We are being aligned with the world outside our front doors, as both of the social planets, Saturn and Jupiter, are participating with great strength in this Full Moon. Saturn transits reflect moments of stability and groundedness, where we create things of foundation and solidity. Jupiter helps us feel expansive and productive on top of those structures. Both planets are harmonizing the Sun and the Moon, with Saturn Trining the Moon, and Jupiter Trining the Sun. Our unconscious mind (Moon) is responding to wisdom and past lessons (Trine Saturn), and our conscious awareness (Sun) is able to know what is possible and just how expansive we wish to make our lives as we cross into a new year (Trine Jupiter). The only thing that can hold us back is our own, individual sense of unworthiness, and the self-sabotage that comes when we don’t trust our own capacity to do great things.
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Consider the value of emotional release, healing old wounds, and what might be possible when we get out of our own way. Capricorn keeps us clearly focused on what we want for ourselves, and there is no mistaking that this is the sign through which we cross into a new year and look to unfurl those goals and ambitions. But we climb higher when we are freer of load, and this is the Full Moon where we drop any and all impulses to hold back because of fear. We celebrate how well we have learned to care for ourselves and put our needs first, and we release any and all ways that we might sabotage ourselves by holding back because we do not believe in our vision strongly enough. If you feel lost right now, do not despair, this is built into the consciousness of the lunation. Trust there is a healing and a release happening right now.
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We wash away all of the lower thought/feeling forms in this Full Moon. In fact, if you care to ritualize the moment, I would head quite literally to the bathtub and allow the symbolism of that to create an experience of purification, where we wash away the detritus of the emotional releases of the entire year. In this way, we can meet the year ahead with a clean slate, ready to climb even higher the mountain of our goals and ambitions in 2024. Have at it!