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.
June 27 - July 21, 2021
When Venus enters Leo, her celestial path becomes the catwalk. We gather to watch her, rising every night in her evening stardom, on her throne in the western sky. On earth, she is feline of face and dignified in deportment. She prowls and purrs, equal parts affectionate and aloof. Beneath her honeyed coyness is a desire to be adored—but only on her terms. She is attracted to the flame and the flame is attracted to her, and we are pulled toward them both. Her time in the spotlight is energizing for all of us in some way: as she moves though the fire sign, she brings with her a strong dose of warmth, harmony and vibrancy to the Leo-ruled parts of our charts. We also find we have an eye for the performance, or the performative, and a concern with persona and role.
Bear in mind, however, that Leo, like its fellow fixed signs, is supercharged territory this year. Our beautiful benefic will be traveling with Mars for much of the month, adding a flair (and a flare) for the dramatic and a volatility to our expression. She will also find herself caught in the ongoing Saturn-Uranus square, activating our own individual experience of the collective outer planet transit. As heroes in our own narratives, it will be a good opportunity to look at our personal avatars and archetypes of the Masculine and the Feminine, and of the wild and the tame, and how they inform our character. For now, anyway, the play’s the thing: allow space for creativity and indulge your inner child. Under Venus’s influence, we are all actors and players: all the world’s a stage, and life is a cabaret.
June 24, 2021 // 3 Capricorn
Our first lunation after eclipse season has us navigating the straits between Cancer and Capricorn; an active, fertile place with rocky crags and promontories, caves and lagoons; on one side it is high and dry, and on the other, hot and humid. The Moon in Capricorn has wandered far from home, but she has her bearings, and plenty of backbone. She is in a feminine earth sign, ruled by Saturn in Aquarius, buoyed by Jupiter in Pisces, and conjunct Artemis, the maiden huntress. While she is here, she will feed herself from the garden of earthly delights and survey the wilderness of Capricorn’s cold mountain, before moving on.
Our Horned Moon has the feel of a prehistoric reindeer deity, goddess of migratory paths, who leads her herd to food and water. To the Celts she was Elen of the Ways, guardian of roads and routes, who shined her lamp for the journeyer.
In the Sea Goat’s sign, she is both lighthouse keeper and lighthouse itself, a guiding light and symbol of safety amidst the unknown, but also a solitary, stolid and impartial figure, used to endurance and perseverance.
The influence of Pisces and Aquarius adds to the romance and remoteness of our lunar heroine, and in another aspect she might recall Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, enclosed in her tower, watching the world go by in the reflection of her mirror. She weaves the images she sees on her loom, day in and day out, until one day she is “half sick of shadows,” and blows that popsicle stand. To break the spell, and choose her own life, and even her own end.
This Full Moon is a wayfaring Moon; a Moon of cardinal points and agency, concerned with finding our way home, whether that means going backward or forward, inward or outward. It is about finding our place in the world, and how we go about constructing a life; it is about following in the footsteps of others, while making a way for ourselves. Saturn and Jupiter have us playing with boundaries, and seeing how far we want to go: which way lies freedom and which way lies jeopardy. The Sun and the Moon together are teaching us how to build, to manifest, and to bring forth our creations into the world; and guiding us toward settlement and self-reliance.
