New Moon in Cancer
friday, july 5th, 2024, 15:58 PST
you can’t take it with you.
you can’t take it with you
and yet,
you do.
if not in the form of a
lock of hair
or a trinket
a scrap of fabric
we treasure wrap it
in the form of memory
of heart ache
of grief
tears become amber resins
capturing human multitudes.
you can’t take it with you
you try anyway.
you can’t take it with you
as it will eventually evaporate
like water collected from the Ganges
like grass and ephemera flowers
pocketed on the perfect day
we hold onto memories
because of our goldfish minds.
we forget.
we forget and we don’t want to forget.
we know we’ll forget the feeling
that eventually we will forage for our
grandmother’s smell
or the feel of fur under our skin
and come up short
generating a reflection
of a reflection
of a recollection.
we holdfast
in the hopes
that life has more meaning
than passing hours
and paychecks
and commutes
and dishes
we summon and cherish nostalgia
to justify
that it was worth it
that the mistakes were worth it
that the love was worth it
the pain was worth it
that the risk was worth it.
you can’t take it with you
remember
that not just cut flowers die
the ones in the garden do, too.
we do not drop fully formed from the womb
and it is the stories that shape us
it is the emotional ocean that carve us from rock
shapes the smooth bends of our hearts
intricately weaves the unique ties
we tether ourselves to,
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your song pick for the cancer new moon
Cancer season, amiright?
Whilst I am reassembling and tucking the goo that is my mind and emotions and heart and being back into the box of my body, I think about how much I resist tears.
Or vomit. I think we all try really hard not to do that.
The truth is that we feel better after the release of what we’re trying so hard to hold on to, tears or, um, toxins.
I recognize this is not a Scorpio report, but with the location of this chart’s casting, The Sun/Moon (new moon) and Venus in Cancer are feeling themselves in the house of death/rebirth, our connection to intimacy, our earth-bound connection to the divine. Our feelings (not the same as emotions) plug us into a deeper understanding— one that is beyond cognition.
I want you to imagine me on my couch last night, staring at this chart while chewing on tamale. Glasses on, brow furrowed, like, WHAT is this (moment) trying to say?
Ya’ll who have been with me long enough know I am picky about orb range and how if the connection isn’t aligned, I’m not really interested. Here are aspects from this lunation:
New Moon in Cancer (14’) ∆ Saturn in Pisces (19’)
Our relationships with feelings, with time, with nostalgia are being surfaced to recognize their value, how they create structure, meaning, and emotional mapping for our experience in this reality.
Mars in Taurus (19’) sextile Saturn in Pisces (19’)
Resentments we have toward the body and the aging process may be offering some information about our relationship with time, with mortality and our experience of impermanence.
New Moon in Cancer (14’) Square the Lunar Nodes Aries/Libra (10’)
This lunation being aligned with the Moon and our crystallized emotions and feelings we’re learning to grapple with are forced into confrontantion with all things layering our relationship with ourself and our relationship to relationships. It’s not about WHO you are in relationship in, this is a matter of HOW you are in relationship. What sticky stories are holding you back from flowing? What layers of sediment are ready to break loose and join the fluidity of sand and water and wind?
The presence of Jupiter
Jupiter is prominent, just by looking at the landscape of this astral map. The Rising (from my location on the west coast) is in Sagittarius, offering optimism and faith in the process before us. Jupiter in Gemini is opposite the Ascendant in the realm of relationships, sextile and trine to the lunar nodes. Jupiter offers us expansion, optimism and the courage to stretch our limits a bit in the name of risk, connection and our drive towards soul. Step back as far as you can emotionally from what ails you and see if there is some wisdom or opportunity to connect and plug in further to yourself and to the evolution of relationships in your life.
Mars in Taurus (19’) Sextile Venus in Cancer (22’)
Yet another indicator of relationship and our search for security and safety, how we fight for that, how we manipulate for that and regardless of how we hold it, the illusion will crumble.
Fair to mention Pluto’s opposition to Mercury Leo, a 4’ orb, and the opportunity for insight into our ego by seeing ourselves from the outside (just a glimpse).
If you would like to learn more about how this lunation or current transits are impacting you personally…
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Notes From This One
how do you orient yourself when you don’t know where home is?
These were the first words that came to me when writing this report.
It’s impossible for me to author completely objective astrological insights because I am human, I exist in a three-dimensional reality and am experiencing my life, my cycles, my seasons and adhere meaning and seek reflection in the movement and relationships of the planets.
“Home” feels nebulous in this moment. Living in a furnished rental in a land so far far away from the deep green and bright fireflies of familiarity, my attachments get in the way of feeling connected to place.
I drink tea from this land, I’ve drank teas steeped from the roots of cardon cactus and spend 4 hours a day in Spanish lessons.
Spanish is not the language of this place. Not really. There were people here before.
And when I think of home, I am thinking of where the humans of my lineage traveled to from their home, migrating over millenia from Africa to Western Europe and only in the last couple hundred years did my ancestors leave their homes to seek safety in a strange place with the promise of a better life. One where the potatoes weren’t in famine. A place where opportunity and freedom from punk overlords.
But they didn’t know what they were getting into. They didn’t know of their complacency and involvement with power dynamics, with genocide, with land domination, with cultural domination.
My Spanish teacher wished me a happy Independence Day yesterday and I responded with “no me importante” (it’s not important to me). When he asked why I brought up the cycles of Pluto, the nightmare of this election, the stripping of rights and how disgusted I am with a culture that claims the hero role but is actually a villain through corporate protections and the preservation of white supremacy. Social Work school removed any delusions I had about the corruption in my culture. Well, where you live is also corrupt, he responded, and I was like, yea, but at least they don’t pretend to be the good guy.
Cancer’s association with home and place, with ethnocentrism and with cultural pride always leaves a foul taste in my mouth. That in childhood, we are endoctrinated with cultural themes and stories to create a sense of place, of pride and of communion, while simultaneously feeding us toxic ableism, ageism, racism and the most poisonous IDEALISM that prevents us from seeing the world as it is.
I feel like an outsider here and the reality of coming back stateside gives me a level of awareness of place and displacement. As I drove through the Southwest I thought of stolen land. As I think about Iowa, the beautiful place where I was born, I think about the people the land was stolen from there.
I listen to the news and the settlers in Palestine are taking more land and doing so through cultural genocide.
Wherever there are humans there is safety and survival; there is threat as much as their is potential for security. We seek both consciously and unconsciously to belong so that we can feel safe, so that we can have a sense of home.
My sense is that we can be home.
By that I mean that we can be home, refuge and safety for those we come into contact with, wherever we are. The complicated dealings of travel, of tourism, of migration of people— moreso now due to climate change — has these topics at the forefront of my heart. We make an impact. Period. There is responsibility in that and in our choices. There is responsibility in being a safe person for other humans, for other creatures, for providing shelter and food. That is a reflection of Cancer’s ABUNDANCE.
In the Summer, there is enough to go around. In the Summer, there are ripe berries on the bushes, there is fruit and the garden is growing strong and supportive. This is a season of love and caring and generosity because we are capable of such. We are capable of extending our table, opening our doors and it is when we feel afraid, protective, harmed, taken advantage of — that’s when we shut down and shut off.
It is my challenge to you, to myself, to remain open, regardless of what pain, what suffering, what joy, what love crosses your path. It is my task to you to remain soft, to question your programming, why you may feel a certain way about other people of different circumstances. Do you think that car is ugly or loud because you are afraid to have an ugly or loud car? Are you afraid of your own mortality, of your own vulnerability — and that is why you close off to others?
Remaining soft is hard.
stay inspired.
ursidae
