Like a lemon drop in the snow, tomorrow’s full moon at 27 degrees Cancer provides a bright spot amidst some somber astrology. It’s an opportunity to curl up with some tea and sympathy and, maybe, have a good cry. Or a laugh. Or a messy laugh-cry, or whatever emotional catharsis it is that you most need.
In Cancer, the moon is fully on brand, at home in its one and only domicile, snug as a bug (or a crab) in a rug. It’s as mooney as the moon can be, pure emotion unadulterated by passion (fire signs), ideas (air signs), material things (earth signs), or the jupiterian and martian emotional dispositions of the other two water signs.
However, this Cancer full moon arrives with some heavy baggage in the form of an exact opposition to Pluto, which conjoins the sun at 26 degrees of Capricorn. So, the warm hug is more like a trap door that deposits us back into the underworld relationship drama that began at the start of the Venus retrograde in December.
But this time, we have an emotional support animal (or moon, as it were). In an emotional safe space, finally, we can begin to unspool all the feelings we may have bottled up recently, as well as any others that the Venus retrograde has dredged up related to power dynamics in relationships or our own (possibly suppressed) power.
The social scientist Pauline Boss has posited that there are losses that are difficult to get over, which she describes as ambiguous loss. These types of losses are woven into everyday life, yet often not acknowledged, as they typically don’t fall into the usual categories of loss (of a loved one, for example). These losses tug at our hearts but resist resolution.
Boss points out that the last almost-two years of our lives have been defined by ambiguous loss — the loss of people in our lives who should have lived much longer, the loss for children of normal childhoods to pandemic schooling and social isolation, the loss of simple routines (the after work drink with colleagues, the boring yet comforting commute), the loss of opportunities that might have been, had the circumstances been different, the loss of our old selves.
At some point, we’re going to have to make an accounting of all of the losses. The emotional bill will come due. This full moon seems to be a first step.
Adding to the waterworks, Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces form flowing, supportive trines to the new moon. Jupiter, in a superior position and dignified in Pisces, bonifies the moon by sign, providing a sense of a higher power or meaning at work. Neptune, within a tighter orb of six degrees trine to the moon, spreads its tendrils of imagination and fantasy, inviting us to imagine alternate scenarios in which the past played out differently, our lives chugging along on completely different paths.
But Neptune can also indicate misinformation, deception (or self-deception), or simply seeing things the way we want to see them, not as they are. So, try to keep your reality filter on amidst the waterfall of emotive processing. Saturn, our reality check, isn’t involved in this full moon at all, in aversion off in Aquarius with retrograde Mercury who will, no doubt, jumble the message in true Mercury Rx fashion.
Trying to talk it out rationally might just confuse things. A better approach, in which an inwardly-oriented retrograde Mercury might help, might be something like stream-of-consciousness journalling, poetry, or a meandering conversation with a dear one.
Also of note is the sign-based sextile formed with Uranus, retrograde in Taurus. This is a weak aspect, and Saturn is basically dominating Uranus from Aquarius, restricting the genius upstarts among us. But, I’ll take a weak sextile that sparks insight and flickers of knowledge when I can find one. We need light bulb moments, these days.
It seems likely that this full moon will deliver a powerfully emotive culmination to the past six months, since the new moon in Cancer on July 9, 2021. Interestingly, that new moon was also trine to Jupiter, which was still barely in Pisces, on its way back to Aquarius, as well as Neptune. The sextile with Uranus was even closer back then, but the opposition to Pluto wasn’t nearly as close.
There’s a feeling, with this full moon, of having seen this movie before. But maybe this time you see it, the themes strike you differently. It reminds me of my experience of rereading the novel Middlemarch over the years, as apparently many do, to find, as time goes by, not a romance, as I’d first interpreted it as a teenager, but, later on, as a tragedy of lives gone awry, talents squandered.
There’s no doubt that a lot has happened since last July. We are different people now. Ambiguous loss has reared its head in myriad ways.
So grab your tissues, a Hallmark movie if that’s your thing (or Middlemarch, if you’re me), and your partner/friend/dog/childhood stuffed animal and have a good, long (and possibly ugly) cry.
International Hug a Cancer Moon Day
But we aren’t here just to talk about this particular full moon in Cancer, as potent and cathartic as it may be. We’re here, also, to celebrate the monthly return of the moon to its watery home, and to pay tribute to the Cancers moons among us.
It’s easy to overlook the moon in its daily travels, in which it speeds through each sign of the zodiac in a couple of days. But we should never take the moon for granted; the moon highlights each planet and configuration that it contacts, amplifying, for better or worse, the planetary messaging.
However, the messages can get convoluted, filtered through the moon when it’s in signs other than its own. And this is true for most of the month, when the moon is ruled by other planets, and, therefore, subject to their priorities, whether identity-related (in Leo), intellectual (in Gemini or Virgo), relational (in Taurus or Libra), martial (in Aires or Scorpio), philosophical (in Pisces or Sagittarius), or bureaucratic (in Capricorn or Aquarius).
In Cancer, the moon is its own spokesperson, and it’s in tune with its heart. It’s a great time, whenever the moon is in Cancer, to get a clear emotional read of a situation.
In a natal chart, a Cancer moon is a strong placement for one of the all-important luminaries, particularly for those born at night, when the moon becomes the sect light and primary luminary.
As the moon signifies the body and emotional needs, people with moon in Cancer are often finely attuned to these topics. Sensitivity is a word that comes up often in relation to Cancer moon, and it’s an apt description. Without the filters imposed by the other planets, the moon in Cancer is pure emotional and bodily need. How these needs are met is through nurturing and sustenance, of the spirit and body. They need hugs! So, find the Cancer moons in your life and give them a squeeze.
Perhaps because of their emotional sensitivity, Cancer moon folks are often natural nurturers, paying forward the care they (hopefully) received for their own needs. However, if their own needs aren’t met, Cancer moon types can become quite moody (note the connection of that word to “moon”) or even lash out grumpily.
And when it’s hurt, the crab scuttles back into its shell, pulling down the drapes and hiding in a sulk. In this situation, there’s not much to be done until the emotional clouds pass. As a cardinal sign, Cancer is the one who initiates things, the one who decides when the snit is over.
Aspects in a natal chart can flesh out how things tend to go for this moon, with the benefic planets Venus and Jupiter providing support, and malefic Mars and Saturn generally undermining the moon’s functioning. Squares and oppositions of the moon, in particular, to the malefics can sometimes indicate injury or illness of the body or mind in the absence of mitigating factors.
Cancer moon’s sensitivity and ability to inhabit an emotional space seems to produce a lot of artists, as a casual survey of those with this placement reveals, including: Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Harrison Ford, Jimi Hendrix, Sean Penn, Keanu Reeves, Kurt Cobain (and his ex-wife, Courteney Love), Penélope Cruz, Gwen Stefani, Mariah Carey, Marion Cotillard, Drew Barrymore, Shakira, Heath Ledger, Robert Pattinson, Prince William (and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge [I’m intrigued by these Cancer moon couples. . .]), Emilia Clarke, Chrissy Teigen, Michael B. Jordan, and Taylor Swift.
In fact, Taylor Swift and her emotive music has been on my mind and in my ears lately.
A Sagittarius sun with a smoldering and determined Scorpio rising with Mars and Pluto conjunct the Ascendant, Swift’s Cancer moon is in the ninth house of higher ideals and travel conjunct an exalted Jupiter, with Chiron, the “wounded healer” asteroid nearby. That lovely Jupiter in Cancer is also the ruler of her Pisces fifth house of creativity and the performing arts, as well as her Sagittarius sun in the second house of income and resources.
Interestingly, in light of recent events in her life, the mini-stellium in Cancer is opposite a larger stellium in Capricorn in the third house of siblings, friends, and communication, which includes Saturn, Neptune, Mercury, and Uranus. Since this is a night chart (with the sun below the horizon), Saturn is the more difficult malefic planet in her chart and, empowered in Capricorn, is maltreating (through opposition) her expressive, bountiful, and emotional artistry (moon-Jupiter), which is tied in to how she makes her money.
It’s almost like there’s a standoff between an unyielding corporate power and her ability to express herself. Oh, wait. It’s (astrological) icing on the cake that the record label that controlled her masters, and was subsequently acquired by “media proprietor” (there’s some Mercury-Saturn in Capricorn symbolism for you) Scooter Braun, is called Big Machine.
Chiron’s role in all of this makes me think that healing will ultimately come out of what could well be her biggest challenge. Chiron shows us where we’ve been hurt, but also where we can heal and help others; in Cancer, Chiron’s healing takes the form of nurturing, of oneself and others. Chiron forms a close trine with Pluto in Scorpio in her Ascendent, suggesting that her healing from this experience, which she is evidently processing through her prodigious artistry, will be tied into her Pluto in Scorpio generational cohort, for which she is a standard bearer.
(Also, a PSA: don’t mess with anyone with Mars and Pluto on the Ascendant, in determined and vengeful Scorpio, no less. They WILL prevail and might even come after other offenders, or ex-boyfriends, via long-form music videos.)
Here’s her hauntingly beautiful my tears ricochet from her 2020 album Folklore, about her ties with the founder of Big Machine coming to an end when the record label was sold, along with the masters to her music: