A Deep Dive: New Moon in Cancer

We’ll be doing a deep dive into our emotions this month.

Emotions usually rise unbidden, often driving the actions we take before our reasoning minds can catch up. Some people act out, others stuff their feelings like clothes in a suitcase and zip it up. Most of us do both at one time or another. Neither approach is particularly helpful, but emotions are so big, so important, such a major part of the human psyche that we need to do something with them when they arise.

It takes a certain amount of self-awareness to break free of our conditioned responses and learn to work with our emotions instead of being ruled by them. But sooner or later we realize that acting out can destroy relationships, and emotions never stay quietly in the suitcase. So we go looking for another way.

As any Method actor or trained magical practitioner can tell you, we can learn to recreate, re-experience, and—to some degree—control our emotional experiences. This New Moon in Cancer helps us learn how to encounter our emotions as they arise, accept their power, and direct the energy in ways that expand our consciousness and improve our lives and our relationships.

I’ll elaborate on that below, but first, some astro-jargon. If you’re not interested in the technical stuff, skip over the italics.

(Astrologers: Cast the chart for June 25^th, 6:32 a.m. EDT, Washington, DC

Jupiter at 3° Cancer is in a tight conjunction with the New Moon (NM) at 4°. But don’t start throwing glitter and expecting miracles from this aspect until you’ve looked a little closer.

All three planets are in a tight sextile to Mars at 4° Virgo, and form a Yod aspect with Pluto at the apex. And there’s another Yod — Pluto sextile the Saturn-Neptune conjunction, with Mars at the apex.

The NM is semi-square Venus, and square the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries.

So save your biodegradable glitter for ICE, and consider what it means to have Mars, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto all closely tied into the NM.

(BTW, I don’t think the glitter bombing has actually happened, but it’s a lovely idea.)

Mercury is currently being helpful in a trine with Saturn-Neptune and sextile Uranus, but is also approaching an opposition to Pluto. The opposition reaches partile on June 29^th. Watch for some serious complications in tech, transportation, communication networks, and trade.

Venus and Uranus reach partile conjunction at the anaretic degree of Taurus on July 4^th, just before Venus slides into Gemini. The fireworks are unlikely to be the only excitement of the day, and some surprising, possibly shocking news from the financial and/or agricultural sectors around this time is likely. Celebrations might get out of hand with resulting scandals.

Pluto is still hanging out in the early degrees of Aquarius sextiling Saturn-Neptune and trining Uranus. The trine becomes sign-based as Uranus enters Gemini on July 7th.)

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." ~ Maya Angelou

The Cancer New Moon always plays on our emotions, but this year it’s juiced up by Jupiter, so emotions become even more important and powerful than usual. Relationships take center stage, and folks will be looking for both emotional and physical safety.

This New Moon supports exploring our emotional realities so we can work with our feelings instead of being driven by them. Our emotional states affect and are affected by our interactions with others, so it’s also a good time to assess the health of our close relationships. How do the people in your life make you feel? Do you know how you make them feel? What needs to change to improve your relationships? Or do you need to let some of them go? (Hint: the only person you can actually change is you.)

How are your emotions affecting your mental health? Are you moody? Easily triggered? Do you repress emotions like anger and then feel stressed and unhappy because you have no way to release them? Are you constantly anxious about the future? When was the last time you felt joy?

Learning to steer our emotions instead of letting them drive us is a long-term process that requires some deep inner work. The first step is acknowledging that the work is necessary and making a plan to do it. This month is a fine time to start by assessing your default emotional states and deciding what you want to change.

Ways to make those changes may involve reading, talking with a supportive friend, meditating, journaling, and/or finding a good therapist. Figure out what options will work best for you and make it happen. Perhaps you’re already involved in this work. If so, this would be a good time to evaluate how it’s going.

This month will also bring us in contact with people who are having emotional difficulties and either fully acting out/breaking down, or simmering with repressed emotions that leak out in unpleasant ways. (One of those people might even be you.) Instead of just reacting to the drama, see if you can shift the emotional dynamic by speaking and acting with compassion and empathy. (Be sure to do that for yourself as well.)

Giving someone a safe and non-judgmental space to work through what they are feeling is a gift. If you can, give generously.

However, having compassion and empathy for someone does not mean that you have to take what they are dishing out. Boundaries are also necessary for emotional and mental health. We need to be clear on what our boundaries are, and be able to express them clearly to others. We also need to act decisively if those boundaries are deliberately ignored or breached.

Take a deep dive into your emotions this month. Get to know them. Accept them. Feel the power they hold. They hold that power because they are sourced in soul and spirit, not in your physical brain. Our brains are receivers and transmitters of a larger Consciousness. It can manipulate our thoughts and emotions in line with our will, but it is not the source. If you work to expand your emotional awareness and perceptions into the realm of soul and spirit, your life can take some remarkable turns.

That work is not always easy. Painful emotions can bubble up as you expand your awareness. If you need to, go ahead and stuff those painful feelings you can’t deal with right now and sit on them until you know what to do and you’re ready to face them. Then turn your focus to something else. Don’t be reluctant to ask for help, not only from other humans, but also from any deities or spirit guides that you are in contact with. (And if you aren’t in contact with any, you might want to change that.)

And before I get into the national stuff, a reminder that I’m teaching a Zoom class on Friday the 27th about the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune. It’s arguably the most powerful aspect of the year, and it will be in effect from now through April of next year. The class will focus on what we might expect, and how best to navigate these rapidly changing times. It will be recorded. More info here:

Real or Ideal: Managing the Saturn-Neptune Conjunction

Now onto what I expect for the USA…

On the National Stage

Maybe it’s my 3 natal planets in Aries or Uranus in Cancer, but my interpretation of this New Moon is far less sanguine than many others I’ve read. The New Moon chart cast for Washington, D.C., and especially in a bi-wheel with the USA natal chart (Sibly), reeks of political and internal conflict.

Don’t be fooled by the sextiles and trines. Yes, they are generally benefic aspects, but especially in mundane interpretation, we need to ask “benefic to whom?”. There are easy flows of energy, but in which directions?

That Jupiter/NM sextile to Mars, for instance, forms a Yod with Pluto. Connections between Jupiter and Mars often indicate fighting for religious/philosophical beliefs, and the Jupiter-Saturn square contains a conflict between safety/preserving traditions, and pioneering new ways of governance. The Jupiter-Neptune square suggests conflict between the letter of the law and cosmic justice. Jupiter’s travels through Cancer this year will magnify the foundational principles of the country, as well as the underlying weaknesses. What we the people do with that information will determine if our democracy will survive in any recognizable form. (Note: I’m pretty sure it will.)

We also see the transiting lunar nodes square natal Mars in 7^th of opponents, and Saturn and Neptune opposing the Sibly Midheaven, conjuncting the Imum Coeli. The IC represents the people of a country, the MC the leader. In the USA’s case, this is, of course, the President. Given that this aspect will be hanging around until early next year, I’m seeing social upheaval and opposition to the President, which may, long term, require a complete restructuring of the government.

Overall, I believe that our country is going through a death and rebirth of what, for all its faults, was one of the most inspired and visionary governmental structures the world has ever seen.

The vision — still far from fully realized — is one of freedom and justice for all. Sagittarius rising in the country’s birth chart suggests the vision will survive the phoenix-like death and rebirth that the current astrology suggests, and the Jupiter return happening this month will nurture the hopes and dreams of the founders.

The death throes of its current incarnation will, hopefully, burn away whatever has corrupted the vision and allow a rebirth of an America free of the taints of slavery, misogyny, racism, authoritarianism, and the psychology of colonialism that has kept us from manifesting a truly free and just society.

The long-term astrology supports this outcome.

May it be so.