Friday, December 29, 2017

The Cosmic Story: Cancer Full Moon, 2018

The Cosmic Story: Cancer Full Moon January 1, 2018

Feeding the Soul. Finally.




I’m writing this newsletter as the Taurus Moon waxes past the first quarter, the Earth sign concerned with what we value and how we value things. Taurus is a fertile sign – just think of May and all the beauty of that season. And this Moon phase is all about nourishing the sprout that was seeded at the Sagittarius New Moon, which occurred on the Galactic Center (the Cosmic Womb) on December 17-18. It’s time to open to the cosmic mystery that we each birthed this Winter Solstice and pour our love into that new life.

Every January, while the Sun is in Capricorn, the sign that symbolizes fathers, our dharma and our collective institutions, we have a Full Moon in Cancer, the sign of our emotional body, the family, the mothers, our security. Every year, we look within to figure out what our emotional needs are for ourselves but also so our collective institutions can adjust to the needs of the people. This year, it seems like there is a bigger disconnect between people’s needs and the government’s agenda. Do we really need ‘millions’ of jobs in the military to keep us happy and safe? Doesn’t a happy, prosperous citizenry create more security than a global police force? 
 
This year, it is especially important for each of us to understand what will make us secure and content, fertile and creative. It’s always about choices and opportunities. If your life and your work are not serving you, what do you need to do to change that this year? What is your heart’s hope? If our government is not serving our collective needs, what do we do to change that? We live in a democracy, which means we need to know how we want to live our collective life and make choices that support those visions; otherwise, we will be controlled and corralled into corporate agendas rather than life-giving ones. 
 
The universe knew who it needed at this point in time – us! So do whatever needs doing – band together and help each other. Share you gifts and talents with others who need them as we re-build our society from the ground up. If you’re a techie and a healer needs some help, find ways to exchange your services – money, barter, alternative ‘money’, ?. Who knows what we can all create if we let our hearts sing us a vision.

At least, that’s what my inner Council of Grandmothers is telling me. 
 
The day after the Cancer Full Moon, the planet Uranus turns to direct motion, so we need to take those inner awakenings we’ve experienced in the past 5 months and use them to re-create our outer lives. So watch what happens on Tuesday, January 2, 2018 when Uranus stations. Surprises, revelations, awakenings, rebellions are energized.

The Sabian symbol for Uranus at 24*34’ Aries (25*) is: The possibility for people to gain experience at two levels of being.* We can only experience what we believe in. We need faith to accept this new level of consciousness. Dane Rudhyar comments on this degree: “Be open. Be able and willing to shape your translucent mind in the form revealing spiritual fulfillment. And you will be able to experience life and power on inner as well as outer planes.”
 
This is the awakening that Uranus brings to us. We can live our spiritual lives in the outer world. In fact, that is our real purpose in life. To open to the great mystery of life, to live our spirituality and see where it takes us.

Cancer Full Moon

This year’s Cancer Full Moon occurs on January 1, 2018 at 6:24pm PST/ 9:24pm EST and on January 2, 2018 at 2:24am GMT.




Cancer symbolizes the Great Mother, the ocean's depths, the source of life and creativity. Cancer is a cardinal water sign – once Cancer senses what is needed, she does something about it. If you’re hungry, she’ll feed you. If you’re afraid, she’ll comfort you. If you’re hurt, she’ll try to heal you. What do you need? Like any loving Mother, this Cancer Moon wants to nurture you so that you grow into your Higher Self. Accept that you are loved and watch how you blossom.

Elana Gibeault ~ Cancer Sea Priestess

The Cancer Moon is supported by planets in the other two water signs, forming a grand water trine, which certainly can reduce any stress and tension in our lives. The grand trine can even make us so complacent that we don’t do anything! With the stress of the holidays, this can be exactly what we need. A little self-nurturing goes a long way.

It’s also a great time to do some inner work. Just because we’re not acting in the outer world doesn’t mean we can’t engage with the inner world while we meditate and relax. The Cancer Moon can sense what is needed to feel safe and secure. Jupiter and Mars in Scorpio can help us decided who is most helpful in getting us those things – and who is not. Neptune in Pisces opens us to Spirit through our dreams and imagination. While the Cancer Moon digs deep to feel our needs and Neptune feeds our dreams of a better life, Jupiter and Mars can go after the resources we need to fulfill those needs. 
 
Why not engage in active imagination with these energies. See what they want to tell you. Our unconscious has so much wisdom to share. But like all children, young or middle aged, we very rarely want to listen. 
 
When you work with these planets, they open us to our psychic abilities, so trust your intuitions, trust your heart and trust your gut. Our left brain rationality needs to support these feelings rather than create fear around them.

 

What saves this watery grand trine from stagnating is the Capricorn Sun, along with Saturn, Venus and Pluto in Capricorn. The Sun and Venus take that watery grand trine and turn it into an aspect called a KITE. With Sun/Venus opposite the Moon and connecting energetically with the other water planets, we have the opportunity to use the Capricorn energy to ground our feelings and steady our emotional body. It gives us an outlet for all that water, the ground to pour it into. So that our original Sagittarius New Moon seed may flower. What was your vision for that New Moon?

Capricorn and its ruler, Saturn, are good at structuring things. Especially at this Cancer Full Moon, the Sun can use its Capricorn energy to focus our Cancer feelings into something productive. We can build on them if we’re brave enough and strong enough to believe in our heart’s hope. 
 
This is our chance to re-structure our lives and bring them into alignment with our soul’s purpose. So let your soul sing to you during this Full Moon – as you relax from your New Year’s Eve celebrations. 
 
With Uranus in Aries stationing within 6* of its square to Pluto in Capricorn, we are still in the revolutionary energies that were strongest from 2012-2015. This is the Hero’s Journey phase of their cycle – we have to overcome obstacles in the outer world to ground our vision of peace and freedom (from the 60s) into our society. This will be a peaceful revolution, so it takes time for people to rouse themselves and it has to be world-wide. We are all in this together. Know that you can change your life. Know that we can change our world. It’s all about choice and opportunity.

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 12* Cancer is: A woman nursing a baby, haloed by the light of a single star.* This new child within us is the Divine Child. We each birth this Child when we live with spiritual awareness and compassionate understanding. Our soul’s work is to take part in this spiritual evolution. So nurse your inner child – give it what it needs to grow strong. 

 
The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 12* Capricorn is: In an old diamond mine, a showcase displaying and explaining different crystalline structures.* These crystalline structures are the basic structures of life. Perhaps symbolizing the archetypes, those basic laws of life. We need to reconnect (Venus can help us here) with this most ancient knowledge because our society is sick and in need of restoration. We need to release the past that holds us captive to unhealthy situations, just as we need to let those institutions that no longer serve us die, so that new life can grow up in its place. 
 
Venus is traveling very close to the Sun – but on the far side of the Sun – for the next 54 days. She is treading the underworld path of death and rebirth as she rises as the Evening Star of Wisdom. She takes with her the #metoo energy that has bounded women from around the world – women and children of all races have experience the degradation and fear of sexual assault – because our culture gives men all the power but never the blame of their sexual violence. ‘It’s always the woman’s fault’ is the patriarchal #notme! 
 
Venus will conjunct the Sun and then Pluto on January 8-9, taking her transformation so deep we don’t know how she’ll manifest in us and in the world. Venus will embrace both life (Sun) and death (Pluto) within a few hours of each other, taking that shining solar energy into the depth of inner space – to discover what? And then Pluto communicates to the Sun what Venus is birthing.
 
The Sabian symbol for Venus at 10* Capricorn is: On a sailboat, seamen are feeding a tame albatross.* Venus is the energy that connects us and here she is connecting the human world with the animal world. An Albatross is a sign of good luck to mariners, so feed your luck through compassion and sharing. 
 
And if you’re journeying into deep space with Venus, do not fear. Stay open and make offerings to whatever flies your way. Like the helpful animals in fairy tales, our inner beings can help us.

It’s time to let our emotional intelligence take the lead. We can retreat back into our shell out of fear, choosing the safety and comfort of our old, known life, or we can trust life’s flow as we navigate the changes coming our way.

When Saturn passed into Capricorn on December 19th, it passed over the Galactic Center – the womb of our universe – and seeded us with the new life intentions for the coming age. There’s around a 50 year period (perhaps starting in the 70s) when the Earth’s plane is aligned with the galactic center, so as planets pass from Sagittarius to Capricorn, they are energized by the galactic womb. After that time, the planes will separate. Perhaps we are being seeded by cosmic intelligence with information on how to survive our environmental crisis and create a new type of society – perhaps one that will go out into the stars one day.
 
So play with your vision and listen for messages on how to shape it to your needs. As you know, things take time to grow.

Mercury in Sagittarius connects one last time with Uranus in Aries on Saturday, January 6th. Watch for revelations, insights and changing choices.
Then Mercury reaches the degree it retrograded at on Wednesday, January 10th. That signals the end of the entire Mercury retrograde period. What have you learned about your beliefs and your spiritual practices?
Mercury goes into Capricorn – passing over the Galactic Center – later that same day, January 10th – 11th. Then Mercury conjuncts Saturn on January 12th – 13th . Watch for any dreams or sychronicities that might bring you messages. Perhaps your plans will come into sharper focus now. Let the shape arise from your unconscious – don’t force things. Shape them once they appear if needed.

With Venus traveling so close to the Sun now, they both connect with Neptune in Pisces on January 2nd – 3rd. Venus will connect with Neptune’s message strongly and take it up with the Sun. Then on January 8th they connect with Jupiter in Scorpio, aiding us to see our real goals and connect with people who share them. Later that day, Pluto in Capricorn empowers Mars in Scorpio to really commit to our new life.
On January 9th, the Sun, Venus, Pluto in Capricorn and Mars in Scorpio dance with each other, weaving together their energies and birthing a new Venus energy, one that will raise up the Divine Feminine strongly this year. Venus will emerge from the Sun’s rays as an Evening Star in late February in Pisces. This Venus, like Kuan Yin and Sophia, is wise and compassionate. She will be our guide for the next part of our journey. Open to her Wisdom.
The intensity of these first two weeks of January ends with the Sun and Venus in Capricorn squaring Uranus in Aries on January 14th, sparking our hero’s journey once again to change our lives and change the world. And finally on January 15th, Jupiter in Scorpio energizes Pluto in Capricorn to keep going with his wrecking ball, getting to the root of the problems in our society.
 
Looks like quite an exciting few weeks. What a way to start off 2018!

Connect with heaven’s energies and work with them to download cosmic information. Then trust it, hone it and share it. Remember, we don’t have to do things on our own – we have our tribe to help us. Don’t go it alone anymore. Ask for help.

This is our new beginning. 
May the blessings of new life fill you.
Walk with the Light,
Cathy

*Steve Eardley, The Revised Sabian Symbols.

For the Unknown Self

So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)