New Moon in Cancer: Alchemy

We are poised at the threshold of an eclipse season. It begins Thursday night, at 10:47 pm EDT, when the New Moon in Cancer arrives.

The New Moon is a partial solar eclipse. One we will not see, but is still there, marking the beginning of a period of added intensity. As if we needed any.

Eclipses come in groups, by their nature, as they happen when the Sun and Moon are close to the Nodes of the Moon.

Thursday night’s New Moon will be followed by the Full Moon and total lunar eclipse in Aquarius, and then by the New Moon in Leo, early in August, with another partial solar eclipse.

New Moons are thresholds, the opening of a new lunar cycle. In the dark of the Moon, we renew ourselves. We refocus our efforts and attention. We make wishes and set intentions for the time ahead.

When a New Moon is also an eclipse, our wishes and intentions take on extra energy. We’ll want to take special care in choosing what to focus on and what to ask for.

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Cancer is the Moon’s sign, a place where emotions are strong, tender, and vulnerable. In Cancer, we want to find safety in our family and tribe. We want to nurture and be nurtured. We are caring and also protective. To stay safe, we may hide our feelings. Nevertheless, emotions are strong.

This New Moon will activate the Grand Water Trine that has been floating in and out of focus in the sky for some weeks. This too increases the emotional depth and resonance of this time.

The Sun and Moon will be at 20 Cancer. Neptune is retrograde at 16 Pisces. Jupiter is at 13 Scorpio. He has just turned direct, which allows feelings to flow more easily and positively. At the same time, he is very intense, precisely because he is moving so slowly as he changes direction.

Already, then, we know this New Moon will raise questions about family, tribe, nurturing, and safety––all areas we see in the news, coming up in stories sure to trigger our emotions.

Who counts as family? Who do we need to protect? What is the danger? What are our responsibilities to provide care and safety to others? At what cost?

Perhaps recent stories have reminded us of our own vulnerability, of how easy it can be to lose someone dear to us. Perhaps we will set intentions to let those we love know how we feel. To be more open about our feelings, expanding our ability to give and receive love from others.

Perhaps we will set intentions to widen our circles of care. We can see the suffering of others, people different from us, and at this time, feel that suffering in deeper way than we have before.

We can choose to embrace those who we have left out in the past. Those who seemed too different, too threatening, but who we now see are people with the same dreams and needs and fears as we have.

This New Moon is exactly opposite Pluto, turning the Grand Water Trine into a kite pattern with the Lord of the Underworld at its apex.

We are in transformative territory here. Pluto has great weight, great force. He is the soul maker, the one who wants to create pure gold from the stuff of our lives. He is the alchemist and we are in his cauldron.

Alchemical transformations happen in stages. It feels to me like we are somewhere in the middle. We’ve passed the nigredo, the blackening, that chaotic first phase in which impurities are burned away.

We’ve also, I would suggest, passed the whitening, the albedo, in which that first round of impurities is washed away.

I don’t know how these last weeks have been for you, but I feel thoroughly drenched, floating in rather deep waters.

There are other forces at play here. Mars continues his retrograde journey in Aquarius and remains close to the South Node of the Moon. This aligns him with the eclipse.

One pervasive influence of Mars retrograde on the South Node is stuff coming up from the past. This stuff can be memories, feelings, patterns, places, or people. It’s been happening for me and most likely you as well.

The New Moon will intensify this. Pluto will push us to examine our relationship to the past and make any necessary changes. How do we know when change is needed? Well, if the stuff coming up is challenging, difficult, upsetting, or leaves us shaking our heads ruefully as we say, “Not this again,” something needs to shift.

We can do this work. Venus at 3 Virgo stands ready. She is flowing energy with Saturn at 3 Capricorn. These two together can do deep work.

Chiron the wounded healer at 2 Aries is challenging both Saturn and Venus, reminding them (and us) that this work might hurt but is meant to heal.

We are perhaps turning a corner, or at least swimming into a new channel. At this New Moon, we can hope for glimpses of where this is all going.

There is a stage in the alchemical process when bright colors appear on the surface of the vessel. This is called the cauda pavonis, the peacock’s tail, and is a sign things are happening. Transformation is underway.

If your way forward seems dark and unfocused, this can become another New Moon wish: To ask to see the peacock’s tail, to catch that glimpse of what is unfolding within us.

To switch metaphors here, we are caterpillars wrapped in our cocoons. It’s dark in here. In order to grow ourselves into the butterfly form we’re meant to have, we need to locate our imago cells. We need the vision, the idea, the germ from which our new forms can grow.

Once we catch that image, we have the blueprint we need to go forward.

These next weeks are likely to be challenging. I plan to ask, at this New Moon, for enough light, color, hope, desire, and energy to get a glimpse of whatever transformations are ahead of me.

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I use Unsplash for most photo illustrations. All astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title, adapted from the photo of lights by Carlos Irineu da Costa, the photo of the rainbow eye by Harry Quan, the butterfly by Ray Hennessy, and the drawing of the butterfly by Annie Spratt.