FULL MOON IN CANCER
A moon of FERVENT FEELING
Observations January 13th 2025
Still life sketches
CANCER themes: family, home, nurturing, safety, belonging, being enough, mothering, foundations, emotions, receptivity + security.
The Full Moon in Cancer peaked at 00:26 on Jan 14th, Athens time. She was bobbing around, visible in the early evening, and it felt like she meant business coming out as early as she did. The Moon in Cancer is in its home sign, and it feels very comfortable with feelings. This moon is amplified with a conjunction (sitting adjacent) to Mars, making all those feelings bigger and bolder and more accessible than ever. The Moon and Mars are making a T-square* with Chiron (the asteroid known as the ‘wounded healer’) drawing out some old, familiar emotional patterns to the surface.
All the Cancer themes are present in our lives right now: family, home, nurturing, safety, belonging, being enough, mothering, foundations, emotions, receptivity, and security.
My family and I just moved to Greece, to the island of Syros, to be precise, and every beauty you could imagine is pacing alongside us. We’re here for three months with a World School called Boundless Life. It’s a new start to a new Gregorian year. With all significant transitions, we have had emotional tugs for home. We notice the absence of creature comforts that give us a sense of security and safety.
For my oldest son (with a Cancer ascendant, Moon in 2nd house), a need to define his sleeping sanctuary with pillows, stuffies, and a blanket from home reflects his deep inner need for sleep safety, cozy surroundings, and marking his territory (crabs, especially males, are very territorial!). He got very upset when there was a potential need to swap beds. To him, his bedroom is his place of comfort, and he fills it with the few belongings he’s brought with him. My younger son pines for our dog back home, who offers him emotional regulation. His body couldn’t catch up with all the changes, and he got sick, primarily, I think, from the sad-heart feeling of homesickness. My body is up to its usual tricks of freaking out when it’s not in a familiar environment, without familiar food and familiar soil. My body doesn’t catch up to my mind’s delight in travel for weeks, so the symptoms of exhaustion and digestion issues are served up.
As I see it, an antidote to this moon is to simply sit, watch, and experience its unpredictable yet familiar qualities…
So, in the early hours, I ask my body how best to sit, watch, and feel all the feelings, and I always sense/hear* “Get connected to nature.” This is a familiar message from my unseen family. Back home, I walk the dog every morning in the moisture-rich comfort of the tall Doug Firs. Here I have to search for the connection to nature as best I can.
Despite being in the foreign realms of a town, we do have a blessed rooftop and a balcony that catches all the warm, early morning sun. We also have what we are referring to as ‘the turret,’ a look-out space at the top of the stairs that leads up to the rooftop. There is a little desk under a window looking out over the town to the port. It's a tumultuous break to the day of the Full Moon of fervent feeling, the weather uncannily mirroring how I imagine a ‘Cancer-themed day’ to look like: a heaving, grey sea thronging the edges of the island, and the birds struggle to fly against the mighty wind. Things are getting displaced, and molecules shift. This type of weather changes the environment rapidly and, with it, the mood of the people. It brings us indoors, a place where Cancer resides comfortably, in the protective, nurturing hearth space of themselves, family, and familiarity. A place of warmth, beautiful table settings, good food and cheer if Cancer has anything to do with it. I welcome these types of days as a person who relishes rest and often needs an excuse to do so.
I pause this morning thinking of all the fire refugees in LA right now, folks experiencing deep trauma and loss and the ripple effect of their communities, friends, and families who experience the shocking and quick loss of what they know as home. I know from experience that finding a home inside ourselves is easier said than done on some days.
Perhaps this Moon invites us to find a speck of nurturance inside our hearts, a different kind of home space?
I feel familiarly marooned and comforted by the surrounding crashing sea, having swapped one island life for another. Slowly, slowly, I trust we will adjust. Like a trap door about to open, the peachy pink morning light edges around the thick clouds, and to the north, a grey-blue light begins to cover the town, moody but refreshing.
* A T-square involves three planets, two in opposition, forming a straight line, and a third at a right angle, forming a square. The squared planet, in this case, the asteroid Chiron, is called the focal planet, and is the driving force in the planetary combination, meaning its themes are going to be the focus.
* My experience of receiving messages from other dimensions, or spirit, or guides or whatever i’m connecting to is not like someone talking to me but more of a knowing message that comes in and up through my body, rather than down from something “above”. My best way of describing is is "‘sense/hearing’.