Full Moon in Cancer
WELCOME
Hello everyone, and happy new moon!
Welcome to Moon Moments, and thank you for being here. This is a program where we gather every two weeks, on the new and full moons. Each new moon is a time for invitation, longing, intention-setting, and introspection; and full moons are times for gratitude, celebration, connection, and reflection. In the dark of a new moon, we plant seeds that grow for six months and culminate with a bright full moon in the same astrological sign, which then wanes for six months until it empties and returns to a new moon in that sign, and the cycle begins again.
Today’s full moon is in the astrological sign of Cancer.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We are on the unceded traditional lands of the Duwamish Tribe, ‘the people of the inside’. As we take this time to connect with the earth, let us honor with gratitude the past, present, and future Duwamish people, who are the family of this land. This land offers us so much; may we offer back to the land and their Duwamish kin through this time together, through what we nurture in and between us, and through what we do with what we receive from this time. We hold deep thanks and deep intention for justice for the Duwamish people in this space.
MOMENT OF ARRIVAL
We begin today’s ritual by lighting incense or a candle to accompany during our gathering. I am lighting jasmine incense, as this is an herb associated with the sign of Cancer.
I invite you to grab a mug of tea or glass of water, hold it in both hands, find a comfortable position, and take a few deep breaths: into the belly, then out with a huff of relief. Into your cup, speak words of gratitude to the water: Thank you, water, for nourishing, cleansing, and comforting me. Offer these words or find words that feel true to you, no matter how simple. Then take a drink, feeling the gift flow into you.
GRATITUDE DRAWING
The sign of Cancer relates to home and family, including our chosen ones. What has grown and developed in your home life and close circles in the past six months? With crayon, markers, and/or colored pencils, I invite you to take the next ten minutes to draw your home and what you are grateful for in it.
LETTING FEELINGS FLOW
Every full moon can cause feelings to become large, but this is especially the case when the moon is in its home sign of Cancer.
When our emotions and their accompanying sensations are big, we can tend to suppress them out of shame or dismissal. But it is helpful to feel! What we don’t feel now will build up and overflow in the future; and any feeling we allow now makes our future experience that much lighter, that much more proportionate. And with the planet of the body, memory, and emotion in its watery home sign, we may have backed-up feelings that need to come out and be felt so that they can be released. Tears are healing, punches into pillows are grounding, long-overdue honest words are freeing.
And yet, the feelings don’t always come when we make the space for them. So, we are going to spend five minutes engaging a practice that a former therapist of mine shared with me from the Somatic Experiencing discipline. When we invite feelings but they don’t come, we can bring their sensations some movement by humming, singing, moaning. Even making crying sounds can help get the emotion in-stuck.
For the next five minutes, while I play heart chakra frequency sounds, I invite you to hum. Please know that there is absolutely no pressure to have a Big Emotion right now — we are doing this together as an exercise of release and co-regulation that you can also take home with you to use when you need it. If feeling does arise, you can sway, moan, cry, and hum louder — whatever you need and feel comfortable with.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
As we spend time with the full moon themes of gratitude, generosity, and release, I invite you to spend the next fifteen minutes journaling. I will offer three prompts and give you five minutes for each. You are welcome to engage these in whatever way feels most helpful to you; write or draw to the question, to yourself, to ancestors, to spirit.
Recall moments from the past six months when you have received care. How do you want to be open to emotional help and presence in this next season?
Recall moments from the past six months when you have offered care. How do you want to be open to offer emotional help and presence in this next season?
What cycles do you get stuck in regarding emotions, giving or receiving care, or allowing feelings? What is one thing you can do to shift this just a little?
TAROT READING
Sometimes the stuck feelings and cycles that we find ourselves in are larger than our lives. In some circumstances this is because of systems and structures that impact the communities and land that we are embedded in. Other times, this is a result of wounds and embodied narratives passed down to us from unhealed ancestors; these two causes can even interact.
We are not without support in this. Our final practice today will be a tarot reading directed to your ancestors, offered optionally to whoever wants one. In this three-card spread, each card will represent a response to one of the following questions, in order:
What unhelpful emotional pattern / cycle am I experiencing because I have inherited it?
How can I begin to offer healing to myself and the ancestor(s) who passed this wound on to me?
How can I lean on my wise and well ancestors for support as I cope with and tend to this cycle?
If you do not want a reading, I invite you to spend the time reflecting on these questions in your journal, in your mind, with our art supplies, or through meditation.
If you do want a reading, I invite you to join me in greeting your ancestors. I will offer some words and then leave a minute for you to greet your ancestors directly whether in your mind, aloud under your breath, or in your journal. We will thank them and say farewell after finishing the readings.
Hello to my wise & well ancestors, to those spirits who love me. Through the cards that are pulled, please share with me your guidance toward what is for my highest good and growth today.
After the readings:
Thank you to my ancestors and guides for your insight and care. I will ponder these cards and decide what I want to do or not do with them. I am grateful for your help and your love. Goodbye for now.
REFLECTION
As the moon cycles between new and full, as it pulls the tides through cycles of high and low, and as our breath moves in and out, we are reminded that giving and receiving are natural. Sit with that for a moment.
This is something that dominant cultures have forgotten. As global, colonial capitalism takes and takes and takes, we see the effects of this unnatural taking. Water is hoarded by corporations that want to privatize it, is pumped in massive amounts into the cooling of AI systems for every tiny question that we ask, and is dammed so that humans can avoid adapting to earth’s rhythms. As cars and factories and massive cattle farms produce huge emissions and Israel uses our tax dollars to bomb Palestinians out of lands that the nation wants to settle, the earth is taken from and harmed so that humans can live however we want to. We are see the effects of unnatural taking on the news with the fires in LA, at home when summers are too smoky for us to be outside, and in the world’s most vulnerable places as melting glaciers and rising water levels flood people out of their homes.
But cycles of giving and receiving are natural. We practice this as we give and receive care with ourselves and our communities. We learn this by looking to and supporting indigenous peoples, who live in the truth that humans are part of nature, part of these healthy cycles. We also practice this by paying attention to land, animals, water, weather, and our role it in all.
A whole lot is misaligned, and we feel that in our bodies and souls whether we’re aware of it or not. But gratitude can be a balm. It gently pulls us back into the natural cycle of give and take, it is a way that we can dip our toe in those waters whenever it occurs to us. This can be as simple as saying “hello” and “thank you” to a tree that we pass on a walk, to the water during a shower, to a bite of food as we eat it. It ripples from there. We are part of something special; may you notice that this week.
CLOSING
Thank you for sharing your beautiful presence with each person here tonight. It is a gift that you offer simply by showing up.
Our next gathering will be on January 29 for the new moon in Aquarius. I hope to see you there!
