Bring the Cancer New Moon’s emotional, supportive energy into your home this month
Ahhh… summer’s finally here (at least in the Northern hemisphere)! It officially starts when the Sun enters the sign of Cancer on the Summer Solstice, which happened on June 21st. In ancient times, folks celebrated the day with bonfires and outdoor revelry… sounds like the makings for a perfect beach party, doesn’t it?
The New Moon in Cancer also occurs sometime in the month that follows, on the day when the Sun and the Moon dance cheek-to-cheek in that sign, this year on June 29th. And while Solstice parties tend to focus on exuberant celebrations of the Sun and LIGHT (after all, it is the longest day of the year), Cancer New Moon energy brings us closer to home and family.
New Moons in general are always a perfect time to plant seeds for the ideas, plans, and actions we want to grow over the coming weeks as the Moon itself waxes towards full again. If you’re really committed to maximizing that intention-setting energy, it’s best to do it within 3 days of the actual date of the New Moon. But really, if either you and/or your partner are a Cancer by birth, or if your moon is in Cancer, you’ll get an extra hug of that lunar love magic whatever you decide to do.
Cancer New Moon qualities
With the Cancer New Moon, we get to take a softer, sweeter look at our all of our relationships and express what’s deep in our hearts. Cancer is a water sign (along with Scorpio and Pisces) which is all about honoring our emotions and intuition… literally, encouraging us to dive deep to find pearls of wisdom within and then offer them to those we love.
Cancer also embodies quintessential “mothering” energy — protective, nurturing, care-giving – which can include a passion for preparing and sharing food with loved ones. Cancers are known for being sensitive, sentimental and home bodies (depending on what’s going on in the rest of their birth chart, of course). In fact, the New Moon in Cancer is actually a “coming home” event astrologically since it’s naturally ruled by the Moon.
So, how can you take all of that warm, fuzzy energy and use it to enhance your relationships with family, friends and lovers?
Assembling your magical Cancer toolkit
If there was ever a New Moon to support you in creating a “lunar love nest”, this is the one! Cancer is all about building supportive, home-y environments and here are a few associations to get you started:
Elemental energy – Water
Colors – silver, white, cream
Gemstones – pearl, moonstone
Flowers – white flowers (roses, lilies)
Essential Oils – chamomile, lavender
Music – string instruments, piano
Food/Drink – water-based foods (melon, watercress, seaweed); soothing foods (ice cream, rice)
And if you really want to pack your toolkit to the brim, you could also research Cancer-themed movies, books, clothes, animals, places in nature… the list is endless, depending on what you’re drawn to explore.
Cancer New Moon energy is a great time to nourish your family connections
With its emphasis on nurturing and care-giving, it’s particularly fun to play with your own kids or any other children that you have a parenting role with, like nieces and nephews. Here are a few ideas to start with:
- Playing in the bathtub taps into Cancer’s water energy and in-home vibe — be sure to bring a bunch of white or silver candles with you and add some soothing Cancer essential oils to the bath, too. For little ones, you could also play some fun bath songs and maybe even eat some juicy watermelon – clean-up is a piece of cake if you eat it in the bath! Then turn out the lights to really pump up the magic component.
- After the bath (or maybe foregoing it completely), create a little home-within-a-home and surprise your kids with a “bed-tent”, a safe, cozy place to retreat to, just like Cancer’s symbol, the crab. My boys (now in their 30s!) each went through periods where they loved having their own private space to hibernate in, either to sleep or just escape.
- We built lots of forts together, too, with sheets and boxes or tables, and filled with favorite stuffed animals. Either way, there was something comforting for them to be in that snuggly, confined space. And obviously, while candles aren’t a good idea in tents, flashlights are a must!
Helping children dive deeper into Cancer’s feeling nature
Now, to turn any of these settings into a child-friendly New Moon intention-setting ritual, there are a few directions you could go. In the bathtub or their in-home tent, you can tap into Cancer’s sentimental side and reminisce about the school year… or favorite vacations… or good times with special friends. Then get your kids to look ahead and talk about what they want to do in the warm summer months and what steps they can take to put their plans into action, maybe with some help from you.
With older children, you can go a little deeper into the emotional nature of Cancer and ask them to talk about particular events of the past year, or any big ones coming up, and what they feel about them. Are they scared or excited about going to sleep-away camp? What feelings came up when they saw their friend being picked on in the playground?
Depending on how sophisticated they are, you could even introduce a basic list of feeling words for children compiled by UC Santa Barbara, a powerful tool to help them express what’s in their heart at any age or stage. Of course, you can have these family feelings discussions any time, but the magical container created by the Cancer New Moon can add a certain depth and ease to the conversation.
Creating Cancer New Moon magic with your sweetheart
Certainly, all of the child-centric ideas we’ve played with so far can be expanded to include your partner, or better yet, explore new ones after you put the little folks to bed or send them off to grandma’s:
1) OK, now you can jump into the bathtub for your own R (or X)-rated fun… use your imagination. Candles, of course. Essential oils… yes, in the bath, but also for some water-y massage. Maybe white rose petals sprinkled in the water, too? And if you’re an ice cream addict like I am, there are all kinds of titillating ways to play with that in the bath, from feeding each other, to painting it on your bodies and licking it off!
2) Once you move to the bedroom, you can wrap yourselves up together in your cozy Cancer-crab cocoon and just opt to listen to some adult water music (no kiddy bath songs here). Going the classical route, there’s Handel’s Water Music (can’t get more literal than that), or really any beautiful piano or string concertos. And in a more contemporary vein, check out Michael Buble’s Home or country singer Brad Paisley’s ode to summer, Water.
3) And while you’re all soft and mellowed out, it’s a wonderful time to have your own intimate “feelings” tête-à-tête. Talk about the highlights of your day or week with more depth than you often can when you’re on the fly. How did it feel when your boss sang your praises in front of the team? What about the latest conversation with your brother/mother/friend when you couldn’t get a word in edge-wise?
Or, without getting too left-brained and linear, you could go even deeper and take a look together at one of the adult version of those feelings lists to give you both a richer vocabulary to express yourselves. One of my favorite organizations that specializes in teaching those skills is the Center for Nonviolent Communication — download their Feelings Inventory and see what bubbles up.
4) One final Cancer-infused conversation can simply be to look around your bedroom – and the rest of the house, for that matter – and see what you can do to make it feel more nurturing, welcoming and supportive. Staying with the water motif, maybe you can invest in a steam sauna or a whirlpool attachment for that tub. Even a little water fountain can add a vibe of tranquility in any room. Remember, whether you consider yourself a home-body or not, using Cancer energy to enhance your home environment can only enrich all the relationships and interactions that happen there.
There are so many directions to go when you’re playing with New Moon energy, and Cancer’s lunar magic is especially powerful to dive deeper in all of your relationships. It definitely takes some preparation, but ultimately, it’s just a fun way to go beyond the more “traditional” New Moon goal-setting practices… can you see why I call it “sacred play”?