Moon-light
On June 28, the new moon in Cancer will call upon us to deeply explore, track and heal the feelings of shame, rejection, and guilt we’ve struggled with for many months.
This lunation lands on Lilith at the exact moment of her tightest embrace with Jupiter (God) in the square she started to form in March. This is not an energy we are unfamiliar with. This square started in 2019, peaked in 2020 and 2021, visiting 4 distinct parts of our life, and we are now in its last manifestation, pitting our individuality and freedom against a sense of belonging and the decisions of a group.
Shame of who we are or aren’t, what we have or haven’t, what we have said or haven’t, what we have felt or haven’t.
Shame for what we have lost.
Guilt for letting the situation last and crystalize, for not reacting.
Rejection and isolation (of our own making) as a result.
You may have accepted this feeling, tried to ignore it, deeply repressed it or been overwhelmed by it.
The events leading up to this feeling will have seen you being overconfident, reckless, arrogant, tactless, careless, overstretching yourself, and believing that you are entirely responsible and deserving of those thoughts and situations.
This situation has exacerbated our vulnerability, either depleting our emotional or material sense of security a little more. Though we’ve lived in this space, we have learned it doesn’t serve us well.
In the absolute darkness of these short nights, we are being given a chance to revisit some of our traumas, ask for healing and manifest a healthier sense of emotional security.
This new moon expects us to show lucidity, courage, and vulnerability by fully reconnecting with all our feelings and instincts, standing for our values, and loved ones, but also better channeling the rage that has popped up in various parts of our life and is now reaching the collective.
We are all – women AND men – being challenged to look deeply into the archetypes of Lilith and Eve to realize the trappings and consequences of the behaviors we adopt when caring and protecting.
The answer certainly implies a sense of sacrifice when facing our responsibilities and standing for what we deeply believe in.
Or can we continue to sacrifice who we really are for the sake of maintaining an increasingly toxic and damaging norm?
This is a reflection and ceremonial moment that we will need to complement on July 13. The Full Moon in Capricorn will close out this cycle with an equally deep release that we should enable by letting go of the past, forgiving those who have hurt us, or tried to control us–but most importantly ourselves–if we genuinely want this sense of security to build strong roots and protect us later.
Neptune, the cosmic womb, the Elysian promised land, is also getting stationary retrograde in Pisces over this new moon, resuming its internal erosive and dissipative influence set to peak mid-September. This is a perfect period to reclaim the parts of your soul you had long suppressed and forgotten to be able to survive, as well as to investigate your delusions, re-member and heal.
The New Moon is perfectly semi-sextile Venus, indicating that the guidance of this full moon comes second to eclipses. But also, that many might be too busy seeking comfort in indulgences to alleviate the deeper emotions than to fully facilitate the healing needed.
Exactly square Jupiter, it points to the internal conflict we are likely to contend with:
on one side being blessed with a positive and enjoyable time over the coming two to four weeks
and on the other the absolute need to enjoy the present blessings with moderation while continuing to show discipline, care, and respect.
With Mars about to slowdown in Taurus on July 5, this is the perfect breeding ground for procrastination and laziness.
Our practical advice:
1 focus on FEWER tasks
2 under commit–the opposite is more likely and will put you in troubled water, so stick a post it on your screen
3 go slow but get a few things done, if possible, be more physical
4 do not feel bad about allocating more time for fun and pleasure, if you challenge yourself in some way
But let’s not forget that this Moon is set in her home sign of Cancer and is particularly strong.
You may wonder what is currently at stake?
As our sense of security has been so abused and eroded in recent months, as chaos continues to gain ground, as we are asked more than ever to change and evolve, the work required keeps on reactivating very difficult feelings associated to two major existential traumas (Cancer): separation (Neptune) and rejection (Lilith).
Sun (our consciousness), Moon (Eve) and Lilith all meet during this lunation. Exactly squaring Jupiter in Aries.
We are being challenged to face our fears and courageously fight for our individual beliefs, existence and rights…but how does that relate to Eve and Lilith?
Both are women, both are mothers, both have been labeled sinful, both are uncompromising, but one walked free and the other submitted to the weight of tradition, sacrificed herself and accepted the patriarchal narrative.
Lilith was the first man’s equal, born out of the same mud. according to Adam (yeah still searching for what is dirtier mud) She refused to submit and blindly obey and left Adam though she knew him to be complementary to her. Coerced by God into coming back at the risk of seeing her children become mortal and die, she did not fold and watched her children die. Finally betrayed and doomed by God, she was to become the witch, seductress, stealer of semen, and children killer archetype. That is the patriarchal version generations lived by before ours, this is no longer what we understand of it.
Eve was Adam’s second wife, conceived out of Adam’s rib by God to know who she ought to respect. She’s convinced by a snake to bite into an apple from the tree of knowledge and gets humans to be expelled from the garden of Eden, realizing the differences that stands between men and women, right and wrong and having to experience the harsh realities of life. Eve remains as the “first (edited) woman”, the mother of humanity, the ultimate sinner archetype.
Eve in many ways has been reduced across generations to a Cancerian profile even if Lilith very often lurks in the Cancerians’ shadow.
Cancerians are usually defined as loyal, protective, intuitive, and caring. On the bad side, they are overly sensitive, moody, and vindictive. Now read this sentence again replacing Cancerians with mothers.
The Moon rules the sign of Cancer. This luminary represents our body, emotions, habits, memory, sense of security and… mother.
The Mothering role consists of actively caring for and protecting one’s progeny, ensuring that the baby’s, infant’s, and child’s needs are attended to. More than feeding her baby, a term more akin to the physical world of Taurus, a mother nurtures her baby, making sure that body, mind, and soul (the 3 first signs of the Zodiac preceding Cancer) are being fulfilled for optimal growth, but also vigilantly and uncompromisingly watches over the elimination of all dangers.
All this stems from the fact that a baby is born in a harsh inhospitable world and needs temporary support until he or she can truly be self-sufficient.
Mothering is therefore a reaction to a traumatic event, the result of the separation with the great mother and the need to be dependent before we can fly autonomously.
With a new moon in Cancer, we are therefore invited to manifest the elements of our life that are helping us to regain this sense of security and belonging: parents, our family, the family we created, a home, a tribe, a land, a nation.
But we also use this opportunity to check within whether we still feel nurtured and continue to grow and evolve now that our parents have fulfilled their mission and we are responsible for ourselves.
Cancer also relates to traumas and traumatic events, linked to separation and heartbreaks. The broken heart of a mother being separated from her baby, or the earthshattering cry of a baby separated from their mother’s chest.
Separation is a central theme for Cancerians who struggle to let go, forget, and forgive, crystalizing their defensive morale into something very damaging but so celebrated: codes of honor.
We emerge from our mother’s body, the protective container (Moon/Cancer) within which we were even more deeply guarded and sustained, suspended in the womb (a state of Neptune).
With Neptune stationary in the sky simultaneously, we get a double dose of this wound of separation as it’s also the archetypal cosmic womb.
The amniotic liquid within which we experienced peace, warmth, oneness before emerging into individuality. This memory triggers a fundamental longing in our consciousness, provoking a desire to fuse with something again. More insidiously, the same principle gets us to suffer and experience pain for believing that we stand separated from it and isolated from others.
The Cancer stage, being protected and nurtured by our parents and the tribe, is a safe buffer stage during which we do not have to worry about too much and can often become nostalgic of.
The reality is that the fusion –or feeling of bliss–we experience through external means (relational or chemical) can only be temporary.
Changing our state of consciousness, purging our chakras, slowing down our breath, and distributing our energy is much more likely to deliver a long-lasting experience of cosmic unity than any other escapist or addictive quest. Anything less lacks a multidimensional nature and it’s best we nip it in the bud.
The experience of our separate reality will however drive us to fall back into the illusion that we are separated, isolated and enemies, –man’s greatest addiction of all–as opposed to united and infinite mirrors of a greater cosmic intelligence who gave us a free will to bring the confusion to its climax.
Strong Neptunian transits will also very often get us stuck into believing that we are either a victim, a rescuer, or a perpetrator. Creating addictions, deep codependences, and power leaking relationships by the same token.
A higher price is put on the ease of the familiar, the knowing of “belonging” and the security of a community than on being yourself but having to walk alone.
The urge for self-preservation dominates over threats of violence and control over finances, relationships, and autonomy.
Being comfortable knowing the power dynamics and enacting a victim role skirting your responsibility.
Upholding what we believe to be “right” by the same community that is also suffering and in fear.
Today we may care for and feel we have responsibilities towards our friends, family, lover, children, co-workers… We feel like we would fail them or stop protecting them if we were to follow that route, we also doubt our own capabilities and make the obstacles much bigger than they probably are, so we maintain an increasingly unbearable status quo.
That was until Jupiter now comes to sting the need for freedom, individuality, new shores in all of us and helps us to deal with our most paralyzing fears, imbuing us with the necessary courage to open up to our Lilith up to the end of the summer.
Lilith is no less a woman than Eve, she’s experienced the same predicaments and internal conflicts. She enjoyed and was equally attached to her comfort, the known and familiar and absolutely loved her children.
Her self-love and self-respect were, however, greater.
She knew that by complying with the idea that she was not Adam’s equal, this would undermine her and get her to become numb to life, constantly being limited, controlled, and edited.
She listened to her instincts and left.
Lilith is that deep intelligence from your body that knows what is good for you.
Lilith represents our capacity to reconnect with our deep self-preserving primitive nature, get attuned to our instinctual creative feminine and flow with the cosmic cycles.
Lilith is Eve embracing Neptune again. Mysticism blending with our true being again.
The invitation is to see beyond the realms of false morals for neither Lilith nor Eve is fundamentally right or wrong and both are required to coexist.
On the contrary, we now have the opportunity to realize:
That the Cancerian tribe can be Ev-il and too much nostalgia can bring us back into darker ages.
That the community is only as strong as the individual support it receives from all of us, and we all have a say into choosing our own tribe, family or community.
That there are values and consequences worth parting with our original community, whatever the costs.
That sacrifices have limits, after which comes rebellion.
That retaliating with violence upholds the exact system we are rebelling against. At its best, rage can be an internal firestarter to unlock, release and liberate us from difficult and traumatic situations. Harnessing that energy into birthing a creative expression that sustains and nurtures us supports us far better.
That we might not immediately see it this way, but just like Lilith has with hindsight no reason to feel ashamed of herself or guilty of anything, we have actually no reason to be either. But WHERE IT HURTS IN OUR LIFE IS WHERE WE ARE REQUESTED TO STOP LISTENING TO OTHERS, SHOW COURAGE AND FOLLOW OUR DEEPER INSTINCTS.
That shame and guilt are a construct of the ego mind aimed at keeping you down and away from doing what you should really be doing.
That grieving and mourning what we have left is a necessary and healthy part of the process.
That we must accept responsibility.
That we must recommit to what’s important.
The New Moon in Cancer helps us grow our awareness and be clear on what we need to thrive (first points).
The Full Moon in Capricorn will help us with the latter 3.
Astrologically, it is unsurprising with the USA currently in their Pluto return, the issues of nurturing and safety are being challenged at this time. After all, the US like France are a Cancer sun nation.
In January 1973 when Roe vs Wade was voted a few days after a Lunar Eclipse in Cancer, Chiron, the wounded healer, was then attending to Eris, the repressed Feminine, for the last three years and Neptune healed Lilith with compassion. Jupiter was then working with Uranus to bring freedom to the masses.
Today, Saturn (order, institution & older generation) challenges Uranus (freedom, equality & youth).
48 years later, the same Eris is now being dared by Saturn, the patriarchal institution, but do they know who they are dealing with?
For this time, Eris has now awakened in the collective unconscious and joined forces with her formidable husband Pluto…
As Pluto seeks to deeply transform these institutions, we are of course placed into a position in which to address them more directly, after years of avoiding direct actions. In a last attempt at power for a dying regime, they are reprimanding the Lilith to force the Eve archetype on any uterus having person.
At this time, we are all faced with our own guilt, shame and isolation as we reconcile our codependency on institution that is supposedly for the people; our own inactivity when it affected any woman and just taking up the call when it affects all women at its most detrimental; our own ideals of the feminine in all of us and where we suppress in order to back a society built on these roles.
Though we may be on the darkest timeline, it is a path we chose through inaction. Healing these darker emotions means addressing them head on and channeling righteous rage through the creation of something new. Hopefully at the very least a solidarity for every human being equal and a beginning path of healing the feminine in all of us.
We hope you’ll care too and find the courage to stand up for the truer you and better tomorrows.
In evolution
J&G
