The First Full Moon of 2023, the Cancer Full Moon, will be happening on January 6, 2023 at 3:07 PM Pacific Time.
During the Full Moon, the Moon will be at 16 degrees, 21 minutes of Cancer.
Overall looking at the astrological chart for the Cancer Full Moon, I’m feeling very optimistic and hopeful about what the First Full Moon of 2023 has in store for us.
Cancer is the nurturer of the zodiac. It’s an energy that is all about family, family roots, feeling nurtured, supported, taken care of, but also taking care of others. It’s that maternal energy that is empathetic, sensitive, wanting to protect those we love. Cancerian topics also include housing, property, food, nurturing, children, things having to do with caring or hospitality industries, such as social work and nursing.
Cancer is the sign of the Mother, representing motherhood, pregnancy, children, and rules parts of our body including our breastbone, stomach, and womb; so there may be pregnancy or relationship-related news like engagements happening around the Cancer Full Moon. Or perhaps you find a reason to love and care for yourself more around this time because you start to understand that when I am kind, patient, and nurturing to myself, there is a ripple effect on my external world.
The reason I bring up self love and filling up your own cup is because Cancerian energy has a tendency to come off as emotional or moody because it’s a water sign. But unlike the other water signs like Pisces who is openly emotional or Scorpio whose emotions almost appear to be frozen over, the emotional energy of Cancer is hard to pinpoint because it’s constantly changing. Like the crab symbol that represents Cancer astrologically, the soft heart of Cancer is protected by a hard shell.
So Cancer, like the crab, is an energy that has a tough outer shell, it puts on a tough appearance, tough upper lip, but under the surface, there’s a waterfall of emotions flowing, and that is Cancerian energy. The crab has a tough outer shell, but a soft heart.
Cancerian energy is all about our home life, which makes sense given that Cancer is the natural ruler of the fourth house, which is all about our home life, the mother, family, our emotional well-being, ancestral roots, and feelings. The big emphasis on home and emotional security is why those with strong Cancerian placements tend to be more security-conscious and highly value their home life compared to other signs.
They feel their best when their home is a safe, nurturing, warm space, and all of their loved ones are in a happy, healthy place. Those with strong Cancer placements may appear passive, and tend to rely on their feelings to make decisions more so than logic. And they can also perceive those with strong air placements like Aquarius, Gemini or Libra, in particular to be a little aloof, too logical, insensitive. But again, that’s because Cancerian energy lacks the discipline sometimes to take your emotions out of the decision making process.
Although Cancer is a cardinal sign, meaning it’s initiating, pioneering, creative, and enterprising, Cancerian energy is moody and subtle, rather than clear and direct, largely due to the fact that Cancerian energy sometimes acts like a sponge.
Those with strong Cancerian placements can sometimes be like little emotional sponges and they can feel the emotional needs of those around them, which again plays into their nurturing role and why they are overly concerned with the emotional well-being of their family and loved ones. Their home life really affects their sense of self and sense of safety; and this is not a bad thing if you have strong Cancer placements. I know I do and this is why it can be helpful to learn what is in your chart, which elements are you dominant in, which zodiac energies do you tend to regularly express more so than others?
The Cancer Full Moon is triggering the Cancer-Capricorn axis. Earlier this month we triggered this same Capricorn-Cancer axis when we had the New Moon in Capricorn so you may have noticed some of these themes at play already. But this is an axis about structure and time, it’s about the relationship between parent and child, where Cancer is the nurturing maternal energy, and Capricorn is the strict fatherly energy. In other words, Cancer nurtures and Capricorn holds down the fort.
So while Cancerian energy has strong ties to karma and the past, Capricorn energy is less concerned about time or other people’s opinions and is more so an energy about learning lessons and building from the ground up in a slow, steady way where success is guaranteed. Cancer energy remember is watery emotional cardinal energy, whereas Capricorn energy is more grounded earthy, cardinal energy.
Both are pioneering, initiating, creative, enterprising energies, highlighting the duality of parents – the mother and the father, but one is more logical and one is more emotional than the other.
Given Capricorn and Cancer are axis buddies Cancerian energy can learn from Capricorn energy on how to let go of the past disappointments and hurts, which can color how a Cancer sees the future or the present moment, and focus on love, on achieving their true goals.
Even if you don’t have a lot of Cancer placements in your chart, every single one of us has Cancerian energy somewhere in us. And sometimes we find that we don’t always expose our true heart, our full true feelings, our vulnerabilities in an effort to protect ourselves, and sometimes we get triggered, someone accidentally presses on the bruises on our hearts, and our Cancerian mind, whose focus of concern is our emotional well-being, doesn’t want us to forget about that. So we can hold a grudge, we can allow our past experiences and interactions color our perception moving forward.
This is where Capricorn energy comes in and says, yes, by all means, learn from the past, but keep moving forward. If you move forward slowly and steadily like the Tortoise in the Tortoise in the Hare, then you will inevitably find success, just keep your focus on accomplishing your goal; don’t get defeated at the beginning by comparing yourself to everyone else.
When I look at the chart for the full moon, and when I look back at what was going on around the time we experienced the Cancer New Moon back in June 2022, I believe this is a time energetically when we are being invited to master overreactions. To be able to remind ourselves of our magic, our sense of safety from within, even in the yuckiest circumstances.
During the time of the Cancer New Moon back in June 2022, we were asked to push ourselves out of our comfort zones to find enough love for ourselves that we would take a pause, take a breath before responding out of anger or fear. We were asked to find the courage to not surrender to our primal gut reaction and to instead gift ourselves a moment to figure out how to respond and move forward from a place of love. To ask: Does there even need to be a response at all?
We were invited to self reflect on questions like: What is the story I’m telling myself? What in me invited this to be?
As I mentioned, the Cancer full moon is happening at 16 degrees, 21 minutes of Cancer. One thing I want to flag for you is that the next three full moons, four if we include this Cancer Full Moon, are all occurring at 16 degrees. And in fact, if I go back to the later half of 2022 and include the final four full moons of 2022, those all happened at 16 degrees, so in total we’re experiencing 7 full moons in a row all at 16 degrees. This Cancer Full Moon is the fourth of the seven full moons all happening at 16 degrees.
So this tells me right off the bat that there is something important happening at the 16th degree. The 16th degree is actually ruled by Cancer, Cancer is ruled by the Moon. Given this is a Cancer Full Moon, I have a feeling this is going to be a Full Moon that kicks off an emotional period of time but perhaps it’s emotional in the sense that we may feel the need to hunker down and really make sure that we and our loved ones are safe, loved, feeling nurtured, cared for, seen, and celebrated.
Full Moons are often emotional to begin with, that’s because the moon is ruled by Cancer. Really every full moon is emotional, but it’s even more emotional when we have a full moon in a water sign like Cancer. Although Cancer is a water sign, the most dominant element at play during the Cancer Full Moon will be Earth, largely because there is so much happening in Capricorn, which is an Earth sign.
Both earth and water are feminine energies so they move a bit slower, but earth unlike water is more sensual, it’s patient, grounded and is all about the body. It’s a slow moving energy, which is why one challenge when we’re working with earth energy is that we can move too slow, almost sloth-like, and appear lazy. That’s often because Earth energy – Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn – doesn’t particularly like change, even when they know it’s in their own best interest.
Water energy on the other hand is emotional, compassionate, sentimental, ruling the womb space, the energetic center of our body, but it too has a shadow side that can make us appear moody and depressed.
So in that sense you may feel, three days before, three days after the Cancer Full Moon, that your sense of safety is very much related to home, family and related homey, nurturing activities such as cooking and gardening.
During the time of the Cancer Full Moon, the sun will be opposite the moon in Capricorn, Mercury is retrograde in Capricorn. Venus is in Aquarius, Saturn is in Aquarius, Mars is retrograde in Gemini, Jupiter is in Aries, Uranus is retrograde in Taurus, Neptune is in Pisces, and Pluto is in Capricorn.
What does this Cancer Full Moon have in store for us on a collective level?
Well, as much as family and loved ones are important for those with strong Cancerian energy, I’m not sure this is a Full Moon where we may feel overly lovey-dovey because the sun will be in strict, fatherly, Capricorn, the moon will be opposite the sun in emotional, motherly Cancer.
When the emotions and feelings of the Moon are opposite the Sun, this can sometimes cause conflicts, especially in relationships between close family members – parents and children or with the opposite sex. That’s because the moon, our internal emotional world, may not want to hear the stern lecture, the fatherly tough love that Capricorn, where the sun will be, wants us to know and understand. It’s all for our greater good, but again sometimes we don’t want to hear it.
During the Cancer Full Moon, Mercury will be retrograde and Mars will be retrograde.
Mars is in Gemini and will remain retrograde until January 12, 2023, and then go direct in Gemini until March 2023; Jupiter just moved into the early degrees of Aries, which is ruled by Mars, so starting Jan. 13, or perhaps the two week time after, you may find you have a lot more energy and that it’s easier to take action and follow through on your goals.
And Mercury is retrograde in Capricorn until January 18, 2023, and the post-phase will wrap up in the second week of February 2023. So it’s likely that you may experience communication hiccups, technological glitches, travel issues, issues with being misunderstood, incorrectly perceiving other people’s intentions, contracts getting mixed up during this time.
The Moon will be opposite Mercury during the Full Moon which may manifest as memory issues, we may find ourselves gossiping more than usual about other people, and we may also find ourselves and others cherry picking information that supports our perspective, our opinions, and it may even come off as if we or others are being deceitful and not sharing the whole truth.
Some good news though – the sun will be conjunct mercury during the time of the Cancer Full Moon, indicating this is going to be a very creative period of time for some people, the more artistic among us; So even though mercury is retrograde it’s possible that creatives, writers, artists, including those who perform on stage, may find that this Full Moon allows them to think outside the box and come up with solutions in a very creative and innovative fashion.
We also have the sun trine uranus, bringing a harmonious burst of energy to projects that are idealistic, creative, and benefit society, the greater good. The moon is sextile uranus which brings an increased importance of being emotionally independent, freeing oneself of any strict family environments. And with the moon forming a trine with Neptune, this full moon could help us come to the realization that we may have been taken advantage of in some way because of the self-sacrificing nature of Cancerian energy.
It sounds a little less than ideal, but these bumps or challenges happening around the Cancer Full Moon really seem more like inspirational moments that help you understand yourself and those around you more; these are transits that can help you get clear on what is important to you from a home life perspective, and what kind of emotional needs do you have that are not being met?
In other words, there’s a lot of creative opportunities, a lot of inspiration, aha moments that are likely to occur around the time of the Cancer Full Moon.
But just a few things I wanted to remind you about:
Cancerian energy is water energy, it’s emotional, it’s about relationships. And one relationship we often neglect is the relationship with ourselves. But remember your intuition is a relationship, you have to nurture it. Just because something doesn’t make sense to anyone else doesn’t mean you are wrong. If you follow your intuition, what you believe is best, the correct path, you are on the right path.
It’s so important to keep this in mind because oftentimes we judge ourselves harshly and beat ourselves up when we fail to achieve something that isn’t authentic to us.
What I mean by that is that some of us honor our ancestors by rebelling, believing in magic and love, fairytales, dreams coming true, and goodness. For example in the Disney movie “Mulan,” Mulan brought honor to her family not through an arranged marriage, which was the cultural norm. Rather she brought honor to her family as a warrior. The Emperor even claims in the end that Mulan has saved all of China.
So what is your Mulan moment? How can you bring honor to your ancestors, your family?
Keep in mind that we don’t have to know the reason why we feel compelled to do ABC. If you’re always trying to understand the whole picture, and seeking, learning, digging for more more more knowledge, you’re not leaving room for hope or trust. This is why I love that quote All you need is 20 seconds of bravery.
What to expect with this Cancer Full Moon on a personal level?
Think back, look back, what was going on in your life on June 28, 2022, three days before and after, that was when we had the New Moon in Cancer.
So take a look back at social media posts, your journal, your calendar, what was going on in your life, what were you paying attention to, what were you working toward, that will give you the best indication of what to expect with this Cancer Full Moon.
Also look and see which house does Cancer rule for you? If you are not an Aries rising, Cancer will rule a different house than the fourth house, so take a look at the house Cancer rules specifically for you as that will give you the best indication of which area of your life is most likely to experience some kind of change. It may not be a huge change, you may see the sprouts of something you’ve been calling in or manifesting.
If you have personal planets or angles around 16 degrees of cardinal signs Cancer, Capricorn, Aries, and Libra, you will likely feel the effects of this Full Moon the most.
One other thing I want to flag for you. There could be news, events, discussion around pregnancy and pregnancy-related topics like abortion around this time. If you remember, around the Cancer New Moon in June 2022, it was actually June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe. V Wade.
Whatever happens externally at this time, know that you are safe. You are loved. You are divinely guided and supported and I love you.
Wishing you a blessed and safe Full Moon in Cancer.
I hope to see you at my Cancer Full Moon ceremony on January 6 at 5 PM Pacific. Tickets are available at elevated aura.com and Eventbrite. If you can’t make it live or just prefer to study on your own, I do send out a recording of the Full Moon ceremony at the end of the event for all who purchase a ticket in advance.