On Tuesday evening (in Saskatoon), we experience a new moon, the regular meeting of the Sun and Moon (from our Earthly vantage point). Symbolically, with the Moon as receptive and the Sun as active, each new moon is a seed. Planted in the appropriate conditions, a seed cracks open and then develops a root system, which gives it the strength to break through the top layer of soil to experience the heat and energy of the Sun, where it can continue to grow into its fullest expression.
Tomorrow’s new moon is in the early degrees of Cancer. Cancer is popularly known as the sign of emotions and the sign of the mother. When we just use simple key words like ‘emotion’ or ‘nurture’, the deep and multifaceted stories of each sign become one dimensional.
Cancer is an area of the sky rich in stars. The receptive, fertile qualities of the sign thus have astronomical roots. Cancer is a cardinal sign, meaning it initiates the new season of summer. Cancer is a water sign, meaning it moves and flows.
What kind of waters initiate, move, and flow? Tiny streams that feed larger bodies of water. Natural springs, that effortlessly and continuously pour themselves on to the Earth.
We might think of Cancer as the tiny webs of water that connect the larger more obvious bodies of water. Without these connecting waterways, some of our larger waters would dry up.
Through this lens, Cancer is a sign of matrices, of family. The intimate and subtle links that connect and, hopefully, nourish and sustain us.
Cancer is also the crab. The tender body of the crab is contained within its protective shell. Containment and protection are key functions of the mother.
Cancer as family, as clan holds us and sustains us.
Crabs live in a variety of habitats, including the intertidal and subtidal zones. The intertidal zone is a place of fluctuation, sometimes above water and sometimes underwater. Like the Moon, the ruling body of the sign of Cancer, the intertidal zone fills and empties, fills and empties.
The intertidal zone is home to many fascinating creatures. Each of these creatures develops different structures and behaviours that enable flexibility in a changing environment. Barnacles anchor themselves to rocks. Sea stars stay in tide pools when the tide is low. Other organisms bury themselves in the sand when it is too hot or dry.
This changing, fluctuating zone of where ocean meets land is thus richly fertile in its ability to house and nurture a diversity of species.
We might think of Cancer, and her queen Luna, through this lens. Fertile and changeable, yet rhythmic in these changes.
At this particular new moon in Cancer, the Sun and Moon join Lilith, the lunar apogee, and Ceres, the largest body of the asteroid belt that lives between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Lilith and Ceres represent two other layers or faces of the mother archetype.
While we might think of Cancer as mother in the most fundamental or biological sense - that which holds, contains, sustains, and nourishes - Lilith and Ceres point to other maternal qualities.
Lilith, the lunar apogee, is not a physical body or planet in the sky. Rather, Black Moon Lilith is the point on the moon’s orbit that is at any given time the most distant from Earth. To illustrate, when full moons are conjunct the lunar apogee, they appear smaller in the sky when compared with full moons conjunct the lunar perigee (the point of the lunar orbit closest to Earth).
So this new moon in Cancer is occurring as far from Earth as it can be.
The myth of Lilith is deep, dark, and rich and I encourage you to explore her. Lilith is frequently conceptualized as the rejected and suppressed aspects of the feminine. Rage, non-verbal instinct, and devouring sexuality are themes of Lilith.
In some ancient time and places, Lilith was viewed as a demon who killed babies in their sleep, and as a succubus who visited adult men to steal their semen and virility.
Thus Lilith might be seen as a contrast to the good mother. The ‘anti’ mother or terrible mother, if we allude to Erich Neumann’s work.
If we remove value judgements and think of Lilith in terms of basic process and function, we might think of the menstrual phase of women’s cycles. That which rejects (if an embryo is unsuitable it is rejected and bled out), that which releases, that which re-sets.
If closeness to Earth makes us think of life, than distance from Earth makes us think of death.
During a new moon, the moon is invisible. Lilith is far and distant. There is something hidden and concealed at this new moon - there always is as a seed conceals the blueprint for the plant - but this new moon feels particularly hidden with the influence of Lilith.
The activating and clarifying force of the Sun perhaps has the power to stir the hidden Lilith qualities, to help them arise in our bodies.
I see this as descriptive of the abortion dialogue, particularly of women calling for women to own our innate reproductive rights, in contrast to depending on a system or authority to ‘grant’ us our reproductive rights.
I encourage you to check out Demetra George’s writings on Ceres (and the other feminine asteroids) to examine yet another face of the mother gazing at us over the course of this lunation.