New Moon in Cancer

Within ever increasing waves of chaotic destruction and generation in world events, the fertile potency of the New Moon in Cancer will draw us within more personal spheres of influence and core values. The watery reception of Cancer, the nocturnal home of the Moon, prioritizes the nurturing of intimate and familiar bonds in growth processes. As individuals we need communal and familial relationships to make effective change and to provide for loved ones and those in need within our community. While it can feel futile in the face of colossal power structures to create change on a larger scale, we are able to take responsibility to nurture ourselves and our surroundings so that we can be in a more optimal condition to resiliently survive and do what we can within circumstances. The darkness of the Cancer New Moon is an invitation to deepen into your most cherished values, shedding distractions so you may be more focused upon what matters most. In times of global calamity it becomes more important than ever to embody the Truth and Beauty of your ideals, inspiring others to do the same.

The annual New Moon in Cancer always arrives at a turning of a season, one of the two extreme peaks in solar light. Like the crustacean living image of Cancer who inhabits the liminal terrain in between sea and shore, there is an in-between-ness about Cancer that is simultaneously internal, receptive, and reflective due to being a water sign, while also being a quickly shifting and adaptive initiator due to being the cardinal domicile of the Moon. The New Moon in Cancer is always ideal for internal reflection that can be utilized to practical effect in new plans and endeavors, as the Moon is at home in her own nocturnal waters. This year the Cancer New Moon on 5 July is positioned at an especially key turning point while also containing multiple significant aspects, making it an unusually powerful lunation for turning within for regenerative renewal.

The New Moon in Cancer is at the northern bendings of the lunar nodes while applying to numerous aspects. The Cancer New Moon is applying to a trine with Saturn retrograde in Pisces, a sextile with Mars in Taurus, a conjunction with Venus in Cancer, a sextile with Uranus in Taurus, a trine with Neptune retrograde in Pisces, and an almost exact opposition with Ceres retrograde in Capricorn. Due to being in a square aspect with the transiting lunar nodes, the Cancer New Moon is in between eclipse seasons: the previous eclipses from March and April and the next round of eclipses coming in September and October. Notice how you are at a critical phase of development or turning point related to narratives stemming from the Libra Lunar Eclipse on 25 March 2024 and the Aries Solar Eclipse on 8 April 2024. The next two eclipses will be a Lunar Eclipse in Pisces on 17 September 2024 and a Solar Eclipse in Libra on 2 October 2024. The Lunar Eclipse in Pisces is significant due to being the first eclipse along the axis between Pisces and Virgo, and for also applying to a conjunction with Neptune and separating from a conjunction with Saturn. The fact that the next eclipse will be configured to Saturn and Neptune retrograde in Pisces adds extra emphasis to the flowing trine between the Cancer New Moon and Saturn and Neptune in Pisces.

There is nothing easy about Saturn and Neptune coming together in their thirty-six year cycle, and we are only at the beginning of adjusting to their dissolution. The week before the Cancer New Moon brought the first major activation of their balsamic phase, with Saturn stationing retrograde on 29 June only ten degrees away from Neptune stationing retrograde on 2 July. The combination of Saturn and Neptune is often described as being primarily about illusions and difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality, but that is only one side of their multivalent effect. Saturn and Neptune periods are also great awakeners who unveil deeper truth and understanding through their corresponding disillusionment. While Saturn and Neptune periods correspond with inquisitions, witch hunts, and dogmatic religious extremism, they also bring opportunities to forge deeper commitment to embodying ideals and bringing personal dreams into reality.

Fortunately, the Cancer New Moon has harmonious aspects with Saturn and Neptune that can help in adjusting to the massive changes rippling through the world in correspondence with their cycle. The Cancer New Moon is forming a trine with Saturn and Neptune, while Mars in Taurus is also forming an exact sextile aspect with Saturn. Venus in Cancer is also moving in between a trine aspect with Saturn and Neptune, and Uranus in Taurus is slowly getting closer to a sextile with Neptune after having already formed a sextile with Saturn. The dissolution brought by Saturn and Neptune is symbolically similar to the solutio phase of alchemy that dissolves the formerly solid into the prima materia necessary for transformation. The nurturing capacity of the Cancer New Moon can help by creating your own container to nurture and tend to the dissolution and change underway. Like tending to the growth of a garden or the brewing within a cauldron, we have immense imaginal depths to tend that are brimming with new life and vision. Remembering that the larger meaning of Saturn and Neptune processes take time to fully understand, in the shorter term we can keep an open and curious mind regarding the inner shifts that will continue to mutate as Saturn and Neptune form their conjunction within the next two years. For now, as systemic structures will continue to dissolve and shape shift in the years ahead, we will need to embrace the flux and use our core values and ideals as a lodestar to guide us through the ways that our own identities and life structures will also be changing.

There are harmonious aspects forming between Mercury and Jupiter as well as between Venus and Uranus during the Cancer New Moon that can both be utilized in catalyzing change and initiating new growth. The harmonious nature of their sextile aspects are further bolstered by the slower moving planets occupying the zodiacal homes of the faster moving planets: Mercury is applying to a sextile with Jupiter who is in the airy home of Mercury, while Venus is applying to a sextile with Uranus who is in the earthy home of Venus. Moreover, both of these aspects become exact on 8 July, a few days after the lunation. The interplay between Venus and Uranus can be helpful in breaking free from old routines in order to nurture more Eros, desire, and creativity in one’s life, while the synergy between Mercury and Jupiter is a boon for a wide array of endeavors. Mercury and Jupiter previously formed a conjunction at the beginning of June while both were invisible under the beams of the Sun, and so their brightly active harmony in the week following the lunation is ideal for seeing things more clearly in problem solving, setting things into motion with a faster pace, while also being able to flexibly shift with adjustments when needed. As you may notice ideas and storylines seeded by the conjunction between Venus and Uranus on 18 May and between Jupiter and Mercury on 4 June reaching important turning points, the harmonious aspects between them give the Cancer New Moon extra propulsive force for renewal and restoration.

The most difficult aspect formed by the Cancer New Moon is with the dwarf planet Ceres, the queen of the asteroid belt. Ceres is at the exact midpoint of her retrograde cycle that began on 14 May and will end on 26 August. The Cancer New Moon opposing Ceres retrograde in Capricorn draws attention to the material fears of lack and scarcity that many around the world are facing, as well as how all of the various crises we are collectively facing relate to our children and the youngest generations currently growing up within the surrounding tumult. The recent years of the Uranus in Taurus transit have brought disruptions to food supply chains as well as an activation of labor movements and strikes, all of which are mundane topics that also connect to the meaning of Ceres in astrology. The tension between the New Moon with Ceres can be used productively by coming into relationship with the constraints of Necessity while simultaneously remaining creatively active and responsive, allowing whatever limitations we are contending with to inspire and shape creative solutions. If necessary it will be important to take whatever space is needed for grieving or retreating into nurturing spaces of restoration, but otherwise the resourceful placement of Ceres in Capricorn can be helpful for gaining realization of how to make the most of present circumstances.

The association between Ceres and the great goddess is further amplified by the Cancer New Moon closely conjoining the projected degree of the fixed star Sirius. Sirius has ancient associations with the great goddess Isis, who reanimated her consort and fertility god Osiris to give birth to Horus from their chthonic union. The additional synchronicity of the Osiris asteroid being at the same degree as Pluto in Aquarius during the Cancer New Moon points to the symbolic power of Isis using her magical will to restore and reinvigorate the dismembered body of Osiris, in the same way that the Cancer New Moon can support the restoration and reweaving of parts of our inner self that had become disconnected, as well as the nurturance of a more vibrantly creative life direction. Allow the watery reception and reflection of the Cancer New Moon to connect you to not only what needs care and nurturance, but also with the inner sources of strength that can help you take greater command of your life direction. The immense capacity for the Cancer New Moon to foster the development of protected spaces of creative exploration and communal exchange is further shown by the Moon becoming regenerated in the second decan of Cancer.

Cancer 2 Decan

The New Moon is in the second decan of Cancer associated with the Three of Cups card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. The merry image of dancing women evokes the three graces and signifies creative collaborations as well as reception of pleasure. Austin Coppock in 36 Faces ascribed the image of “A Walled Garden” to the second face of Cancer, adding an element not obvious from the image above: the need of protection to create a nurturing space that can bring forth joy, beauty, and abundance. Mercury and Mars are the rulers of the second decan of Cancer, as the cunning creativity of Mercury needs the fierceness of Mars to secure a container within which the magic of Mercury may manifest desires.  

In Henrich Cornelius Agrippa’s The Celestial World, the fertile capacity of the second face of Cancer for bringing “wealth, cheerfulness, joy, and love of women” are shown through the images of “a man dressed in beautiful clothing” and “a man and woman sitting at a table playing.” The 13th century Picatrix gave the gifts of “games, wealth, joy and abundance” to the second face of Cancer, describing the image of a beautiful woman wearing a crown of green myrtle while delicately holding a water lily and singing songs of love and joy. Similarly, the 12th century philosopher and astrologer Ibn Ezra in The Beginning of Wisdom described the image of a beautiful women wearing a myrtle crown who has pleasant speech and desires music and wind. 

Austin Coppock in 36 Faces made the astute insight that “the great secret” of the second face of Cancer “is the power of right incubation.” Coppock connected the co-rulership of Mars and Mercury as signifying “the protective, guiding power of the mother goddess” that can cultivate gardens where “rare pleasures bloom.” Similar to how the Moon has both a dark and light side, Coppock discerned that the connection between the mother goddess with the second face of Cancer is that “while we may find pleasure in being coddled, the wise mother orchestrates challenges that her children might become heroes and heroines.” Coppock described how this is illustrated by the Hellenistic text the 36 Airs ascribing the ancient Greek hero Heracles to the second face of Cancer, as “though on the surface Heracles is a symbol of masculine potency, his entire story, from before birth until after death, was orchestrated by Hera, the mother.” 

The mother goddess making her home in the second face of Cancer is further shown in the Hellenistic text Liber Hermetis, as it pictured the body of a vulture with the face of the great goddess Isis wearing a crown. Furthermore, Demetra George’s translation of The Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius (a Greek language text ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, possibly around 50 CE) gave the image of “Woman, entire body winged as if flying, plaited wreath upon her head” to the second face of Cancer. These winged feminine images evoke the story of Isis searching for her dismembered lover and twin Osiris by transforming into a kite, a winged raptor that feeds on the dead like vultures. The relentless courage of Isis to locate and reanimate Osiris was necessary to give birth to their new storylines of Osiris becoming lord of the underworld and Isis becoming the mother of Horus. Within the darkness of the Cancer New Moon, feel into how whatever adversity you have endured since the previous set of eclipses in March and April have proven essential in shaping your personal growth and the new skills, talents and opportunities emerging for you to develop in the season ahead.  Whatever gardens you tend, may the flowers that grow from the dark soil of the New Moon bloom brightly.

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References

Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. (2021). Three Occult Books of Philosophy. Translated by Eric Purdue. Inner Traditions.

Coppock, Austin. (2014). 36 Faces: The History, Astrology and Magic of the Decans. Three Hands Press.

George, Demetra with Bloch, Douglas. (1986).  Asteroid Goddesses. ACS.

George, Demetra. (2021). Egyptian Decans: Star Gods of Time. Astrology University.