The first lunation of the New Year is about mommy and daddy crashing into each other and creating the transcendent third, which is us. On a personal level, our parents are the literal expression of this, and it’s easy to see how are all a juicy combination of what they each bring. Cosmically, I call this Mother-Father God, though I wrestle with the G word. Religion is about patriarchal control, a system now in the process of collapse. We are being asked to imagine a new world, one rooted in true archetypal mind, where once again, the Earth and Moon are experienced as the Great Mother, and the Father Sun pours forth warmth and light. When these forces meet, they generate the transcendent third, us, in bodies, created by love, to look out into the universe and existence itself, and speak the most powerful words there ever were and ever will be: I Am.
In astrology, Capricorn is daddy, made out earth, and mommy is opposite in watery Cancer. Both are cardinal signs, the big four that kick off the seasons (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) and bring with them a kind of start up energy. I love that on the third day of this incredibly wild year, we are being asked to lean back into our private sense of self, and how we relate to this new world we are creating while the old one crumbles. The Capricorn Sun has us focusing on out ambitions for the year ahead. Mars and Venus are Conjunct the Sun, so our conscious awareness is aligned with our goals (Mars) and how we want the year ahead to feel (Venus).
Cancer is where the action is, for the Moon holds the power of unconscious release. Jupiter is in Cancer where the planet of abundance and expansion is exalted, and we are capable of much greater manifestation with the planet of growth is in the sign of the gestational womb. The Moon and Jupiter are exactly 8° apart (and you know I loves me some precision) and that is just at the edge of influence, but close enough to vibrate each other. As we lean into our private, emotional, and tender vulnerabilities with the Cancer Moon, Jupiter’s presence amplifies the value of this Full Moon to help us know our worth and value without shrinking back from vulnerability.
The Cancer Moon will help us privately release whatever internal inhibitions keep us from embodying our power in the outside world. If you shrink back from what’s important out of fear and old habits of keeping yourself small, this moment can help you shed those overprotective urges. On the other side of the continuum are those who have no problem with the doing of things, but ignore your need for rest and restoration. Let this Full Moon teach you how to be still enough to find grace, before you move.
The Sun, Venus, and Mars in a tight stelium, are Trining the South Node, so we are feeling fairly integrated and consciously aware of what we are moving away from. The Cancer Moon, with Jupiter’s blessings, is Trining the North Node, allowing the internal and unconscious shifts of this lunar cycle to funnel any new emotional clarity directly into our forward movement in the year ahead.
Chiron and Jupiter’s Square helps us benefit from the friction between our desires for good, and the healing needed to feel deserving enough to attract more, and keep it when it comes. Mercury is now in Capricorn, but is still carrying confusion and cloudiness from the Square with Neptune that peaked Thursday morning PST. We are flying blind just a bit, so just surrender to what today feels like, rather than trying to intellectually understand what this moment has to offer.
Surrender is scary, because it asks us to step out of the illusion of control, and that can feel deeply vulnerable. Mercury in Saturn’s sign of Capricorn reinforces the idea that we are meant to manage and direct life through effort and strategy. Yet control is ultimately an illusion. A Trine from Jupiter to Saturn and Neptune in Pisces reminds us that when we loosen our grip on outcomes, we drop into a far more creative and generative place in the unconscious mind. Saturn and Neptune together say it is safe to let go, that you can dissolve without disappearing, because the structure you need to return is always there.
Capricorn may rule Saturn, but Saturn is now deep in Neptune’s domain, receiving instruction from something greater than willpower or ambition. It may take time for the mud of this moment to dry into the hard clay of a new consciousness, but this first Full Moon of the New Year carries a clear offering: let go of the results, and what you are trying to create will reveal itself more honestly than if you try to force it into a predetermined shape.
This is a family and home moment, so much of the changes or unconscious releases will be focused on your private life. This can be literal, but also the 4th House/10th House polarity is known as the foundational axis of the zodiac. Cancer (4th) roots us and keeps us safe. Capricorn (10th) pushes us to move out into the world. Home and work life balance are always a theme in any Cancer Full Moon, but this one hits different because the world is on fire. We must all decide whether we are going to actively help facilitate change, or sit things out, leaving you feeling like a victim of circumstance.
This Full Moon reminds you to make sure you have your oxygen mask on first before helping anyone else with theirs. Cancer asks us for a number of things. First and foremost, to put yourself first, making sure you know that you are responsible for your own balance and self-care. Cancer is also the memory of the zodiac, for better or for worse. This Full Moon will ask you to let go of wounds and injuries from your past. If any of those stories are still running a racket in your mind, it’s time to let them go; you can’t climb the mountain of your ambitions with any grace or efficacy if you are still carrying around baggage from the past.
We are here at this time to help a mighty movement of the shift between ages. If this missive has crossed your path because you are a subscriber to my newsletter, or you receive it some other way, you are one of the way showers. We go first. As such, we prepare ourselves at a personal level to hold more responsibility in the changing world. Take this day to use that Cancernian memory to remember who you are – who you really are – not the avatar you have created to be “successful” in the outside world.
Remember that our job in every Full Moon is to find how each of the opposite energies come together to create a transcendent third in your life. As Cancer and Capricorn merge, we are invited to embody that transcendent third, remembering ourselves as beings who belong first to our souls, and from that inner landscape, step forward to serve the world with your full self. Have at it!
