New Moon in Cancer Eclipse Themes:

In the past few days everyone has been asking what in God’s name is going on? Why does it feel like the world is falling apart? Is it a Mercury Retrograde? Why is everyone sick, dying, breaking up, losing their minds?

It’s always interesting to look at what’s happening in the media to see what themes the universe is spelling (more like screaming) out for us.

Cancer Archetypes & Metaphors from the Collective:

The Oil Spill:

“As oil again again flows freely, crews are working around the clock to replace a containment cap on the ruptured underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico”, BP said Saturday.

Messages:

• Are we leaky vessels?
• Adopting faulty methods of containment?
• Ignoring the problem?
• What black substance is leaking at the core of our psyches?
• What are we doing to clean up our own emotional messes?

Iranian Woman’s Death Sentence

Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a forty-three year old mother of two was sentenced to death by stoning for the crime of adultery (after her husband had died), a crime her family vehemently denies she committed.

Messages:

• It’s 2010 — we have video-conferencing on cellphones for Christ’s sake, and a woman can be sentenced to death by stoning? — but Tiger Woods loses a few sponsors?
• Woman are still being scape-slutted; the Madonna-Whore complex continues to breed violence, misogyny and broken marriages.

Lindsay Lohan’s (Cancer) Jail Sentence

Failing to show up for probation after two separate DUI offenses, she is sentenced to 90 days in jail and abandoned by her attorney.

Messages:

• Sober up!
• Oral fixation leading to victim complex equals disaster.
• “. . . train wreck parents lead to train-wreck daughter.” — This is what was said on CNN. A heartless way of putting it, but something to consider. We have to deal with our parental complexes. We can’t always cry, beg, drink or even buy our way out. Celebrity status doesn’t mean exemption from the law.

The New Moon Solar eclipse in Cancer (19 degrees) puts the focus on all archetypal themes associated with Cancer and the opposite sign, Capricorn.

Archetypal Mother and Father:

Most prominent are the archetypal mother and father themes. Cancer rules feelings, family, ancestral baggage, emotional patterns, home, security and unconscious personal memory. What I’ve been hearing from a lot of people recently: letting go has never felt so painful and yet so essential. Ancient wounds and insecurities compliments of our past, our parents and their parents seem to be resurfacing with a vengeance. Here is where we’re inclined to go right into the left-brain and ask: but what should I do? Jung used to say this question is an avoidance of the feeling process.

Anxiety And The Refusal To Feel:

If anxieties are mounting it’s because feelings are compounding. Anxiety is a threshold warning that uncomfortable feelings are threatening to surface. The only way out of anxiety is through: to let ourselves feel the feelings. Cancer rules the belly. Get in touch in with the feelings in the gut, and instead of reaching for the nearest oral sedative, feel them. Way easier said than done. Since this eclipse is hitting the South Node in Cancer, the letting go theme continues. The South Node is about letting go of the deep past, as in the karmic past. We have the opportunity to eradicate and transform ancient emotional patterns if we’re willing to dig deeply into our own psychic wells. With Mars in Virgo forming a sextile to this New Moon, if we’re willing to put in the work, take the necessary time in solitude and inquire within amazing shifts are possible. It is time to raise our emotional frequency but this does not happen without the deeper psychological work. Shadows lurk and our vessels are still leaky.

Archetypal Feminine:

The collective unconscious is conjuring up many powerful themes around the archetypal feminine. I have a feeling this has to do with the heavy planetary emphasis on Cancer and Virgo at the moment. Mars and Venus cohabitate in Virgo, amplifying these themes as well as bringing the archetype of the Virgin to the fore: “she who is what she is because that is who she is — not out of power or a desire to please anyone.”– Marion Woodman. The Virgin is “nobody’s daughter”(thanks to another double Cancer-Courtney Love- for this timely title track) — no longer enslaved to parental complexes, daddy boyfriends or husbands, patriarchal perfectionist standards, or man-child partners. This of course takes a great deal of psychological and soul work.

Saturn Leaves Virgo:

Saturn leaves Virgo on the 21st of July so time is running out — the patient (but relentless) cosmic taskmaster is preparing the final exam. Have we cleaned up our psyches, diets, closets, daily grinds? Have we faithfully pursued Self? Have we learned to be okay to be alone? Have we simplified, pruned, de-cluttered, purified, cleaned, organized, analyzed, assimilated?

Potential Themes to Explore in Therapy, Meditation, Art, & Journaling:

• What feelings from the past are haunting us?
• Where are we still having difficulty letting go? (Look for past roots)
• What are we still desperately clinging to, and what does it represent on a deeper emotional level? (Look to past attachments)

Deeper exploration of the Mother-Father archetype and how it translates into current self-parenting or lack thereof.

Mother Complex:
(controlling, cold, distant, abusive, smothering, lack of nurturing, narcissistic, or mother disconnected from her own feeling values)

Symptoms:

• Addictions, especially oral
• Eating, smoking, drinking, talking
• Poor self-care
• Perfectionism
• Laziness/intertia
• Inability to change
• Moodiness
• Materialistic
• Debt
• Ungrounded
• Frozen feeling
• Disconnection from body
• Frigidity
• Sexual issues

Father Complex:
(absent, dominating, abusive, cold, smothering, sexualizing, judgmental, critical, overly-demanding, impossible to please)

Symptoms:

• Lack of boundaries
• Difficulty saying no
• Time-management problems
• Low self-esteem
• Looking for Daddy-Husband
• Problems with authority
• Promiscuity
• Career issues
• Sexual issues
• Money problems
• Self-critical

Taking Care of our Emotional Body:

Cancer rules moods, feelings, and the stomach.

How much do you absorb other people’s emotional garbage?

Avoid becoming a psychic dumpster for other people’s unprocessed crap.

Eclipsing Emotional Baggage:

Maybe if we were charged a baggage fee every time we entered a new relationship, we’d lighten our load and at least downsize to the carry-on version.

Some common Cancer-Virgo complexes to explore (look for these themes/symbols in your dreams):

Victim/Savior complex

Fat/Perfectionist complex

Madonna-Whore complex

Mother-Father complex

A Ritual to Read to Each Other-William Stafford

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider-
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

— by William Stafford