7:28 pm PST, 12/29/20

3:28 am UTC 12/30/20

Full Moon in Cancer

This Full Moon in the deeply feeling sign of Cancer contains powerful messages which have to do with paying attention to our emotional needs as we turn toward the light, just having passed winter Solstice here in the northern hemisphere. If our needs are to let our feelings flow, then this full moon can guide us into places we need to go in order to feel our hearts and release whatever comes up for us.

The recent powerful Jupiter/Saturn conjunction has made what is usually a powerful turning point (Solstice) into a monumental event, one which we will not see again in our lifetimes. (See previous blog).  This chart contains important seed messages for the coming year.

This Full Moon forms a trine to Neptune and sextile to Uranus, the ruling planet of Aquarius. Since both Jupiter and Saturn have just entered the sign of Aquarius, this highlights the important issues that are flowing into our consciousness at this time. Jupiter rules the ways in which we view the world on a large scale. It speaks to our philosophies, our world view, and our spiritual approach to life, which is our intuition and our inner GPS. Now in Aquarius, we are more moved to think of the larger picture, rather than Jupiter in Capricorn’s influence, which (with Pluto also nearby this past year) was more about seeing the darker side of how competition and power grabs can ruin a nation, as well as our relationships. With these two major planets in Aquarius, we now enter a period of reform, and a time to focus upon the restoration of the natural world, with an emphasis upon recovering our basic human values.

Uranus’s presence in this Full Moon configuration brings a strong element of divine intuition coming through our awareness, as if we feel a Presence around us that can inform us, guide us during these dark times.  The Cancer Moon acts as a kind of antidote to the strong Capricornian emphasis we’ve felt all through 2020. And since Saturn was the old ruler of Aquarius before Uranus was discovered, its presence in this sign now will more  strongly focus upon ridding ourselves of old outmoded authoritarian laws and rules of our world and in our personal lives as well. Aquarius emphasizes personal freedom and the questioning of authority, as well as the forming of close-knit groups on a community by community basis.

All of this emphasis upon freedom and new ways of organizing ourselves means also that we may discover that the old systems we’ve set up to organize ourselves are so entrenched that they will not really help us to formulate new systems. We may see the breakup of existing structures, only to re-form and regroup in more functional and less “top-down” ways. The recent presidential victory in the US, though a relief to many of us, may not be the answer in the long term to our global dilemma.

Saturn and Uranus are now in a square aspect of 90˚, as they will be throughout this year and into 2022. This denotes a long term pressure between the energy of Saturn (our laws and structures) in the revolutionizing sign of Aquarius, and Uranus in Taurus, which urges us to change the ways we inhabit the Earth and utilize her resources. The overarching energy of this square is one to teach us (Saturn) to RESPECT the planet we live upon and all the beings on it.

Of course, part of changing our ways is to understand our wounds, and the need to heal them. Chiron, the archetype of the wounded healer, is in square aspect to this Full Moon, and continues to remind us that although 2020 was a year of sorrow and loss for many, as well as treachery at the governmental levels, we are left with putting the pieces of our lives back together again, in new ways that include our suffering as an important part of what informs us, makes up our life’s tapestry, and gives us important information as to how to proceed.

We are most certainly not out of the darkness yet. The pandemic still rages onward, and graft and corruption are not limited to the present outgoing regimes. But Jupiter and Saturn newly emerging into Aquarius make me think of the image of The Hermit in the tarot, the brave one who holds up the guiding light for others to see the way toward truth, despite the cold ravages of our wintry time. Use the energies of this Cancer Full Moon to also nurture others who come our way, as we bring light into their hearts, and in so doing, into our own hearts as well.