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This full moon fattens in Virgo, sign of the Virgin—the one whole unto herself—the devotee dedicated to the goddess—the small, daily acts of service that add up to a lifetime of reverence. It sits across from the Sun and Neptune, along with Jupiter and Mercury in Pisces, sign of the fish—swimming the grand cosmic ocean, the ending and beginning, the place where all of our individual drops eventually return, death, rebirth. The vast, veiled planes of spirit.
We began the new year deep in Venus’ retrograde through Capricorn—asking us to deeply examine the structures and foundations of everything we value, relationships, love, beauty, art, money, finances, pleasure. As Venus conjoined Pluto, this excavation went deep into the recesses of our past, our subconscious, even into generational and ancestral layers of our psyches and physiology. The good news is, this week begins a major shift in this energy and a big push for forward momentum.
Taurus is fixed earth, the bull—the deep appreciation and pleasure of the body, the earth, incarnation. Scorpio, meanwhile, is everything beneath—beneath the earth, beneath the surface, beneath the veneer of society. Scorpio is the taboo, everything a culture represses and denies. Taurus is the earth unfurling in the height of spring; Scorpio the inward coiling and falling leaves of deep fall.
Now is a season of conserving, reserving and storing, a time of sending the energy to our roots to coil and preserve for the spring—a time of pinpointed focus and release of everything extraneous. So that when we come to the time of growing, producing and extroverting, we have that energy repleted and ready to send out into the world, and into our creative goals and projects.
This full moon is a powerful—I mean powerful—time for release and for transformation. It will also bring a lot of intensity and an impulsive desire to act, and act now (occurring in the action-oriented sign of Aries, with Mars, planet of both aggression and getting shit done, in the mix to boot). There’s a lot of surface-movement energy afoot—but beneath that, the real current, the undertow under-pining all the tumult, is the deep, transformational, evolve-or-be-destroyed tide of Pluto’s underworld.
The moon conjuncts the sun at 18º of Cancer on July 9, initiating a new moon cycle and a moment of pattern-setting for the next two week period—as well as the next six months (until we return for the full moon in Cancer, January 17 2022, closing the cycle). The constellation of the crab spans the portion of the sky assigned to Cancer—the word cancer itself is Latin for crab—and this crustacean spirit animal has much to teach us about the lessons and journeys of Cancer season, and this Cancer new moon in particular.
As is always the case with a full moon, the moon sits across the sky from the sun in the opposite side of the zodiac, staring each other down, and therefore shining the full light of the sun onto the reflective moon. The moon rules Cancer, so it doesn’t fare well in the opposite sign, Capricorn (it’s in its fall here, a debilitated placement). Capricorn is rather dry and harsh for the watery moon. Ruled by Saturn, planet of boundaries, Capricorn is known for rational thinking, rules and structure—quite different from oceanic Cancer.
Summer solstice marks the longest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere), the height of its brightness, and the beginning of summer. The summer solstice is analogous to the full moon—a time of celebration, culmination, climax. After today—though we still have much summer and heat before us—the days will shorten, slowly and ever so slightly, as we move toward the autumnal equinox. But for now, we revel in the height and heat of summer, partake in its hedonistic pleasures, languish in its languorous afternoons. We consume the fruits of our labor, imbibe what we’ve fermented into wine.
Full moons are times of exfoliation, of sloughing off dead layers of self—and eclipses are when we shed our skin entire. Snake-like, we leave husks of our former selves, our past lives, our previous dreams in our wake. We change directions, change paths, change our minds—or they are changed for us. We form new skin—new layers grow over our raw vulnerability—but at first we are naked, exposed, tender and new. Go gentle through this eclipse, dear ones. Take care of the fresh and untried iterations you are evolving into.
Stop spinning, stop running and rushing and getting it all done. Plant your feet on the soil, the grass, the concrete if that’s what you have. Look up at the dark sky of the new moon. See those extra stars. Take a deep breath. And another. Root. Feel the mother earth beneath you. Her soils dark and dank and fecund, her dirt the womb wrapping all the birthing seeds of spring, ready to break, ready to unravel. Yes, this is a powerful moon to manifest… But before you do. Breathe. Stand on the earth. Look at the sky.
On December 21, the winter solstice (in the northern hemisphere), one of the most important astrological moments of our lifetimes will occur. This moment is the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction. Jupiter and Saturn conjunct (meet together in the sky) and meld their very different energies approximately every 20 years. They last conjoined on May 28, 2000. Making this a generational cycle at any time—however, this year they meet in an air sign, setting off a new pattern that will last for the next 200 years.
The centaur, Sagittarius is the adventurer of the zodiac. Aspects of our lives that may be intensified include goals and plans that expand our horizons and lead to deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the grander scheme—our beliefs, our visions, our FAITH. Do the work here to examine your belief systems and spiritual values, and root out anything toxic, bypassing, or that just no longer resonates for where you are now—so that you don’t carry it forward in your future patterns, and in the annual intention-setting energy that arrives with the winter solstice.
Taurus is the sign of earthly-delight, of deep embodiment, of the willingness to fully incarnate on this planet, in this life—and to revel in it. While the sun in Scorpio—sign of the depths, the shadows, the repressed, the taboo underbelly, the sexual, death and loss and grief—reminds us that this delight does not come through spiritual or political bypassing—does not come through spraying flowery-affirmation perfume over the pile of shit we’re wading in. But neither does it come through remaining stuck in dark and shadowy underworlds.
We must travel through the deep, the buried, the subconscious—facing our shadows and our shit—shoveling them up, turning them over, roiling and fermenting them into the compost which feeds our earthly gardens.
All other aspects aside, the new moon in Libra is an excellent time to set intentions, not just for the next month, but also for the next six months (until the full moon in Libra in March 2021). And in spite of all of this crazy tension and energy from all the squares and oppositions, I really want us to hold this focus and seed our visions for the future. For ourselves, for our relationships both interpersonal and as a collective society.
Libra season continues the harvest and pushes us into the time of balancing, the time of the equinox. Libra is the scale—of decisions, of choice, of justice. Libra asks us to weigh what we are willing to give, and to give up for justice. What are we as individuals (moon in Aries) willing to offer and compromise in our relationships and, as a society, for collective equity (sun in Libra)?
This balance chaffs against the individual fires of the moon in Aries—sign of individualism, passion, the movement of spring, the strength and courage of the seed to break open in the dark of soil and move toward the sunlight. With Mars retrograde here in Aries too, well, we’ve got some tension simmering.
New moons are times of intention setting and planning—and this new moon in Virgo trine Saturn is the apotheosis of organization and plans.
Virgo is the Virgin, the Priestess, the Devoted One. Virgo reminds us that each small task we undertake, each detail we give attention and care, is in service to something larger than just that act, and in service to something bigger than just ourselves.
The current astro weather (full moon in Aquarius opposing sun in Leo) is speaking to the conflict—and potential—between the collective, the communal, and our own personal light, the individual spark in us, the ideas and creative offerings that only we can bring forth. This energy can feel very polarizing—can tear us in two, split us with what we think we “need” to do from what we feel called to do. But it also has much to teach us.
This new moon in Cancer is a black moon—the second new moon in a solar month (like a blue moon is the second full moon in a month). The last new moon in Cancer was June 21, 2020.
A black moon is like a super-charged new moon, a time of cycle formation and intention setting that will play out not only for the next month, for the next three years (until the next black moon in March 2023 in Aries).
This is powerful energy to use consciously and wisely.
