The first Full Moon of 2018 reaches maximum phase at 6:24p PST on 1st January 2018 in the sign of Cancer (11.63°). It would be lovely to romanticize this Full Moon as occurring on the first day of the New Year… but in reality, that’s only the case for about 1/3 of the world – 2/3 of the world will already be on day two as the Full Moon reaches maximum phase.
Nevertheless, this IS the first Full moon of 2018, and it will be a “supermoon” (referring to its close proximity to the Earth through its slightly elliptical orbit pattern). The proximity will make its presence a bit more strongly felt than usual…
…which in the case of occurring at the beginning of a New Year may prove to be a good thing.
Full Moons occur when the Sun is opposite the Moon, giving the Moon a full illumination through its radiant light. Opposite the Capricorn 3 Sun, this Cancer Full Moon reflects the Cap Sun’s creative approach to ambition-driven learning and goal achievement, bringing awareness of the presence (or absence) of emotional balance and support to the fore.
Astrologically, Capricorn is known as the “father-figure” or authoritative energy of the Zodiac – goal-oriented, results-driven, and is somewhat notorious for not allowing itself to be swayed by emotional energy. It represents the first and last stage of the practical and pragmatic acquisition and application of our physical and material resources. Through this energy, we learn how to be disciplined and focused on our objectives in order to get certain results. Cap often stifles its own emotional expression (and sometimes, the emotional expressions of others, too) in order to keep its eyes on the prize. It tends to see emotions as distractions from getting things done.
In contrast, Cancer represents the “mother-figure” or nurturing energy of the Zodiac. It also represents the first stage our emotional self-expression, which is actually our personal emotional development. We learn how to be emotionally connected and expressed through the closest/most personal or private relationship connections in our environment (which are usually our connections with family members) when we are infants and young children. Through this energy, we learn how to emotionally express ourselves through our early emotional interactions with others. In some ways, it reflects who and how we see others as family. That sounds like a wonderful notion, but it also depends greatly on how we have each experienced family.
For those whom have had positive and healthy family connections, we tend to approach others with a large degree of warmth and welcome. Yet for those whom have had a challenging or abusive family environment, these connections could be approached with detachment and disdain, or maybe even the opposite – a desperate longing for connection resulting in emotionally dependent or co-dependent tendencies.
We also must remember that this emotional energy is reflecting the light from our collective and individual pursuits of our ambitions and objectives. Therefore, this 2018 Cancer Full Moon will also reveal how emotionally invested we are in the pursuits of our goals and ambitions AND what kind of emotional support may be necessary for us individually and collectively to achieve those goals.
I call the Cancer-Capricorn polarity the “Axis of Intention”, and the sneaky secret about this axis is that both ends – Cancer and Capricorn – share the same desire for their opposing expressions:
A desire to be loved and respected.
This desire will show up differently for different people.
- For some, this will look like breaking away from your emotionally (co)dependent relationships.
- For some, this will look like breaking through your icy walls of emotional protection or defense.
- For some, this will look like allowing your emotional vulnerability to be seen.
- For some, this will look like admitting that you’re pursuing worldly success in order to gain the emotional approval of others.
- For some, this will be allowing worldly success in the face of your fear that you’ll lose the emotional connection with a person or with the people you love if your success surpasses theirs.
Both sides reveal a desire to be loved and/or respected by the people privately closest to them, or to be loved and/or respected by society and/or the public-at-large, or in some cases, both. Most of us may not be aware of how emotionally invested we are in our accomplishment or our failure to achieve our goals, and most of us may not realize that it’s usually our emotional needs which may be driving those ambitions.
That said, this 2018 Cancer Full Moon brings an opportunity for us to gain awareness and clarity about our emotional motives and how they may be influencing our personal and social goals and intentions before those goals and intentions take hold during the 2018 Capricorn New Moon Lunar Eclipse on 16th January.
The transits to this 2018 Cancer Full Moon will assist us in awakening to these emotional motives so we can assess their effect on our goals and intentions as the New Year begins.
First of all, Venus in Capricorn (9.92°) will be within conjunction orb of the Capricorn Sun opposite the Cancer Moon at the time of maximum phase. This will increase the awareness of relationship/partnership interaction when it comes to the pursuit of one’s goals and ambitions.
- Do you and your partner share the same or similar goals and objectives? Do your goals and objectives complement those of your partner and vice-versa?
- Does your partner encourage you to pursue and achieve your goals and objectives?
- Are your partner(s) distracting or obstructing you from your pursuit and achievement of your goals and objectives?
- Are your partners in relationship with you for love, for status, or for opportunity?
The Capricorn Venus-Sun conjunction opposite the Cancer Moon will actually make it easier for us to see the emotional dynamics in play because most of our emotional dynamics are created in and/or played out through our relationships of all kinds with others. This 2018 Cancer Full Moon will not only help us realize which goals we are truly emotionally invested in and which objectives we may not be emotionally invested in at all… but also which relationships support our pursuit of our emotionally-invested goals, and which relationships may take us away or distract us from that pursuit.
Next, Neptune in Pisces (11.94°) is trine the Cancer Moon and sextile the Venus-Sun conjunction at the time of maximum phase, bringing emotional empathy and compassion into the mix. This enhances the emotional sensitivity in the matters at hand, yet it also brings a question of whether or not your family, partner(s), and/or any of the people closest to you in your life truly support your pursuit of your dreams and ideals. Do they earnestly believe in your ability to pursue and achieve your dreams? Are they as emotionally invested in your dreams as you are? And does it even matter to you whether or not they truly believe in you or your dreams, or does it only matter that they support your pursuit of whatever goals you are trying to achieve?
Then there’s also a near-Grand Trine configuration with Mars in Scorpio as well (14.85°) – Cancer Moon trine Pisces Neptune trine Scorpio Mars. This reveals that extreme actions may be taken in order to demand proof of unconditional support and/or love. The question is… is genuine feeling or love really present? Or is it just an illusion of love that is being given in order to fulfill another, more ambitious objective? And again, does it really matter to the one who is seeking it?
This latter of the three transits is where I am both hopeful and concerned about the energy this 2018 Cancer Full Moon brings to setting the tone of the year ahead.
We need to be aware of both directions this energy could go and flow.
- Are we really creating societal goals and objectives which are compassionate and respectful of each other and other people’s needs?
- Or are we creating societal goals and objectives which disrespect and disregard emotional connection – or worse, fake emotional connections – in order to prioritize our individual and/or collective societal successes?
- Are we falling for inauthentic emotional connections because we are so desperate for emotional connection in any form?
- Or do we believe that if we stick with something long enough we can achieve our goal(s), whether those goals are societal status objectives and/or genuine emotional connection with another or others? And does this “commitment” reveal the quality of our own emotional attachments?
My hope is that this 2018 Cancer Full Moon opens the door to authentic and compassionate emotional connections which are supportive of everyone being emotionally interconnected in healthy and positively encouraging ways, and that this inspires us to open our hearts and bring more emotional awareness into our practical ambitions, goals, and objectives. I hope we can recognize that both the emotional and pragmatic elements are necessary and important to the betterment of humanity.
We’ve got to care about one another if we’re going to advance together.
The Full Moon occurs on a numerological 4 universal day for the Americas – a day which encourages stability, safety, security, and stubbornness… while the rest of the world experiences the Full Moon on a 5 universal day – a day of change, variety, versatility, and adaptability. this indicates to me that the majority of the world will be ready for this shift in emotional awareness, while the Americas will likely be resistant to this evolution of emotional experience. This is in a 3 universal month of growth and expansion through exchanges of ideas and information; and in the burgeoning energy of an 11 universal year of inspiration and illumination which encourages individual contributions to the collective whole of community, indicating a growing awareness of the light that exists within each of us that can benefit all of us.
The effects of this 2018 Cancer Full Moon will be felt for three days before and after maximum phase, meaning from 29th December 2017 through 4th January 2018.
Thank you for reading and sharing Signs and Numbers. Until next post…
~Light, Love, and Blessings,
Grace
