January 13: Cancer Full Moon
The Full Moon at 24° Cancer on January 13, conjunct a retrograde Mars, illuminates the puncture we're experiencing to our sense of safety and security. The Sun moving through Capricorn from December 21-Jan 19, asks us to consider the structure of society and foundations of our life.
The Moon is at home in Cancer and we feel nourished and replenished when we stand by the ocean. Any body of running water has a calming effect on our nervous systems and draws us into our emotional truth. The mind quiets as we glimpse infinity gazing out upon a vast horizon that extends past our gaze and the mind's conception.
Cancer is connected to the home and caretaking: where we sleep at night, nourish our bodies, and get our basic needs met. Mars is not happy in Cancer. It's a tough but tender sign and the hot cutting effect of Mars brings severing to the places where we most need protection and peace. Mars retrograde creates a build up of pressure until there is an explosion and we don't have the usual capacity to deal with difficulty.
Uranus in a partile sextile at 23° Taurus is adding heat to this lunation and an unpredictable destabilizing effect. Uranus has been raising awareness of climate disaster since it entered the green earth sign in 2018. Key issues were raised during the conjunctions with Jupiter and Mars in April and July 2024, but we now have an incoming administration of climate crisis deniers as all around us the world burns.
Saturn in Pisces has been raising awareness about issues relating to the scarcity and sustainability of water since it entered in March 2023. We've seen everything from orcas attacking yachts, to deepsea explosions of billionaires, and now, Los Angeles is on fire and the fire hydrants are dry.
People have lost everything: possessions, memories, and shelter. The simultaneous uncontrollable wildfires are the result of climate crisis, and have exposed the exploitation of the prison industrial complex. Local fire departments are under-resourced and prisoners are fighting the blazes. Climate scientists have been warning us for decades, yet there has been a lack of adequate response to create urban environmental resiliency and now we see unprecedented devastation in one of the largest cities in the country.
The Full Moon coincides with the Sun in Capricorn opposition to Mars at 26°12 Cancer on January 15, at the peak of the retrograde cycle, indicating what we are facing now will be active until the conclusion on February 23. This is a blossoming of what was seeded at the end of October/early November during the US presidential election.
Cancer is connected not just with the personal home, but with the nation state that we swear allegiance to defend and which is supposed to protect us. The larger ecosystem we share with the many people who coexist on the land we share. The structure of Capricorn instructs us to behave along certain guidelines, contribute economically to the maintenance of the infrastructure, and, in exchange, expect to reap certain benefits from being part of this whole. Yet the current system is not only failing to support life, it is actively attacking it, near and far.
We are told there is no money to invest in green infrastructure, which would create good jobs and support the working class, yet the Democrats have failed to pass the Green New Deal. Since October 2023, the US has given over $17 billion to Israel's war against Hamas, which has just targeted the people of Palestine, that it claims makes us safer, when in reality over $50k civilians have lost their lives in just over a year (and the number is probably much higher). How is there endless money for weapons and violence but none for sustainable practices that support peace?
We are a world at war and we are going up in smoke. Jupiter in Gemini reminds us that if we can not breathe, we can not live. Issues around airborne diseases, deregulation of technology, and unstable air quality will only be exacerbated once Uranus enters Gemini on July 7.
Animals, children, the elderly, all of Saturn and Luna's children, are breathing that smoke from Gaza to Los Angeles and it will harm them for a long time to come. This is a moment of catastrophe, and if we ever needed a sign to reconsider priorities to ensure the health and well being of future generations, this is it.
Just moving homes causes a deep sense of insecurity and triggers survival issues in humans. Never mind watching it burn down or blow up. These traumas will live on in people's cells for generations. Now more than ever we need healing and community care.
The question of where we are safe is a core motivation that has driven humans for millennia, but despite technological advances, we have not resolved the question of how to co-exist with the earth or each other. Indigenous wisdom espouses living in harmony with the land that supports our life.
We are being betrayed by our leaders claiming to know what's best for the human family. There is supposed to be loyalty and a sense of connection within family, but often people are at their worst with those they share deep ties. Relationships trigger our issues and if we don't commit to doing the work to unpack where and why our emotions got activated, we go into unconscious patterns of behavior that escalate over time.
Emotionally disconnected billionaires may want to start over in cold space but this land is our mother who has loved us for thousands of years and we owe her, ourselves, and each other, so much better than this.
Love to LA and Palestine and everyone losing everything today. We must change to survive. A peaceful, greener world is possible.