Cancer New Moon

Cancer New Moon on July 17, 2023 at 12:31pm MST, with energies perfecting at 24degrees Cancer. 

Big Hill Springs Provincial Park, Alberta
Photo: Stephany Steele

On this moon phases we have an opposition to Pluto in Capricorn & Square Chiron in Aries and those last degrees of Aries North Node forming a grand square: See below.

Moon trine retrograde Neptune in Pisces: Our spiritual growth is a life path choice we get to choose and develop as we passionately see fit. We have the opportunity to get real with our reality in a spiritual meaningful way, dissolving the delusions that plague us and keep us small. 

Moon is sextile to Uranus in Taurus: The shock of the reality of a situation can feel destabilizing for a time, bringing new meaning to “going with the flow”- can you be quick enough on your feet to move with the ground as it shifts around you? The feelings of shock can sometimes pin us down in paralysis, feeling lost and heart broken. Those feelings in themselves are destabilizing, though when you stay with them they have the capacity to lead us to new vantage points. 

Venus stations retrograde on July 22, 2023 at 28 degrees Leo. This is happening at 7:32 pm, and interestingly enough Sun moves into Leo at 7:50pm on the someday. For me this has been showing up in ways about how I have a love affair with myself, my lover, and what I love in life. Redefining my actions around what and who is a priority. There is a restorative and meaningful life filled with purpose when the light of day showers me in love rather than fear within the symbol of Leo I have never felt before. These moments are filled with the action of receiving warmth and love, when the world around you is so hot all you can do is move slowly or not at all, taking in all the beauty.

Grandmother Moon, please help me understand the energy around me and within me as I work to remove what blocks me from my real self in this New Moon in Cancer.

Sometimes it can be tricky to piece together the aspects and language. Especially when those feelings feel like your life blew up in some way. 

Let’s back up a moment. Being vulnerable under the Sun in Cancer is beautiful. It feels counter-intuitive to realize that we are our most protected when we are emotionally vulnerable, real and humble with ourselves. We often were reared in environments that told us the very opposite- that being emotional and vulnerable is bad and unsafe thing. Stories of the world being a dangerous place fill the airwaves through a variety of media, firming up our beliefs that this is true. In these stories we came to believe that we will only be vulnerable if we are protected and safe in our shells. 

This way of living works for a while, depending on your definition of the amount space you feel you need in order to grow. the idea of space is reflective of your idea of needing a shell to protect you.

The feeling of blowing up your life in some way is the feeling I am using to describe the moment you leave the protective shell in some way. Remember this is not the only way this will feel. With the pull of the Lunar Nodes and the opposition of Pluto, we have to leave something or let go of something- those actions have effects that are likely impossible to come back from most of the time. You can’t uncrack that egg- its open and now we have to deal with whatever comes next. This feeling of having blown up one’s own life in some way is part of that shock inducing and destabilized feeling, then the sadness you can’t go back, the shame, the rage, the fear of “Oh, Fuck. What do I do now?” 

These feelings are intense and extreme, as is the nature of working with strong Pluto aspects. Couple this with the angles of the energy landing on Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. Modality speaking these symbols bring forward their Cardinal initiation of leadership in their own way, which is based on their element. When balanced and in harmony they work together to bring forward movement, momentum and growth. Even when growth is welcomed, it can be jarring at times. We can still feel like we plummeted back to the bottom after we have invested so much on a path, a direction, a personal or professional interest. We can still have strong uncomfortable emotions about what is happening around us. From this place, it can be challenging to remember that your practice of balance and harmony allowed you to become better supported to move through these moments where you must leave something behind in order to keep going forward with your life. That is the softness of being protected while you are vulnerable and feeling all the ways you feel in that moment. 

It can be challenging to feel all the way through the loss you feel is happening to you in your life. Moments, ways of being, relationships all die in some shape or form in order to be transformed and to transform us. Depending on your practice of working to become emotionally available to all your emotions- this can be challenging. Though in that challenge- there is the realization of there being “no feeling it later”. The modality of the Cardinal symbols do not work that way- they do it now, not later. They see the path and they get to walking their walk based on the elemental nature of their movement.

In Moon & Sun in Cancer moments there is no better time like now to feel how you feel, whatever those feelings are, no matter their intensity. We then take that skill, that practice, create a lifestyle and integrate it into, then fix it into our way of being (that is the next modality, fixed symbols) we can create a valuable, loving and harmonious framework for our lives. We have developed a new operating system for ourselves in the aftermath of feeling like we blew up our lives in ways you can’t come back from. The reality is you can come back to people, places and things- you just have a fresh perspective on how you will engage, act and allow them to be in your life. You have changed so therefore everything changes. Dynamics shift. These things are allowed. You are allowed to be vulnerable and grow into your most loving beautiful self. You are allowed to clean up your false beliefs about everything in all areas. The same is true on the other side- others and the world around is allowed to see and do it differently.

That seems to be a good point to end on: Everyone has a way of creating their own kingdom that works for them. That it’s not about doing it how everyone else is, it takes compassion to see life that way- that just because someone does life one way and it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean they are wrong, it just means its not for you. That is a different kind of letting go, letting go of the idea that we have to live in the same ways in order for it to be considered balanced or harmonious. Letting go of that belief is a possible way we feel like we blew up our lives- because it goes against “status quo.” Status quo seems to be an easy trap to fall in- there is no friction from others when we just go along with it. Though at some point we can feel the need to bust out of that shell with all the vulnerable courage it takes because we long for something inside us more than status quo can ever give us. 

With Summer Love,
Stephany