New Moon Total Solar Eclipse in Cancer—Summer Solstice Ritual + Writing Exercises

There is so much happening right now! The world feels overwhelming (that’s an understatement) and the astrology is here to match. A new moon total solar eclipse is occurring on the same day as the summer solstice, adding flavors of complexity to the usual celebratory mood of the solstice.

Eclipses are times where the light of the moon or sun is blocked—where the shadow material comes up for review, rewriting, and reconstruction. It is a time of yin, receptive energy, of taking in and processing, of listening. It is a time where we can set intentions (especially a new moon eclipse), but it’s also more a time of readying the soil and clearing debris than planting the seeds.

This is the final eclipse in Cancer for a long time, culminating two years of eclipses here that began in July 2018. This is a wrapping up kind of energy, tying the bows, clipping loose ends.

Cancer is the Mother figure of the zodiac, the watery womb from which all life arises—and Cancer has much to tell us and teach us about our nurturing and our collective and personal modes of care. Cancer asks us to think of new ways to incorporate care into our daily routines and lives and to imagine into new possibilities for systems and strategies of care in our collective.

This eclipse loosely squares Mars, which speaks to me of the challenge to our systems of military, martial law/control, police forces—and Cancer brings in new energy of care and emotional awareness and depths.

Defund the police and imagine into new modes of addressing trauma, mental health, poverty, and systemic inequity and racism. It is time. (And donate to bail funds until we get there.)

A Ritual for the New Moon Eclipse in Cancer

I love to use eclipses as an opportunity for cleaning and cleansing, and above all, for baths. And for a Cancer moon, all the more reason to be in water.

1. Light a candle, white for the moon and/or yellow or gold for the sun to honor the solstice and solar eclipse.

2. Add (any combination of) white rose petals, anise, chamomile, rosemary, clary sage, and mugwort to the bath, along with epsom salts for cleansing and clearing.

3. Soak in the bath, by the light of the candle, with a window open if possible to let in the dark of the new moon.

4. While soaking, send thoughts, feelings, images, and messages of care to your body and your being—in whatever ways you’re able. If it’s only to your little toe right now, begin there. If it feels right, simply float there, telling yourself, I care about you.

5. After spending some time doing this, still soaking, imagine what models and potentials for care could look like in our world, in the larger collective. What might a culture grounded in care look like?

6. Float. Soak. Remember your body. Give what gratitude and care you can muster. Sleep when complete.

Personal Writing Exercise

1. What are three things you’re ready to surrender/release/destroy/rewrite—to make room for your own growth and your creative projects?

To go a bit deeper:

2. What topics or emotions or stories in your life are coming up recently—that you find you most need or want to shift your relationship to, to release or let go of, to defund, to destroy, to burn to the ground—and ultimately, to remake, to rewrite your narrative to and around?

Make a list and/or freewrite on whatever comes up for you. Stay very stream of consciousness. Trust your instinct, trust your gut, this is the realm of intuition and the subconscious, not the purview of the rational mind.

For an even deeper dive: How have these particular issues played out for you, changed or evolved over the last two years?

Fiction Exercise—I May Destroy You

What aspects of your character’s internal and external life are coming up in the narrative for that character to examine, grapple with, confront, destroy, and either change or refuse to/find themselves unable to change?

Another way of saying this: What is one thing your character is ready to, needs to, or wants to let go of, destroy, or change? Make a list. Choose one or two items to focus on for now.

Write a scene in which the character comes up against this thing and either finds new ways of dealing with it, or turns away from it. (Note: This may bring up large, character-arc level issues that probably won’t get resolved in a single scene. If that’s the case, just write a scene that you feel called toward, where the character goes through one of the layers of this conflict.)

Think about if or how both the world and character deals with or ritualizes this process and/or avoids such a process (ritualizes its avoidance, even). This could be a second scene/prompt if it feels applicable to your world.

Fiction Exercise—What Do We Care?

What are ways your world/place and characters handle ideas and modes of nurturing and care?

Write a scene in which a character cares for themselves and/or others in some rich way; perhaps explore the nuances and flavors of care.

Think about whether this care they show either subverts or reinforces cultural modes of care in their world.