the astrology of the Full Moon in Cancer | January 6th, 2023 - what have we been growing - did we get 10 fingers and 10 toes, did we over-do/burn-out or did we build something more loving and more secure - an emotional conclusion that creates a fresh opportunity

On Friday, January 6th, 2023 at 6:08PM ES, the Cancer Moon opposes the Capricorn Sun at 16 degrees giving us this month's Full Moon - our annual Full Moon in Cancer. 

The Moon is the ruler of Cancer, so with nowhere else to go - no secondary ruler and no multiple dispositors to work through - the Cancer Full Moon is always very potent. Full Moons are peak energy/culmination points - often endings. Emotions run high.

 

We have the Moon (where we've been, what we feel, feminine energy, being) and the Sun (where we are trying to go/be, masculine energy, doing) as far apart in the sky as they can be from our earthly perspective during a Full Moon. The Moon now, at home in Cancer - so very strong. The Sun, quite comfortable in serious Cappy, but answering to Saturn in Aquarius who is himself (although the ancient ruler of Aquarius, so strong here) answering to a retrograde Uranus in Taurus answering to Venus, who is in mutual reception with Uranus through her position in future-focused Aquarius. Uranus, nicely positioned here to get back to Aquarius through Venus, and, in a opportunistic and applying sextile with the Full Moon. 

 

Cancer/Capricorn is the polarity of traditional female/male roles. Home and family vs work and the world. How we care for ourselves (and others) and meet our needs for safety and security vs how we push ourselves out in the world toward meeting goals to obtain safety and security. Really two sides of the same coin. Sometimes on some level this is - love/comfort vs money/comfort. Mom vs dad. Food as currency for love. Lots of family patterns and soul group energies in this polarity - the Cancer/Capricorn axis - that come to the surface now ripe to be FELT, the child will not be seen and not heard. Nobody puts baby in a corner (except maybe baby herself). 

This Full Moon in Cancer comes as Pluto approaches the final degrees of Capricorn and Black Moon Lilith moves through the final degree of Cancer. This is serious energy with its feet in our evolutionary his-tory/her-story. 

Let's unpack the chart!

The Moon, at 16 degrees Cancer, opposes the Sun at 16 degrees Capricorn. The Moon is conjunct Pallas and making an EXACT trine to Vesta in Pisces. The Moon squares Chiron (waning) and sextiles Uranus (applying). Mercury is conjunct the Sun, retrograde and opposing the Moon. Venus in Aquarius, the Sun's final dispositor and also the ruler of the North Node (our best way forward) trines Ceres EXACT in Libra. The Moon is coming off a square to Chiron in Aries. 

The Moon is coming off her square to Chiron, so Full Moon events might be in response to painful moments/vulnerabilities around home, family, mother/child situations or equally as likely career, reputation, authority situations. Something here about not feeling safe. Situations conspire against us/for us, so that we might FEEL these insecure spaces in our life and they will harken back to older (maybe even long forgotten) memories of insecurity/non-safety. The Sun in Cappy wants to control/grin-and-bear-it while the Cancer Moon might be tempted to hide in her shell/regress to neediness. The Moon/Chiron can bring a painful sensitivity to family history, the Sun/Chiron to our ability to achieve/make our way in the world. There is some kind of tension/frustration, need to make an adjustment in the recent past here and even now. Maybe a need to stand up for ourselves. Keep in mind astrology is life and one thing builds toward the next thing and on top of the last thing, so, what we did with that painful energy is setting the stage for the ways the Full Moon's complexities play out for us now. Chiron here can also be speaking of a health situation.

The Moon reaches her opposition/fullness as Mercury retrograde is about to meet the Sun. This is the 'inferior conjunction' of Mercury's cycle with the Sun (Mercury/Sun is exact on Saturday). INFORMATION COMES TO LIGHT. Maybe there is an important communication/idea. This could be connected to home, family, roots, mother, the past, or, because Mercury is in Capricorn, about career, goals, authority, ambition or our reputation. Your personal Cancer and Cappy house themes will bring a more complete picture. The Full Moon will make whatever Mercury brings to light more emotional. 

 

Whatever a retrograde Mercury has us working on re-leasing, re-working or re-vising will be in the spotlight. The Sun/Mercury will be about the bottom line, brass-tacks communications and information. Reality checks. This will be opposing the Full Moon in Cancer's emotional culmination. Can we afford this baby we have birthed? One thing is for sure, we certainly can't afford to BE the baby now. 

The Moon's connection to strategic warrior Pallas allows us to see/feel the patterns at the root of what is happening/coming to light/culminating. This is old stuff. The Moon/Pallas can be about making peace with your mother/maternal story or a home/family situation - we have been going through a HUGE Black Moon Lilith (the womb wound, the woman who chooses herself, wounded mothers who wound their children, being shamed for wanting what we are entitled to want) in Cancer chapter for months, maybe this Moon is adding an exclamation point or a period to that. 

Pallas is our father's daughter Goddess energy, having sprung fully formed from her father's head. There is much worldly wisdom here, but maybe something also, with Pallas in 'uncomfortable for her' Cancer, about wanting to be seen as loving/nurturing/doing good while paradoxically having so much ambition/need for worldly SUCCESS. These things do not always gel well. Has something been lost/killed off/suppressed in the process of toughening ourselves up to feed the machine/serve the king? How have we adapted our feminine wisdom for the needs of a hierarchical/patriarchal structure and how is that working? This is certainly a question for a Full Cancer Moon with Pallas. 

The Moon's most exact aspect, other than her opposition to the Sun, of course, is her trine to Vesta in Pisces. Vesta is the Goddess of hearth and home. She is about the vital force at the root of the life of our community/the place where our everyday life touches hallowed ground/the sacred. In ancient times her sacred flame in the temple of Vesta was kept alive 24/7 by the Vestal Virgins (Virgin meaning woman who wasn't owned by a man) to warm the city and provide a space of peace and stability. Pisces is about everything that can't be contained, but with Vesta here it kind of is. Think about the way we cup our hands around a candle to keep it lit. With Vesta in Pisces there is a container (which is our focus) around our Pisces house theme or a collective theme of what is behind us, the past, our ancestors, our imagination, spirituality, music, art, angels, compassion, connection, healing, using our intuition. She can act as a kind of 'escape hatch' here. Vesta in Pisces can focus us on our highest collective values. 

Our sacred focus/anchor with this Full Moon is our INTUITION. 

The fly in the ointment with Vesta in Pisces is we can develop a fixation on something that isn't real - the Full Moon in Cancer can help us feel that now, too, if we have gone off-track. Maybe by shining that sober Cappy light on it or maybe by making it so bloated and ridiculous we can't help but see it for what it is. So, what is keeping us up at night? 

Vesta/Pisces in trine here is allowing forgiveness/compassion/connection with something bigger than ourselves. With Vesta (our sacred focus) in compassionate Pisces at a Cancer Full Moon it would be very powerful to forgive your mother. Forgive yourself as a mother or for not being a mother (which is impossible actually because we are all giving birth to all kinds of things). Forgive your children. Forgive yourself as a child. Forgive the child you still are.

We can't see/touch that Vesta in Pisces, but something we CAN touch/hold will come through the Moon's sextile to Uranus - this will be exact as Mercury meets the Sun on Saturday. Note- the Sun has trined Uranus on Thursday. 

This is about something UNEXPECTED. Change - breathing room. Something about being more authentically ourselves. Doing something different or differently. Doing something liberating. The Moon in Cancer is made more comfortable with normally uncomfortable things with this aspect in play, or we are FEELING DIFFERENTLY ABOUT SOMETHING. This speaks of something fresh, new, liberating coming AFTER the Full Moon, but also of the outcome here being unpredictable and uncertain. Keep in mind, Mars and Mercury are still retrograde. It is not the time for big, crazy moves. It's Cappy season, people DIE when they head off into the wilderness alone. Take your time. Make your plans. Let that childhood crap go. 

Venus in future-focused/liberating Aquarius is important here, too, because, today she is making an exact trine to Ceres in Libra. Plus Venus is trining Mars (exact on January 9th) and sextiling Jupiter (was exact on January 4th). All good. Smooth aspects with energies of action and luck. These are air signs making an air trine, so our words will be important. We will want to speak up, but NOT in the overly emotional way a Cancer Full Moon would have a tendency to encourage. Venus in Aquarius is cool as a cucumber. And she is smart/is connected to hive-mind. She (as we) can detach enough emotionally from whatever is going on to see the big picture and Ceres in balance-seeking Libra, where we can see both sides of a situation, is encouraging of COMPROMISES - even complicated ones about very old situations, AND we have Pallas with the Moon echoing this. Ceres is about our capacity for nurturing ourselves and nourishing others. In Libra, she triggers any sense of deprivation in our relationships, so keep this in mind. 

Spend some time with your body today. Let her know she/he is in charge and can call the shots. As much as you can - release your mental hold on your physical self. Let your body thaw/release old patterns. So much of our anxiety and indecision (Mercury and Mars are retrograde, it is a time of indecision!) can be resolved as we sink into our roots now. 

It's not really a Moon to be seeking an active outcome, we want to be simply acting in each moment from the roots we have been healing since June's New Moon in Cancer which we talked about HERE. There was a trine to Vesta in Pisces then, too.  

If you look at what you have been growing since that New Moon in Cancer last year you will see the ways your maternal inheritance is working - how you mother! - because at that time our earliest pre-birth fear was TRIGGERED. Did we allow this fear to stop us in our tracks? Allow the energy to just clam up/hunker down as Cancer likes to do. We might find ourselves depressed now, the fiery Jupiter watered down and frozen. Did we rush/push, want our baby to walk before she could crawl? Talk before she had anything to actually say? If we grew our 'baby' too big/too fast, acted on impulsivity or allowed ourselves to be driven by those deep entangled/unconscious fears of 'not being safe' - we might have over-reached with projects that grew too big to support their own weight. We could have burned out/felt unsupported/be in quite a pickle right now with a gigantic mess of a something-or-other. 

On the other hand if we used the New Moon in Cancer's energy (Jupiter was in early Aries then, too) to feed our motivation and then took our time/care to grow the 'baby' knowing the time in the womb matters (Black Moon Lilith!) it will have made all the difference (especially in a couple weeks when all planets are direct) with whatever we have going on now, even if we feel a bit in the weeds at this point with the retrogrades. 

Also, keep in mind the power of Jupiter, freshly re-minted in Aries for only a few months and BACK WHERE HE WAS LAST SPRING. Know that life is ALWAYS seeking expansion. The universe we are part of is always expanding. Some might have us believe we have exhausted the resources here on planet Earth and must prepare to send our children/grandchildren to Mars (!) or contract in order to survive. Simplification is one thing. Contraction is quite another. Maybe, the thinking seems to be going in certain circles, if we make ourselves smaller somehow there will be enough to go around. What if this, too, which seems so well-intentioned, is part of patriarchy's fabricated way of nurturing/flawed way of seeing life. Pallas. The father's daughter. Born from her father's head and no mother. Always keep in mind where her wisdom comes from and the flaws in her thinking she carries from that. We might find some of this in ourselves now, too. 

This feels a bit choppy tonight, but I hope something here is helpful. 

xo all

It's really quite a lovely Full Moon with a smooth/open portal to CHANGE - be sure to get outside and walk in it.