We arrive at the first Full Moon of 2022, and it’s a doozy. The Cancer Moon will Oppose the Sun at 3:48pm PST today, and we move through a profound moment of emotional transformation, connecting to the principles of self-care, and tending to issues that rise up out of family dynamics (past and present), and really all of our most intimate relationships, and how we tend to taking care of our own emotional needs first. The Sun is Conjunct Pluto, so our conscious awareness is dancing with our deepest shadow, as Pluto contains the bits of our psyche that we are typically shut off to. In order to truly transform our emotional experience, we must be aware of the thoughts we are having, and the challenging feelings that they generate. Only then, can we reach deep into our unconscious in order to facilitate the healing that is possible. If you have great grief, but are unconscious about the thought patterns that are the source of that grief, how can you let go of such powerful thought/feeling patterns?
But Sun and Pluto together allows us to peer into an even deeper level of our unconscious. Think of it this way; you open the hood of your car to see the engine and how it works. This moment of Sun and Pluto in Conjunction is like looking even deeper – the hood that’s under the hood. The sub-basement of the unconscious is as wide open as it can be as we move through this Full Moon, and we are benefiting from this transformative power. However, the emotional pain that may be being kicked up by this lunation is epic. Add to this that both Venus and Mercury are retrograde, which means that our individual minds and hearts are also more connected to the unconscious than is typical. We are getting in touch with some very deep aspects of who we are and how we operate, and the changes we can make right now are big, as long as you are concentrating on shifting your world from the inside out.
As an example from my own life, the retrograding Venus has been crossing my South Node of kharma, and man oh man, has this cycle been triggering very deep work on how I deal with anxious attachments in my more intimate relationships. It has not been a comfortable experience at all, but one of the things that is happening over this weekend is, I can hear the whispers of very dark thoughts that typically would be out of my conscious earshot. You can not release a false belief unless you can reach down and grab it where its tendrils are digging into the unconscious, so this moment has this paradox. You can lean in, go deeper, and release the thoughts of fear, undeserving, and perceived emotional danger that are closing your heart. But to do so, you must be willing to feel those feelings, and feel them very deeply. The watchword here is Trust.
There is a Trine between this Full Moon and Neptune in Pisces that puts the loving thread of spiritual guidance into this moment. Neptune is the Great Spirit, and it is through his movements that we deepen our connection to the greater forces that animate us. Pluto says we’re going deep, it’s gonna hurt. Neptune says, it you throw your faith and trust into your soul’s journey, you will feel guided by much bigger forces than your tiny little human mind can even imagine. The presence of Neptune in this Full Moon brings tremendous compassion and forgiveness to guide the moment, and intuition is high. I am reminded in this transit of this trope: There is no wound that Spirit cannot heal. But to take full advantage of this, you must surrender to the feelings in a manner that will require great vulnerability and courage.
The reason for all of this intensity, is Pluto. Mercury is retrograde, and so we are in a process of rewiring thought patterns, and Mercury’s retrograde began and ends with him Conjuncting Pluto. Venus’s backward motion is transforming our emotional body, and she, too, began and will end her retrograde cycle with a prolonged visit with the Lord of the Underworld. That we have this powerful Full Moon with the Sun Conjunct Pluto provides conscious awareness with an outrageous opportunity, if you can surrender to the depth of feeling that this moment will require you to drop into. But something that is important to remember; there are things brewing in a behind-the-scenes kind of fashion with both mind and heart turned within, and we made need a few weeks to pass before we can really understand and integrate everything that is rising up now.
This is not the beginning of the process of release that we are riding, but it is also not the end of the wave, not by a long shot, thank you Mercury and Venus. With the Moon in Cancer, there is a great likelihood that you may be dealing with matters of great intimacy, and topics that generate vulnerability, as this is the way of the Cancer mansion. This is also the sign that relates to family, mothers, and the emotional patterns you enact in your current life, based on how your family dynamics set you up to give and receive love. Trust the healing balm of emotions that are allowed to flow freely, and try not to judge the amount of tenderness and sensitivity, and just drop into a deeper place in your below. And if you have to, weep some more.
