Mervyn O’Gorman “Christina in Red”

July 9, 2021 // 18 Cancer

Any New Moon is an opportunity to pause and sit at the crossroads, to explore the liminal and the ephemeral, the parts that are in transition. That space is sometimes turbulent, sometimes calm.

For this lunation, the cardinal water of Cancer brings us to the shore, where the land meets the sea, and we sink our feet into the mud of two worlds in confluence, feeling the push-pull of the surf in flux. Our Moon dances on the edges of dreaming and waking, on the still point between consciousness and oblivion. It shows us the present as the node connecting past and future. Pregnancy as the intersection of mother and child. Nostalgia as the intersection of happy and sad. It shows us the current version of ourselves, that grows from previous versions, and that is the seed of a version yet to be realized.

How many times have you died and been reborn? As we go through life, are we shedding skin and outgrowing shells, or are we accumulating layers, nested within our selves like matryoshka dolls or the rings of a tree?

During this New Moon, we might meditate on the cosmic egg, on waves and tides, on the years, on home, and on our innermost selves. What is the history of you? Where did you come from? I think of the quote by Chuck Palahniuk: “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” Do you agree? Is there such thing as a beginning without an end of something else?

The celestial clock goes around, we spin along the helix of eternity, and ride the carousel of life. And as long as there is a Moon overhead, and within, we remain bound to the Earth, to the body, and to each other for the duration. Every month the Moon comes home to Cancer, and every year it joins the Sun in that reflective, protean place, to remind us that we stand on the shoulders of many, and for this reason, we’ll never walk alone.