I write today on my front porch as thunder rumbles through dark clouds massing in the west and a light rain falls. Lightning and rain are great for summer gardens, but this storm may bring hail, which can swiftly destroy summer crops, especially soft fruits and delicate flowers.
In the last few days, in Texas and here in North Carolina, we’ve experienced deadly, destructive floods, which happen when the amount of water, essential for life and often so cooling and nurturing, overwhelms the containers made for it, whether those containers are natural waterways or constructed reservoirs and channels.
This Full Moon with the Sun in Cancer and Moon in Capricorn illuminates the vital importance of balance between the flows of water and structures of earth that life needs to grow and sustain itself safely.
The Sun in the middle decan of Cancer is in a place of nurture and containment. New life, tender and vulnerable, needs the safety and security of protected spaces.
The Tarot card associated with the second decan of Cancer is the Three of Cups, one of the happiest of cards, picturing (in the Rider Waite deck) three women dancing, their raised arms entwined as they hold up three golden cups. This image of happiness relies on mutual care, mutual support, and also celebration.
In the middle decan of Capricorn, the Moon finds herself in barren lands and tough circumstances that make building those nurturing structures challenging.
The Tarot card here is the Three of Pentacles, the card of the master craftsman. With the Three of Pentacles, we create structures that are safe containers to withstand difficult circumstances and protect what we’re trying to nurture.
This Capricorn Moon rules the Sun in Cancer, doubling up the significations of nurture and protection. She is also out of bounds, charting her own course through the difficult terrain she finds herself in.
Out of bounds planets act outside the control and guidance of the Sun, our star. Their natural qualities can be exaggerated. Depending on their sign and placement, they can follow erratic or unusual paths to reach their goals.
We might find this Full Moon to be more emotionally intense than we expect from a Moon in dour Capricorn. We may find ourselves mourning the past, looking back to a time when life felt simpler, more stable or protected. We may feel heightened anxieties about current structures meant to protect us that now feel threatened–or threatening.
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There’s a strong configuration in this chart not linked directly to the Full Moon that is definitely part of the picture.
Uranus has just entered Gemini and is conjunct Venus. Saturn remains conjunct Neptune in Aries. Pluto remains in early Aquarius. Pluto trines Uranus–Venus, while Saturn–Neptune sextiles both sides.
This triangle holds and reflects the nature of our time in history. Pluto arrived definitively in Aquarius in November. Saturn and Neptune are still settling into Aries. Uranus has just arrived in Gemini.
With Fire and Air, we know we’re looking at movement with speed. Whatever has been happening, will happen faster. Our deepest values, our sense of who we are, and the real possibility of radical change are linked and actively influencing each other.
We’re facing serious difficulties. We hope for positive, lasting change and a brighter future. We know there are too many variables in play and outcomes are uncertain.
None of that makes this Full Moon feel good. Cancer and Capricorn are signs that want steadiness and security. Each one is willing to accept necessary change, but neither seeks it out. These two prefer tradition and solidity.
Yet the Sun and Moon are not without support, or at least, guidance. The Full Moon is part of a Rectangle aspect pattern.
Sometimes called the Mystic Rectangle, this pattern includes two oppositions which trine and sextile each other. While oppositions can bring challenge, the trines and sextiles offer support, opening channels for action and understanding.
The Rectangle in this chart includes the Nodes of the Moon and also Mars.
The Moon’s Nodes are of course always opposite. The North Node aligns with what we desire, what we’re reaching out to grab, while the South Node is a place of completion and letting go.
Currently, the North Node is in Pisces. The South Node is in Virgo, widely conjunct Mars.
The Full Moon and the Nodes + Mars form the X in the center of the rectangle. The Moon trines the South Node and Mars, and sextiles the North. The Sun does the opposite, trining the North Node and sextiling the South Node and Mars.
(This is actually easier to see than to explain. Check the charts with this post.)
This connection between a Full Moon in cardinal signs and the Nodes in mutable signs first serves to soften the edges. Cardinal signs, where the Sun the Moon are, feel a drive to get things underway and show progress. The mutable signs, where the Nodes are, are flexible–if it doesn’t happen today, well, maybe tomorrow will be better.
The Nodes of the Moon are an axis of fate, but not fate as doom. There’s no sense here of a boom being lowered, or clocks ticking down to a deadline when the bomb goes off.
The Nodes have a wider sense of life as contingent. We as individuals don’t have direct control over all aspects of our own lives, let alone the fate of the world.
We are part of the stream of life. We want things, as the North Node shows us, and we’re ready to go after them. We also need to let things go, with the South Node, realizing this too is part of the plan.
Connecting the long clock of fate to the drive of Cancer and Capricorn to nurture and protect allows us to slow down.
The support offered runs both ways–well, all ways.
So, if the Sun and Moon hold too tight, protect too hard, the North Node in Pisces says, take the long view. Look at the stars. See how they shine. We don’t have to do it all today.
On the other hand, if we land with the North Node in Pisces, saying, get me outta here, I’m ready for oblivion, the Sun and Moon say, we have loved ones to care for. We cannot abandon our communities.
The South Node and Mars in Virgo say, sure, let’s do something, but make it small, focused, and directly practical. The South Node says, let go of big ideas of threat and need and what must be done. Mars in Virgo says, look, we can eat even the biggest monster in very small bites.
Yes, times are challenging. This Full Moon may highlight what’s at risk, what we’re fighting for, and how much we want the world to be ok.
This is exactly what we’d expect with a Sun in Cancer opposite a Moon in Capricorn, especially when they share a chart with all the big changes represented by Pluto, Saturn–Neptune, and Uranus–Venus.
Yet the connection to the Nodes of the Moon brings a wider perspective and longer timeline.
What we can look for in the illumination of this Full Moon in Capricorn is how to calibrate. What do we hold on to? What can we let go of? And which small steps can we take each day to reach our goals?
