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 happens 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 28th. 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.
Cancer New Moon qualities
With the Cancer New Moon, we get to take a softer, sweeter look at all of our relationships and express what’s deep in our hearts. Cancer is a water sign (along with Scorpio and Pisces) that 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, and caregiving – 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 Cancer is 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
The first step is to create a sacred ritual space, collecting all the different “props” associated with Cancer energy – here are some 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)
The basic elements of your Cancer New Moon ritual
Whenever I teach or speak about the power of ritual in our lives (the subject of my master’s thesis many years ago), I talk about the four basic elements that must be present to ensure that it’s truly transformative:
1) declare a clear intention – that’s our theme, nurturing your special relationships
2) activate all your senses – those associations in your toolkit will help here
3) surround yourself with meaningful symbols – also in your toolkit
4) create sacred space and time – be sure to find a private space where you won’t be interrupted and make sure you have all of your tools from your toolkit — music, food, flowers, etc. — before you start.
Cozy Cancer New Moon Magic with your kids
With its emphasis on nurturing and caregiving, Cancer energy is a great time to nourish your family connections, particularly 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), you can go a little deeper into the emotional nature of Cancer and ask them to talk about particular events of the past week, month or 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?
Creating Cancer New Moon magic with your sweetheart
Certainly, any 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:
- OK, now you can jump into the bathtub yourselves for your own R (or X)-rated fun… use your imagination. Candles, of course. Essential oils… yes, in the bath, but also for some watery 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!
- After your bath, while you’re all soft and mellowed out, is a wonderful time to have a little 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?
There are so many directions to go when you’re playing with New Moon energy, and Cancer’s watery, emotional magic is especially powerful to dive deeper into 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”?
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Life & Relationship Coach, Deborah Roth, MA is also a Counseling Astrologer, and Interfaith Minister. She leads women’s New Moon Circles and Full Moon TeleMeditations every month and loves designing creative, meaningful rituals for individuals and couples to energize their lives and relationships.
