Full Moon in Cancer: Care

The Full Moon in Cancer, which always arrives around this time of year, offers images of comfort and home.

Think of holiday windows lit from within as you walk by. The warm glow shines out into the street, contrasting with the blue shadows of the darkening twilight. Perhaps you’re about to walk up to that house, that door, and be welcomed inside. Perhaps you feel the glow as a passer-by on the way to your own place.

Of course, comfort is not available to everyone. This could be the image of the Five of Pentacles in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck: Two ragged figures outside on a snowy night gazing up at golden light shining through the stained glass window of a church.

What kind of Full Moon is this?

One way to consider the nature of this one is to compare it with the previous one, which opened the year on January 10.

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That January Cancerian Full Moon sat across from a massive collection of planets in Capricorn. It coincided with an eclipse, Mercury conjunct the Sun, and Jupiter conjunct the South Node of the Moon.

I had then no idea what 2020 would bring. Rereading my essay now, though, I think I caught a sense of what was about to unfold.

I described that Full Moon as having “the feel of an intense psychological thriller with a fiendishly complex plot. Events unfold step by step with riveting intensity and still we have no clue how it will all work out.”

I wish I’d been wrong, but there you go. I’m glad I didn’t hold back from pointing out the challenges.

I ended with a call for each of us to consider our circles of care and widen them. I closed with Ram Dass’ quote that “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Now here we are at the end of 2020 under the light of another Full Moon in Cancer. We each have ideas about–and hopes for–comfort, home, and family, whether we can experience them right now or not.

This Full Moon faces only the Sun and Mercury in Capricorn. Pluto is also there, but too far away to be considered conjunct. Here we have a chance to revisit the Cancer–Capricorn axis without all the extra heaviness. How do we feel about these signs now? What have we learned about them?

Capricorn became the sign we love to hate. I’ve associated it myself with the outmoded structures we’ve seen imploding: late stage capitalism, toxic patriarchy, and a deadly drive to dominate the natural world no matter the cost.

Yet this is not the sign itself, merely the parts of our world and social structures it relates to. Capricorn rules structure whether healthy or otherwise. Capricorn holds to tradition whether it deserves to continue or cries out for change.

The Sun at 8 Capricorn is in its first decan, a place where the body is paramount. The earth, our human body, other physical bodies around us, all need to be fully inhabited and understood.

Some forms of spirituality seek to transcend the body, defining it as gross, unhallowed, a punishment or at least lesson for our spirit, something to be left behind as soon as possible. Yet one of the deepest lessons of this year is that the body, whether ours or the earth’s, cannot be ignored.

Trauma lives in the body. We cannot heal our selves or our societies without coming back fully into the physical and tending to healing there.

The Moon at 8 Cancer is also in its first decan, which in this sign speaks to the bonds between mother and child. The physical bond transmutes at birth into a more complex exchange of nourishment and support–or the lack of these necessary things.

Perhaps now we can see a different kind of interplay between these two signs in which one highlights emotional needs and vulnerabilities and the other seeks the solid structures that satisfy them.

We think of these two as mother and father, as the home and work, nurturance and authority. But they are both yin, traditionally feminine signs. Water and earth. What needs to shift in our perceptions and understandings that will allow us to take this in?

Mercury at 14 Capricorn is still under the beams of the Sun but close to emerging. This Mercury is great at planning, thinking methodically of ways to get things done. This is a mental energy we’ll have need of as we move into the coming year. So much has come undone. Methodical, well-laid plans are called for.

Uranus at 6 Taurus trines the Sun and sextiles the Moon. This first decan of Taurus speaks to the need to prepare the earth for planting. This is a place of nurturing, tending, farming.

Yet this is Uranus, the trickster revolutionary. There is a Promethean energy here, a willingness to do what is forbidden if it makes things better.

Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus to save humanity from the wrath of Zeus. He was wiling to throw over tradition and authority for what he believed to be a greater good. This is exactly the kind of energy we need.

The trine and sextile are supportive aspects, yet the presence of Uranus is always a challenge. We’re entering a chaotic time. We might be tempted to blame Uranus for this. Instead, I prefer to welcome any and all help in forging new ways to solve old problems, even if it means turning things upside down.

Next, Sun and Moon form separating squares to Chiron, the wounded healer. In the midst of this year of challenges, have we healed anything across the Cancer–Capricorn axis? Have we been able to integrate and understand? The Full Moon will illuminate this too.

Clearly, this Full Moon is kinder that the one back in January.

No more intense psychological thriller, Now we’re in a trilogy. We’ve reached the end of the second book, the one in which we’ve barely made it through incredible challenges. We’re bone-tired. We’re probably also lost. But there’s a glimmer of light along the horizon that feels promising.

The Great Conjunction between Saturn in Jupiter still echoes. We remember the Christmas Star.

We’ve crossed a threshold into a new Air epoch and still feel in a liminal, in-between space. Looking back over our shoulder, worn down by all we’ve been through, we’re ready to cocoon. Yet we cannot completely separate from the world, nor do we want to.

Perhaps the most important illumination of this Full Moon will be to highlight how our ideas–and ideals– of home and family have changed this past year.

I hope your family, however you define, is well and strong. I hope we have all extended our hearts and hands to include more of us. I hope we won’t forget what we’ve been through. I hope we see big changes in the year to come.

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The astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from the sunset scene by Jude Beck,
and the following images:
BLM protest by Emmanuel gido,
girl watering tree by Pedro Kümmel, and
nurse in covid ward by Alberto Giuliani