Insights: A Cancer New Moon

Morning Fantasy by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1904)

July’s New Moon comes into focus at 7:15 in the UT/+0 morning on July 8. And for those of us who don’t live in the +0 time zone, the clock may be different, what we’re doing in that moment will certainly be different, but the global moment will be striking the same note.

It says a lot about how billions of people on one not-giant blue-ish planet can take things differently. And how many ways there are to see and act in life – and this world.

By being a mid-Cancer degree, 16 Cancer is by definition an emotional degree of an emotional sign. An this isn’t Scorpio, so this isn’t about interactions with others. This isn’t Pisces, so this isn’t something which just ‘is’ despite any good effort. This is Cancer. This is about our sense of self – those basic emotions which ask ‘who am I’ and ‘do they like me?’ and ‘will I get in trouble for that?’ or ‘does anyone care?’ or ‘I feel lonely.’

Cancer is where we learn about our emotional self. Cancer is the sign all about our basic feelings about life, and having to do XYZ in life. Cancer confronts us with some seriously unenviable questions like ‘Okay, so I’m not happy about my life. What am I going to do about it? Why did this happen to me? Can’t things just be easy?’

The Sun having entered Cancer back on June 21st (again, UT/+0 time) set the stage for life to move us into this mode of being sensitive and sensitized to the quality of life – ours and life in general. But up until now (or more precisely, until the moment of the Cancer New Moon) we were all living through a series of days which was part of a previous lunar cycle, that being the Gemini New Moon which took place back on June 8.

The Sun represents ‘life itself,’ and our consciousness. Or consciousness of life going on around us. 
Reflecting the idea that our Sun (the actual star) isn’t going anywhere or expected to do much other than what its doing for another more-than-several billion years (yes, billion with a ‘b’) the Sun represents the fullness or entirety of life. Or at least the idea of same, which allegedly gets us to thinking about what we want to do with – and in – our lifetime.

(Allegedly.)

Against this, the lunar cycles represent our day-to-day daily concerns. Because the cycles of the Moon are actually about a relationship between the Moon and Sun, every month is another piece, another step, another ‘phase’ in the totality of our process – which is to say, the process of living our life. As the Moon’s light is light reflected from the Sun, so it is said that lunar cycles are ‘reflective’ of where we are in our life. Or – maybe more productively – where we are in the process of building that life we want to have.

Lore suggests that 16 Cancer is a degree about our facing up to what we need to deal with. At one level it’s about getting rid of excuses…and at another, it’s about dealing with all those ‘little things’ which come up which may become “The Excuse” for not doing what we really need to get done. There is something of a pliable quality said to be part of this degree – which may be something to keep in mind for the whole of this month, a month which will in time have the Sun pushing on into Leo just after the Full Moon.

This is what I meant to get to in mentioning how the Sun entered Cancer long before this Cancer New Moon, and how all those days were part of the lunation prior. Every cycle of the Moon has a way of saying ‘move on!’ in terms of life’s doings. And okay, for those who are more preoccupied or rooted in some status quo, maybe life has to pry your death grip on personal preference loose in order to move you along.

A lot of us took the Gemini New Moon as an opportunity to make new choices and to take on new tasks. Or to learn new things. Or maybe you got swept up in sweeping up the confetti of things which have fallen all around you while you were busy doing something else.

A small boy trying to catch confetti at a folk festival in Namur, Belgium

(photo credit: Ben Aveling, April 2006)

 
Life can be a ticker tape parade sometimes, yes. Great to look at, fun to play in, but boy – what a mess to clean up!

But once the Sun moved into Cancer (on June 21), the simple ‘idea of the moment’ changed. Life became more feeling, more about the important things which make life work and which make living life more worthwhile.

The zodiac’s three water signs are about ‘wealth.’ And while yes, that may be ‘money wealth,’ that can also point to our wealth of experience. Or the circumstances – emotional, situational or concrete – which, in allowing us to feel more comfortable, give us a ‘platform’ on which to build that greater (solar) totality of our life.

During the Gemini lunation, the Sun shifting into Cancer retained a bit of that Gemini ‘the idea of the thing’ quality. And its that which will shift as of the moment of the Cancer New Moon. During the next two weeks (i.e., while the Sun is still in Cancer) we are all likely to feel more or less ‘centered’ in our emotional self. So obviously those who don’t do as well with their emotional Self (or emotional life) are likely to feel a bit touchy…which is maybe really their feeling touchy about feeling touchy.

Another group will feel centered in their need to get on with things. For these people, the Cancer Sun phase of the Cancer lunation will manifest as feeling at home with themselves – and thus with the world which is immediately around them. That doesn’t mean everything is perfect…such folks may be all about rearranging the furniture or getting around to paining the living room wall. But (using painting as the way to ‘see’ this)(yes, that was a bad pun) gone will be the Gemini lunation ‘what effect am I trying to create?’ as emotions and life congregate into the ‘I know what I’m going to go for. And if I don’t like that, I’ll change it later’ sort of feeling.

Cancer is a cardinal sign. It’s willing to learn from results. Gemini is a mutable signs. All mutable signs have an issue with making choices just because life’s possibilities seem endless. The Sun moving into Cancer under the Gemini lunation got us into the ‘yes, there’s a lot of choices – narrow it down, already!’ mode…and now, during the first half of the Cancer lunation, we will be digging in and doing what needs doing to structure what we plan to move ahead with.

Once the Sun moves into Leo (on July 22nd) this ‘structuring’ phase will give way to seeing what will actually result. And where we want to go from where we’ve gotten to at that point. At it’s best, this Leo effect will open us to new possibilities.

Of course, it could also show up our personal shortcomings. Or where our wanting to be ‘in our comfort zone’ has actually undermined our ability to ‘structure’ our life by failing to take others (or life’s greater, mainstream ‘flow’) into account.

Sirius A & B as seen in an x-ray photograph taken by the Chandra Space Telescope

(photo credit: NASA-SAO-CXC, September 2000)

With the brilliance of dog-star Sirius and ‘story teller’ Scheherazade at 14 Cancer just behind the position of this New Moon, Atropos (endings) and Echo just ahead of the New Moon at 18 Cancer and Atlantis exactly conjunct this lunation, this would seem to be an ‘Atlantis moment’ of facing that which we think of as being “exactly what we want” (or how we think we want life to be) in favor of being brave enough to literally accept walking into another element, tackling the seemingly impossible and – amazingly – being rewarded for that.

Atlantis is a funny point. (And no, I don’t mean ‘ha,ha’ funny.) Atlantis is all about ‘the times’ we live in and how accumulated experiences show us how it doesn’t matter how much we think we want to fit in with ‘that’ or to have ‘that’ be true. Sometimes we just aren’t going to fit in with ‘that’ no matter how hard we try. Sometimes we have to let go. We have to stop trying to tell others (and more importantly, ourselves) that that’s what we want to do. Or how we want life to work.

Sometimes we just have to let go. Atlantis is all about that very thing – the letting go. And about how sometimes, despite all, we need to walk into what may seem like a totally foreign element, something we think would be ‘deadly’ (not literally) in order to be enveloped by a new and different environment in which we will find our bliss.

Or at least the path to that bliss.

Sirius/Scheherazade being just behind the lunation speaks to our leaving some ‘story’ behind. Maybe it’s a phase of life you’re moving out of. Maybe it’s a home you’re moving out of. Around the world lot of students will be leaving behind their comfort zone of the ‘known’ as they move ahead to the next form or even out of their studies into life’s Big World.

That Sirius is a binary star tells us there is a 'fusion' process which goes into creating anything. One of the brightest stars in the sky, Sirius is known as a point of ‘brilliance,’ or qualities which we think of as brilliance or some idea or example which to us is  just ‘brilliant.’

Or maybe daunting or blinding or dazzling.

So with Sirius being conjunct Scheherazade and the New Moon being conjunct Atlantis, maybe you’re letting go of…or moving away from some ‘story’ you’ve told yourself. Or something which is itself brilliance, but which now you need to incorporate into your life and build upon. Part of this – considering we’re moving out of a Gemini lunation into a lunar month which is founded in the Cancer principle may be about acknowledging how someone else may know more than you do about something, but that that’s not any reason why you shouldn’t excel in your own right. So maybe you’re ready to take on reaching some inner dream by making it real in the here-and-now. Or maybe you’re done listening to the idea of what life ‘should be’ as defined by others and ready to create that better, more solid, more secure and stable life which works for you.

In leaving that ‘thing’ behind, this New Moon may be a moment of emotional darkness during which you let go of that you used to believe about others or even about yourself. In that darkness we can’t ‘see’ ahead, but we feel like we’re ‘hearing’ the Echo of endings (Atropos) to…to what?

Is that the end of something bad? Or something good? Maybe it’s just the end of our kidding ourselves about something – even some ‘blindness’ to our own abilities which we may have long negated.

The mythic Echo is a servant of chief honcho Olympians Hera and Zeus. Or Juno and Jupiter, if you prefer. The difference here, which comes from the difference between Greek and Roman culture seems to reflect the Greek love of logic and intellectual insight as opposed to the human passions and more emotional approach of the Romans. Either way, whether we talk Hera/Zeus or Juno/Jupiter, we’re making an astro-metaphysical reference to ‘governing principles’ in our lives.

But it’s not like mom and pop Olympians get along. Much as how in life we have ‘different parts’ of our life and interest which don’t seem compatible with each other, hubby king and wife queen of Olympus didn’t get along 100% either.

Far from it. Zeus/Jupiter (knowing knowledge) was a well-known philanderer. In our lives, this tendency to ‘go out on the wife’ reflects in the fact that we may sometimes do things which are counter to our status quo. Or maybe not in sync with what we’ve been taught. Or whatever it is we’ve constructed in our life.

 Obviously in a moment when they're on more or less friendly basis, Olympians Juno and

husband Jupiter are perhaps working on reaching some mutual agreement on how life should

be...which is a lot of what we go through in our own lives with ourselves.

Jupiter and Juno by Frans Christoph Janneck (1703-1761)

 

The important thing to remember is that this isn’t about anyone else. This is about us. The constant and wholly human thing which says we need to grow even while we need to remain ‘married’ to the job of taking care of ourselves and our lives.   

So there’s Echo…a servant (another part of our psyche) which is working for both honchos. And when Zeus/Jupiter decides to go off and chase his latest interest (a new possibility, perhaps) Jupiter instructs Echo not to tell the wife.

That amounts to our not ‘telling’ or admitting to ourselves that we want to try something new. Something else.

In marriage counseling, you’ll hear psychologists tell their clients that ‘you never solve the problem inside the marriage by going outside the marriage’ which is true whether someone is having an affair or simply building a professional or social life which doesn’t just exclude their Significant Other, but which they don’t involve their Significant Other in – at least at the level of being open about what they’re up to. Let’s face it, there are plenty of great marriages where each partner has personal interests which doesn’t involve the other party.

The problem would seem to be in the not telling. The not being honest. And that’s the Echo thing. Echo applies where we’re not honest with ourselves about our needs. Where we don’t admit to ourselves that there’s some sort of problem which isn’t getting solve ‘inside the marriage’ of our Self.

Just to cut to the chase on the myth, in case you haven’t heard this one before, rather predictably it doesn’t go well for Echo. Wife Hera/Juno (representing the protection of our psychic ‘home’ and inner stability) not only catches up with Zeus/Jupiter’s doings, but realizes Echo has been placating her with half-truths – sort of like we tend to do from time to time in our own lives.

And yes, that would be the point. Through the moment of this New Moon’s evocative darkness now comes the ‘Echo’ of Atropos, the ‘end’ of something.

Is that our ignorance? Our struggles to hide something important from our Self?

What (Gemini lunation cycle) idea are we on the verge of letting go of? What (Atlantis) are we realizing is not going to work for us? How will this moment and the next lunar month reveal how in (Cancer lunation cycle) being more united in our Self and (Cancer) more emotionally (Echo) knowing and honest with our Self can we (Atropos) end the internal spin and thus the spinning of our wheels?

It’s going to be an interesting month to be sure. That it’s happening with a water grand trine in progress speaks to a lot of values changing and the world being awash in provocations.

And yet, that is our future.
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