Full Moon in Cancer December 29 8:28 pm MST

It’s the final full moon of 2020, and at last we end on a lovely sort of note. The full moon is in Cancer, its sign of rulership, where the moon feels its happiest, glowiest, and fullest self. Enjoy this moment of brightness in the dark season of winter solstice and the dark year that has been 2020.

The full moon in Cancer completes the cycle from the new moon in Cancer which happened to fall on the summer solstice this year, on June 21, 2020. (There was a rare, second new moon in Cancer on July 20 as well, heightening the need to explore and honor our emotions.)

I find it quite compelling that the protests in response to George Floyd’s murder reached a sort of crescendo last summer around this point, rejoining celebrations of Juneteenth on June 19—and calling into mainstream cultural consciousness ideas around defunding the police—shifting resources for mental health, addiction, houselessness and other issues into the hands of social workers and counselors rather than police forces. Bringing forward the emotionally intelligent and nurturing aspects of Cancer on a societal level.

Use this full moon to celebrate and honor what you personally, and we as a collective, have learned and begun to evolve into in these past six months, especially around emotional intelligence, awareness, and honoring, and the nurturing of our most deep, dark, and beautiful emotions—and also to acknowledge and recognize where we still need to grow.

The moon opposes the sun in Capricorn, sitting next to Mercury—bringing attention to a disconnect or tension (opposing energy) between our conscious, intellectual aspects and our subconscious, emotive, and intuitive layers.

Find ways to honor your emotions (go ahead and cry—this is Cancer moon time after all) without shaming or over-rationalizing them.

Ritual Bath for the Full Moon in Cancer

1. Light a white or silver candle.

2. Infuse your bath (and/or tea) with chamomile, mugwort, motherwort, jasmine, +/ or eucalyptus (the whole herb or the essential oils). If you’d like to incorporate stones, moonstone, pearl or amethyst all correspond to the moon.

3. Bring up any emotions you’ve been wrestling with. If you’ve been feeling any kind of way lately, especially in the light of this full moon in the darkest nights of winter, encourage, and give yourself permission (take my permission if you need it) to embrace that feeling, to wallow, to be swallowed into the waves of Cancer’s feeling waters. Just feel without needing to understand or analyze or “story” why.

4. Allow the feeling to fill the bathtub. Imagine the water taking the shape of the emotion, crystalizing to its shape and vibration.

5. Now let the water take the emotion for you, allow it to pass from your body into the water.

6. When you drain the bath, let the water carry the emotion away, let it dissolve and swallow the feeling. Know you never need carry anything alone.

Full Moon Journal Writing Prompts

• What have you learned, progressed, released or shifted over the past six months around your emotional wellbeing, your ability to honor your emotions without drowning in them, and how to nurture others—and even more so, yourself?

• What stories and narratives around nurturing, mothering, family, wounding, healing, and forgiveness are you ready to begin to shed in these next six months, to clear room for the seeds you will plant at the next Cancer new moon (July 9, 2020)?

Full Moon Speculative Creative Writing Prompt

• Ask the following questions of your world/character: What does mothering look like within your world? Who are “mothers,” who are allowed (or forced into) the role of mothering? How is mothering, and/or nurturing, and care treated in your world? How are they valued or devalued?

• After freewriting on these questions, write a scene in which we see the act of mothering (and hopefully a sense of how it is valued or not) within your world.

Note: If you’re writing a story set in “our world,” you can apply these questions to specific characters instead. We all have very different experiences and expectations of mothering and motherhood. What do/have these qualities and experiences look and feel like to your character?