We feel blessed with nurturing love when the Sun moves into Cancer at the summer solstice.
June 21 — The Sun Enters the Womb of Cancer
3:07 AM PDT (10:07 GMT)
The Cancer archetype is about the many aspects of mothering and home:
(1) Our physical house and the components that make it feel like a home, including shelter, our mother and the women who take care of us, family, and security.
(2) Our mother’s womb — our first home, which offers us the ultimate experiences in physical reality of safety, security, nurturing, and coziness.
(3) Our inner sense of home, which we experience in our physical body and the sensations and feelings that curse though it via our emotional body (which is intricately intertwined in our physical body).
(4) Our planetary home Mother Earth and all her resources that feed us and give us life.
(5) The Divine Mother Goddess from whom all the above flow with infinite abundance.
June 27-28 — Capricorn Full Moon
9:52 PM PDT (4:52 GMT)
Each Full Moon highlights the dance of polarities. Optimally we learn how to use their respective and complementary powers in supportive and enlivening ways. The Cancer/Capricorn polarity pair is about inner empowerment and self-mastery in the world. Capricorn
represents the physical body and the maturity that we aspire to as we build our sense of soul self by connecting with the inner dynamics of our emotions and consciousness. It is in our physical body that we gain a sense of containment and rootedness for our soul in physical reality.
Full Moons can be defining moments because they illuminate the hidden dynamics that drive our lives and clarify what action we need to take. We can choose to continue on our current path (with possible modifications) or we can use the opportunity to change course. Highlighting truth and consequences, and completions and beginnings, this Capricorn Full Moon may mark a turning point in how we direct the compass of our lives.
Full Moon Conjunct Saturn Retrograde
The fact that the Capricorn Full Moon conjuncts Saturn Retrograde in Capricorn adds a sobering emotional tone. It is time to seriously evaluate who we are in the world and what we are doing with our energy and our life. We feel obliged to define our priorities so that our life path is in alignment with our most cherished values and goals.
As the third and last Earth sign, Capricorn brings into form the results of what we have been creating at an unconscious level, i.e. we see with our own eyes the power of hidden agendas and emotional programs that command our psyche, our actions, and thus what we create (or don’t create). The stark reality of what confronts us wakes us up to the basic Saturn truth that our inner life creates our outer life. The seeds we sow with our mind, emotions, and energy bodies are the primal source of how we manifest. At this Full Moon we can not only witness the law of cause and effect, but we can choose to shift how we use our energy so that we can direct our life in a more productive fashion and beneficial direction.
We must avoid the Capricorn and Saturn tendencies to get depressed and negative. Instead we can access our inner power to release the past and create a new future. The Saturn key is taking responsibility. We have to avoid blame, denial, and procrastination. The former can appear to be the ‘easy’ way out, but under the Saturn influence, they come with the heaviness of a weight on our back and mud in the mind, i.e. they just don’t work and we feel it.
The Mountain Goat (with a fish tail) asks us to step up and take charge of our lives. This includes assessing where we have taken on too much responsibility for others. We need to identify where we need to (1) set more reasonable boundaries, (2) divest our energy, (3) say ‘no’ when we feel burdened, and (4) take time out to be with ourselves when we feel overwhelmed.
We are also called upon to upgrade our emotional maturity. This means being able to disengage from drama, stepping back when we get triggered, and developing ‘self caring’ strategies to be with ourselves, calm ourselves down, and nurture ourselves. Being more present to our own feelings and reactions and feeling centered and secure in our physical body makes the above possible.
Chiron Squares Sun, Moon, and Saturn
At the Full Moon, Chiron in Aries challenges the Sun, Moon, and Saturn with a confrontational square. Negative emotions on topics like the lack of self-confidence, powerlessness, and repressed anger related to choosing to please others instead of taking care of ourselves may arise. Healing requires being honest and kind with ourselves (and others). Aggressive assertiveness fed by inner pain only projects our woundedness on others.
Retrograde Saturn (April 17 – September 6 from 17 degrees Capricorn back through 3 degrees Capricorn) gives us time to examine and reorient our inner emotional reality so that we can release ourselves from old patterns and align ourselves with inner peace, loving kindness, and stable clarity. We achieve this elevated state of heart/mind by going inward, slowing down, and listening to the voice of our soul. (See Pranic Meditation in next Blog)
BTW, any interaction with Saturn, especially Saturn retrograde, with your natal planets can make you feel heavy, tired, and possibly depressed. Locate any planets and the houses they occupy in 17-3 degrees Capricorn to identify how and where you might be affected.
July 12-13 — Cancer Solar Eclipse
Eclipses are extra potent full and new moons that accelerate change and transformation. They often serve as catalysts for major endings and new beginnings. Generally eclipses happen in pairs and occur every six months, two weeks apart. This year we have three eclipses in a row — the Cancer New Moon Solar Eclipse, Aquarius Full Moon Lunar Eclipse (July 27), and Leo New Moon Solar Eclipse (August 11). (The last two will be discussed in the next Leo Blog.) This period will be filled with emotional intensity and a general atmosphere of internal and external anxiety, stress, and even upheavals.
Earth Grand Trine Invites Feeling Sensitivity
At the Cancer New Moon Solar Eclipse there is a grand trine in the earth signs — Uranus and Juno in Taurus, Venus and Ceres in Virgo, and Saturn in Capricorn. The Earth element furnishes the energy to connect with our bodies and with our home Earth Mother.
The Cancer archetype embodies the emotions and their fluid expressions, which we connect with through feeling sensitivity. Although we talk a lot about our emotions, if we want to have a relationship with them and communicate with them we have to use their feeling language to enter their domain. When we fail to feel deeply into their watery realm, they remain hidden in our subconscious, control our inner reality, and subject us to a mysterious web of ever-changing moods and inexplicable reactions.
Opposition with Pluto Intensifies the Eclipse
This eclipse is intensified by an exact opposition of Pluto in Capricorn at 20 degrees to the Sun and Moon also at 20 degrees Capricorn. Ruler of the underworld and subconscious, Pluto will expose distortions and dysfunctions related to both Cancer and Capricorn topics and emotional patterns. Stay tuned to feelings related to family and relationship dynamics that involve (1) inappropriate or excessive care-taking and enabling, (2) resistance to nurturing and kindness, (3) over-sensitivity to others’ actions and words, (4) over-personalizing what is not your business or concern, (5) escaping or retreating to avoid dealing with the world, and (6) whatever comes up for you.
Water Trine Allows Change
The Cancer eclipse forms a water trine with Jupiter in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces. Trines are supportive and allow change. Cancer is an active cardinal sign, which adds initiative and the drive to take charge to the more reserved Scorpio fixed sign and mutable go-with-the-flow Pisces. One thing that we need to take charge of is our imagination. And we need to engage the power of our mind and emotions to support practical creative action. Create a functional vision and take steps to mobilize resources to bring it into manifestation.
Eclipses bring us into unfamiliar territory where we find ourselves outside our comfort zone. Because this territory is inside us and simply hiding in our unconscious and subconscious, it is both essential and empowering to let aspects of our inner truth be revealed to us. Listen to your intuition and feel your energy to access information and messages about recurrent themes and issues.
A good thing about eclipses, especially combined with other planetary interactions like this one with dynamic oppositions, squares, and trines, is that there is plenty of energy available to facilitate change. Sometimes after a series of eclipses, we notice that we have somehow transformed and marvel at the help we get from universal energies. Yogi Bhajan used to tell us, “The Universe is set up for us to win.”
Yogi Bhajan Quote on Trust
“Trust only comes when you trust yourself. When you trust your dignity, you will always be dignified. When you trust your love, you will always be lovable. When you trust your beauty, you will always be beautiful. When you trust your greatness, you will always be great.” — Yogi Bhajan
References
Trinkaus, Emily, Capricorn Full Moon – June 27-28, The Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2018, p. 93.
Trinkaus, Emily, Cancer Solar Eclipse – July 12-13, The Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2018, p. 97.
In a few days we will be sending out a Blog explaining how to process the eclipse energies and a pranic meditation to practice.
