The First Quarter Moon is a time for doing stuff, learning how to reach our goals. At first glance, this Moon in Cancer is more about being than doing.
In the center of Cancer, this Moon sits in a walled garden Austin Coppock has created for her, a place of seclusion and safety. Here we’re invited to unfold as roses do, trellised against the soft stone of the walls, in the warmth of spring.
Yet all is not as it seems. The square to the Sun in Aries brings power and strength into this carefully curated garden. This Sun is only a few degrees from his degree of exaltation, where the Sun has maximum impact.
Is this Sun squared up to protect the tender plants and gentle folk within the garden? Or does he represent a threat to its safety?
Mars, who has not yet completed the review phase of his long retrograde, sits in the third decan of Cancer. Not Mars’ happy place. He wants what he cannot have, or faces demands from others he cannot fulfill.
This Mars sits in a sensitive place in my chart, so I wish he’s just move, already–but I won’t be free of his bad moods for another week and a half, ish. (And if this Cancerian Mars affects your chart, you’ll likely know what I mean.)
But this Mars is connected up in some intriguing ways.
At 24º Cancer, Mars trines the Venus–Saturn conjunction at 24º and 25º Pisces. The longings of Mars might be cosmic and confused. Or possibly, Venus and Saturn might be carrot and stick, as Venus creates lovely, compelling visions and Saturn won’t let Mars get close.
If that’s not enough, Uranus at 24º Taurus sextiles both sides. With Uranus “helping,” all things could be true at once: desire, frustration, and tantalizing visions of futures that are wonderful, terrible, or both.
This might make all of us want to climb under the covers and not come out. Yet the First Quarter calls us to some kind of action. What are we meant to do?
It’s time to leave the garden. Which doesn’t mean we’re unprotected.
Austin Coppock (in his book 36 Faces) notes that this middle decan of Cancer is also associated with the great goddesses who give birth to, and protect, all of life.
Life calls us out.
In Cancer and Pisces, our walled garden may look more like a safe harbor. Outside the sheltered bay, the waters are rough, the weather stormy.
Still, it’s time to venture out.
Horace exhorted us to “carpe diem,” seize the day.
John A. Shedd, a collector of sayings, included this: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”
And Jane Austen, through her character Mrs. Croft, who loved going to sea with her husband the Admiral, said: ”We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.”
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