CANCER NEW MOON  July 17, 2004 4:24 am PDT 7:24 am EDT Sun and Moon joined at 25.13 Cancer << "The Rose" mandala by Novella Maia -- click on image for larger view
Sabian Symbol: "Guests are reading in the library of a luxurious home."
What does listening to the zodiac do for us at each moon cycle?  It attunes us to the yet living quality of this ancient rhythm.  It sharpens our senses to new ways to bring ourselves forth.  It puts us on the alert -- as an animal living in the wild -- to something new in the air...

Cancer New Moon 'Scope
by Dana Gerhardt

"Nothing—I mean nothing—I planned this year has turned out the way I expected," an astrologer friend complained. "Me too!" I joined in. "It’s like everything is either breaking down or bogging down." When two astrologers kvetch, we like to round up planetary culprits. High on our list were the long retrograde weeks of Mercury and Venus. Include their before and after "shadow" periods, and their unnerving halt to forward movement, plus their jack-in-the-box surprises, have stretched from March 25 and will continue through August 3^rd. Not to mention Mercury goes retrograde again on August 10 (its shadow period begins July 21). Add to that the contentious oppositions between Venus and Pluto (from May through the end of July). This pair keeps stirring up relationships like a ten-year-old lobbing stones at a hornet’s nest! What else could we expect? It is, after all, the "Year of the Monkey"-- a wild, unpredictable, trickster year.

Trickster years bring unexpected blessings too. And the Cancer New Moon is a good time to count them. Counting grievances brings an odd satisfaction, it’s true. And our joys tend to evaporate quickly. Sharing them with friends is trickier, less immediately bonding. As the saying goes, "Misery loves company." Rarely do we congregate to celebrate our happiness. But during the Cancer cycle, which bridges the first half of the year with the next, it’s an auspicious time to reverse this emotional tendency. Let’s vow instead to celebrate all those unexpected blessings the Monkey has brought. Sure, a winter storm tore down the fence of my new house—but my neighbor is a strapping young man who happily built a new one. My irrigation valve broke, flooding my yard. Now my ancient neighbor across the street, the one I’d never met or waved "hello" to, came over and fixed it, asking for nothing in return.

Cancer reminds us to celebrate all the ways we’ve been nurtured. Cancer is a water sign—its action is fluid, cleansing, and receptive. Water sign cycles are particularly auspicious for spiritual practice, because what we focus on this month will be even more deeply absorbed. Sink into the good that has supported you, like slipping into a cool bath after a hot summer’s day. In the New Moon chart, Venus trines Neptune, striking an easy alliance between your capacity to appreciate earthly joys and your power to see the many faces of divine intervention. Let this inform your creative approach this cycle. Re-commit to loving your life. Dance happily with its changing conditions. Even in a Monkey year!

The Dark Mother

Cancer is the sign of mothers and mothering. The words "mother" and "matter" share a common linguistic root. Both ground us in ways that make our own fertility and abundance possible. Without the heaviness of matter, and perhaps the heaviness of all those things our mothers told us, our lives would be flimsy as dream. Too much heaviness, however, signals an encounter with the Dark Mother, who resists our growth. Writes Jungian analyst, Marion Woodman, "The old petrifying mother is like a great lizard lounging in the depths of the unconscious. She wants nothing to change. If the feisty ego attempts to accomplish anything, one flash of her tongue disposes of the childish rebel." She is often imaged in dreams "as a crocodile not quite asleep in mud, a huge energy mired in inertia, self-absorbed, rigid, aspiring to nothing."

Encountering the Dark Mother means being stuck. If an agent of the Dark Mother has appeared in your life, it’s time to break free and renew your creativity. Though she may appear as an outer enemy who needs slaying, know that any feelings of powerlessness, or of being held back or down, actually originate from within. If you can’t move forward or take advantage of the creativity in this Cancer cycle, ask, how did this resistance take shape within you? In the old days, knights would vanquish dark-mother dragons hiding in their caves. We no longer live by a technology of the sword. Now, with courageous awareness, you might coax your inner dragon into the light, and discovering how fearful it is, stroke it like a child. Out of the cave, out of the mud, your dragon can transform into something magical.

What should you focus on this cycle?

Moon cycles always bring energy for new growth. But what should you grow this cycle? Astrology typically answers "what" questions by looking at houses. Look to the house of your birth chart where the New Moon falls: here’s your personal seed bed. This is the place you usually "do Cancer." It’s the house where the Moon is most at home—and where her cycles may be most relevant. You can be very intuitive in matters of this house. And, quite creative; where Cancer sits, your imagination is fertile. During this New Moon cycle, you have a unique opportunity here… but you must tune in. (If you’d like to explore this is greater depth, you may enjoy my seasonal/new moon workshop, Twelve Moons).

© 2004 Dana Gerhardt,
All rights reserved

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