Cancer New Moon: July 17
The sign of Cancer corresponds to the Chariot card in the tarot Major Arcana, and 2023 is the year of the Chariot. The New Moon at 24°56 Cancer at 2:32 PM on July 17, is a Chariot lunation in the astro season and year of the Chariot. That’s one fast car.
The Chariot is cardinal energy that signifies initiating action; being taken from a familiar place out into the unknown. It comes at the end of a natural progression in the tarot where we complete a process of maturation. The Chariot represents a big move, new job, leaving for college, or simply the universe carrying us from one frame of reference into a completely different point of view. It's often a tangible experience with concrete tasks, like packing up the house, but since Cancer is a water sign, the shift can also relate to the feelings realm. Being willing to break with how you’ve related to people in the past. Becoming more willing to keep the focus on yourself as an autonomous being with independent needs and wants. Juggling the demands of family with your own personal care is a priority for Cancer season. The Chariot indicates you are ready for that change.
In the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, the Chariot is depicted as traveling away from the gates of a city steered by a golden haired driver being led by two sphinxes. This is card VII (7) and the culmination of the maturation process from child to young adult. We emerge into the world during Cancer season, Summertime in the Northern Hemisphere, and get to show everyone who we are and what we’re about. More modern interpretations of the Chariot include a beautiful woman walking two miniature elephants in a dystopic circus from The Next World Tarot by Christy C. Road. A roller derby bruiser looking tough but tender from The Fifth Spirit Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess, and a scooter rider coming down on a rainbow being flanked by two small dogs in The Queer Tarot by Ash and Chess. Which Chariot driver do you identify with? Who do you most feel like right now? Is your own chariot equipped to go the distance?
Often the Chariot indicates an exciting time but one that is busy and overloaded with emotion. The Chariot’s focus is on outer movement. The first question to consider under this Cancer New Moon is where does the universe want you to go? The Moon is at home in Cancer and our intuitive abilities are amplified in this sensitive sign of the empath. We’re asked to trust the wisdom of the body, and practice the position of the High Priestess by listening to the guidance we receive when we go within. The Chariot New Moon is the time to set intentions for where we’d like to end up by the Cancer Full Moon on December 26, 2023. Your chariot is designed to take you there.
In manifesting magic we’re taught that the process of getting there is the quality of being there. The interplay of the Chariot, the dynamic between outer and inner, is honoring the direction the universe wants to take you and how you feel about letting go into the unknown. Big feelings are present at the exciting moment the Chariot invokes. There is an inner quality of being ready to move onto something new, competing with the longing and loyalty to what you’ve always known. It’s exhilarating when something new arises but blocks can also come up. The fears and self-sabotaging behaviors that keep up from progressing. What does your emotional landscape tell you about the nature of the experience you’re having? That’s the key to unlocking the lesson of the Chariot.
The challenge of the Chariot is learning to trust the flow while staying engaged with the process; that the ocean waves will carry you back to shore but also swimming when necessary. The Chariot asks us to surrender to the larger unfolding while also taking responsibility for our part in making it happen. We don’t make the car go, but we do have to fill the tank and punch the right address into the GPS. We’re co-creators with the universe and if we don’t play our part, nothing can happen.
The mastery of the Chariot is how do you want to get there? What is the emotional quality you wish to experience when you arrive, and how can you cultivate that today? We can’t alter the terrain on the map but we can adjust our expectations for the kind of day we have. We can suffer and struggle or we can let go and drift. One option is exhausting and the other gives no illusion of control but is a lot more gentle. The Chariot encourages us to tend to what is ours with loving care and let that be enough. Everything else is just scenery flying by.
Of course, the boulders on your path may feel a tad too familiar this lunation. The Cancer New Moon is opposite a retrograde Pluto who has returned to Capricorn for it’s grand finale. The Chariot indicates we are ready to launch, but Pluto has thrown us one last Underworld challenge. Notice your reaction to this interference: are you aggravated by this delay, does it feel like one more unnecessary hardship? Pluto is finishing up the work it started in Capricorn in 2008. Since then, the Cap area of life has been bulldozed and demolished. New life has begun to sprout but Pluto promises true transformation so anything we’re still clinging to wil be crushed.
Pluto will dance across the boundary of Aquarius and Capricorn several times until November 2024. During this transition period, we’re encouraged to do the deep work in both areas of our life (consult your natal chart or local astrologer if you’re not sure what that means). Pluto can actually serve as a bridge between the greater responsibility we’ve been asked to take on in Capricorn and the structure we’re being called to develop in Aquarius. This is the last Cancer season opposite Pluto in Capricorn in our lifetimes. The bones of what we’ve lost and buried are present at this moment of peak fertility and abundance. If you let it, Pluto will help you move forward from this Chariot lunation with true gratitude and enough humility to meet the Venus retrograde in Leo without shrinking from the spotlight.