Run your fingers like a prayer
over every bit of the world,
saying quietly with each breath,
Thank you for the chance to love.
Flying Edna
The New Moon on July 17, 2023, at 24 Cancer brings us home to our feelings and the desire to take initiative to feel better nurtured and emotionally secure.
The New Moon accentuates our sensitivity and empathy. There can be an impulse to reinforce or fall back on patterns of how we have traditionally met our safety and security needs. Instead, we are to break new ground in our ability to love and nurture ourselves and what matters most to us.
This is not a typical Cancer New Moon as it forms a cardinal cross with Pluto and the Nodal Axis. We feel the pressure to take self-care up a notch, to give ourselves the love that we may have never received. It is less about looking for ways the world or others can change to meet our needs, but how to parent ourselves in a way that has us feel safe and cherished. Over the next two weeks, we are to re-evaluate our priorities to tend to our personal well-being and make decisions that validate and address our most fundamental needs.
The water of Cancer is like the ocean. In current times, as the waters of our collective way of living are turbulent and troubled, we can find ways to still the waters that lie within. We may come up against feelings of unworthiness. It is up to each of us to rediscover and claim our worth and knowing that we are deserving of love, connection, success...
Cardinal Grand Cross: The Moon, Pluto and the Lunar Nodes
Nodal Axis shift to Libra/Aries
New Moon trine Neptune and sextile Uranus
Jupiter square Mercury
Venus Retrograde in Leo (July 22 – September 3)
Venus at apex of yod with Pluto and Neptune
Venus square Uranus and conjunct Regulus
We are invited to set an intention to better honor our feelings and to let them guide us in navigating the sea of change that July and recent years are bringing. On the New Moon, The Nodes of Fate move into Libra and Aries where they point to our future collective growth for the next 18 months. Venus has slowed down and is readying for her retrograde, July 22 to September 3. With the South Node in Libra, ruled by Venus, the remainder of the summer will give focus to the health of our relationships and how to disentangle ourselves from codependent behaviors or patterns that disempower and make us small. The Cancer New Moon shows us that if we first give attention to the care of inner well-being, this will open a pathway to engaging changes we wish to make in our relationships with others and the world.
Forgive those
who didn’t know how
to love you.
They were teaching you
how to love yourself.
Ryan Elliott
The New Moon Ruler is: the Moon. There can be intense feelings or an experience of stress at the New Moon. We may feel at a breaking point…and we are. We are ready to break through into a new level of self-love. We can make room for our feelings rather than distracting ourselves with some form of entertainment, or numbing ourselves with some substance, or just pushing the feelings down to complete or checklist of tasks we set for ourselves. We need time to breath, to feel, to listen to what our feelings are telling us.
We don't need to do this alone. We can look to building or reaching out to our network of support. It can be a friend, a community group, a therapist, or in some collaboratory effort. We need to access the courage to take a leap to meet our needs in a new and exciting way. The New Moon invitation is supported by:
New Moon trine Neptune. We can more clearly listen to and hear the small still voice within us than can all-too-often be drowned out by the activity and needs of the day. We can more readily experience ourselves as the spiritual being that incarnated for a human experience and connect in with why we are really here and what we want to experience in the course of this life. Neptune’s presence helps us to trust the dream of our life and what our feelings are communicating.
New Moon sextile Uranus. We are ready for something new, recognizing where our feeling nature has been stifled in some way. We are primed to break out of an old pattern and free ourselves up so that our feeling nature can breathe and be expressed in life.
Jupiter square Mercury. We are more apt to perceive the bigger picture and entertain expansive ideas and distant horizons.
Nothing outside you
is ever more powerful
than the love that lives
within you.
Ann Albers
Time to Initiate a Change
The New Moon in Cardinal Cross with Pluto and the Nodal Axis
Whoosh! This is a powerfully dynamic New Moon as it forms a Cardinal Grand Cross.
For the last several months Pluto (Transformation) has been squaring the Nodal Axis (Past vs Future) to catalyze dramatic shifts in how we approach life. Pluto recently moved back into the last sign of Capricorn and the Nodes shift to the last sign of Aries/Libra on the day of the New Moon! The last degree of a sign is especially potent and can be driven to express the energy of that sign in a dynamic way.
Now enter the Moon into this dynamic and voila we have a Cardinal Grand Cross, with each of these planetary points in a hard aspect with each other. There is an inherent challenge and opportunity that this affords us:
First: our feeling nature is activated and as a sea of change whirls around us, it suddenly feels more personal and less distant from our life. We look to our own safety and how to stabilize our feeling nature and take decisive action to feel secure in ourselves and our life.
Second: Locate where 24 degrees Cancer falls in your chart. This will indicate where a big action step is needed to be taken to move us towards greater emotional wellbeing in relation to circumstances beyond our control that have been steadily dismantling cultural norms in preparation for a new way of living to emerge.
Third: Pluto opposing the Cancer Sun and Moon Pushes us to Mature. We are being shown in some clear and unmistakable way what is no longer acceptable in our behavior or in the way we engage ourselves and what we love. There may be an emotional purging, where feelings are released in relation to something we have been stubbornly holding onto, not able to let go. It may be some negative attachment that has been with us since childhood. We can forgive our parents or elders for not loving us the way we needed in some instance or in some overall way, so we are free to take full ownership of our life. Or perhaps there is a childhood fantasy about how we thought life was supposed to be that we can release so we can move more effectively with how the world actually works and our role we are to play within it. We are ready to be the parent of our life and not give that power away to some other who is insufficient for the task.
Fourth: Recognize how we have Emotionally Matured since 2009. This is the last time the Sun will be in opposition to Pluto in Capricorn, which it has done annually for the last fifteen years. We have been afforded the opportunity to evolve in how we understand personal nurturance, safety and security. By acknowledging how we have grown, we can more easily release emotional attachments we have outgrown that don’t serve us, and courageously reach for what will better support us. We can recognize that we are the ones we have been waiting for, and let go of the dream that something or someone will magically appear to give us what we need. (It doesn’t mean that grace and miracles will not happen in our lives, but if we just wait for them rather than look to how we can begin to meet that need within ourselves, we might just be left waiting).
Fifth: The Moon’s Nodes square the Sun and Moon makes the Needed Change feel Very Personal. The Moon’s Nodes shift signs every 18 months. On the day of the New Moon they begin a new journey as they shift from Scorpio/Taurus to Libra/Aries. The South Node (Libra) shows us the past that we are ready to integrate and move beyond as we reach towards the potentials and opportunities of the North Node (Aries).
In a nutshell, the last 18 months, we were releasing complexity and drama in our lives (South Node in Scorpio) so that we can live more simply, sustainably, contentedly (North Node in Taurus). The next 18 months we will be identifying where we are caught in webs of codependence, domination/submission, or making peace to avoid conflict. We will look to disentangle ourselves from relationship dynamics that keep us small, or even straightjacketed. We do this so that we can move towards the invitation of the Aries North Node: to feel confident about taking initiative, acting with greater independence, and able to face unpleasant issues or situations head on.
We are to use our Libran skills of diplomacy and consideration of others as we address what needs to be addressed without backing down or compromising. Silencing ourselves to keep the peace is going to have less and less payoff moving forward. By downplaying our need to please others, we reach for a more satisfying resolution that bolsters self-reliance and diminishes a need for compliance.
The Cancer Moon square the Nodes requires that we stay connected to ourselves, to what feels good, and to acknowledge what we truly need that is missing. To move well in our relationships, to not shy away from conflict to initiate bold action, we begin by enhancing our capacity to move with sensitivity to feeling nature and fundamental needs. At the New Moon, there can be a feeling of crisis around how to do both, to be bold and yet sensitive. The building pressure around how to achieve this will lead to a breakthrough in self-love that catalyzes our courageous independent spirit that is ready to step up to the plate and meet life head on.
Finally: Becoming less Motivated by Fear and more by Love. We need to slow ourselves down so we can be aware of motivations, patterns and kneejerk responses to a situation. We are on a journey to take full authority, authorship of our life. When we fall back into old patterns of blaming, feeling the victim, or feeling powerless, we feed some fear around our ability to create our own life. We have been preparing to operate differently throughout the last decade. We are to responsibility for what we have created to date as a way to step towards what we want to create from here. In the coming weeks, our priorities will be rearranged to support an emerging and new way of relating to ourselves and how we engage the world.
Create the space to listen and validate what our feelings are telling us. Listen to what draws us forward or in a new direction. We are to turn our gaze inward at this time to prepare for boldly venturing taking a giant step in some new direction in our relationships and in the world.
If you knew the secret of life,
you too would choose
no other companion
but love.
Rumi
Joy: An Expression of Love
Venus takes Stage, prodding a re-evaluation of habitual patterns that limit joy
Venus represents what we Value. This includes money and possessions, but it is much more than that. It is self-value and the values that form us the foundation for the shape of our relationships, careers and pursuits. Ultimately, through enacting our values we experience satisfaction and pleasure.
In Leo, Venus wants to feel joy, unbridled and unrestricted. We want to feel our creative, joyful, and spontaneity - reminiscent perhaps of how we experienced day to day living as a young child, as we followed our desires one moment to the next. However, we are more apt to experience and be contemplating what restrains our joy, and what keeps us from playing in life. This will be a several month process until Venus leaves Leo the first week of October. Her extended stay in Leo this year gives us ample time to really feel and move beyond what blocks our joy so that it is more freely expressed and part of who we are.
Venus is conjunct Regulus, the Heart of the Lion. Our own lionheartedness is fueled. We are capable of strong love. We can anchor our endeavors in our heart, knowing that our love can nurture, support and guide all the facets of our life.
Venus square Uranus. We desire freedom from routines and habits that have become stale. We look to re-invigorate our relationships by engaging in activities and conversations that are new and different with those we love. Our creativity is boosted, especially in the arenas of craft-making and visual arts.
Venus in a Yod with Neptune and Pluto. Venus is at the apex of the Yod, known at the 'Finger of God' aspect which demands that we make some adjustment so that our loving nature can flow in a more natural way. We may easily be entertaining a fantasy about our lives that needs to be dispelled so we can engage what is really going on. by dispelling the fantasy, we can make an adjustment in regard to our finances, or in how we handle strong, passionate emotions, or around an issue where we are exerting excessive control. Venus, in this placement, accentuates a natural instinct for what will create beauty and how to utilize our creative resources. We just need to let go of some ideal so we can meet reality as it is showing up.
Venus as ruler of the Libran South Node. We are mulling over how we engage in relationship to discover how we can be more authentic and not shy away from engaging interactions that may feel confrontational. This is a process that will unfold over the next 18 months but is kicking off with the Venus Retrograde.
Venus in Leo Retrograde (July 22- September 3). If Venus is what we value, then in Leo, we value joy. It is the joy that springs naturally from our heart and its expression lights up the world. With Venus stationing and readying to turn Retrograde, we are more aware of what is blocking or inhibiting the free flow of love, joy, creativity. What is it that thwarts us?
Naturally, with Venus Retrograde, we look at key relationship dynamics and how they stifle the spontaneity and free-flowing expression of love. Where Leo resides in our natal chart indicates the area of life we will each be re-evaluating for the remainder of the summer to illuminate how to best remove barriers and resolve habitual dynamics that inhibit the flow of our love and exuberance.
Venus slowing down cues us to slow down so we can give added consideration to what we love and how to express that love. We are to spend time with our heart. We are ready to disassemble what is not working so that we can go forward in a good way. A thoughtfulness is required as to what will support us in magnifying our great potential to love and bring joy to our lives. The process may bring up feelings around unworthiness on the journey to affirming our true worth. We are worthy of love and the love we have to give is ready to be expressed more fully. We need only take a time out to contemplate and rewire a few things so that it all flows more easily.