A Full Moon in Capricorn While Mercury Turns Retrograde in Cancer

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Happy Monday, everyone. Today we're going to take a look at the full moon that's forming in the sign of Capricorn, alongside Mercury turning retrograde. I'm going to give you a list of things to watch for, and we're going to discuss some of the archetypes that manifest when there is tension across the Cancer-Capricorn axis, which is doubled up by this full moon and Mercury turning retrograde in Cancer, so some good things to look at today.

Of course, we'll do horoscopes for Mercury retrograde tomorrow, so if you're looking for those, don't worry, we'll have some coverage on Mercury's retrograde shortly. Before we get into it, as always, remember to like and subscribe - it helps our channel grow tremendously. If you take a second to subscribe, it's free to do so. Click the like button, drop a comment, all of that helps us grow our work and sustain what we do. You can find transcripts of any of these daily talks on our website, which is nightlightastrology.com.

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We're an affiliate, so you can find the discount code for 20% off your monthly or annual subscription, that never ends, and you can find that on the link, the link to that in the comment section, excuse me, or the description of the video, so let's see what's cooking today, here we go. All right, we can see that today we have the full moon forming in the sign of Capricorn, and that's taking place this evening, Monday, June 29. You can see at the exact same time Mercury is turning retrograde at 26 Cancer, and therefore we have a strong amount of activity happening across the Cancer-Capricorn axis.

Let's just time this out a little bit now. The full moon, you're going to notice that that full moon is short-lived but powerful. The full moon will be clearing between today and Wednesday, so by the time we get to Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday evening, the moon will be moving into Aquarius, which means we have a couple of good days worth of a full moon in Capricorn right now to be working with, but what makes that extra potent is the fact that Mercury is also turning retrograde in the opposite sign, which further highlights the Cancer-Capricorn tension.

Now that Mercury retrograde. Let's take this forward a little bit. We're going to get the Cazimi between the two planets on Sunday, July 12. Then the retrograde will finish, and Mercury will turn direct again, and that's going to be taking place around July 25. So, in other words, most of the month of July, we have Mercury retrograde in Cancer. I think that that is important, especially because for a significant portion of the retrograde, Mercury will be backing into a square with Saturn, which it refrains from.

It does not actually quite contact Saturn by square, so we have an interesting reformation from Mercury to both malefics, it's like two close shaves that Mercury hits at the beginning of the cycle. If we go back all the way to the start of our cycle, which is right here today, we're going to see that Mercury has just recently, if we back this up just a couple of days, we did a video recently where we said Mercury refrained from a sextile to Mars and was enclosed by the malefics for a good portion of June.

As Mercury turns retrograde, it will go back towards Saturn, but also refrain from Saturn. You could think of these as like very close shaves that Mercury is having with the malefics that it manages to navigate around, and I think that's a theme that we're going to see, where worst-case scenarios are averted, sort of averted or avoided, and I think that means that you're able to just dance clear of danger during this month of July, which is important because we have things like Mars and Uranus coming together, but also Jupiter and Pluto opposing.

So, these are some pretty intense transits. It's interesting to me that during one of the most intense months of the calendar year, we also have a signature of a Mercury retrograde taking place and just dancing clear of the malefics on either side of the retrograde. I think that at least gives me some hope that there might be some pretty intense situations that come about, but also the potential to avoid worst-case scenarios.

So, anyway, with the Cancer-Capricorn axis, I've got a list of things for us to watch for today, my list of five things to watch for are almost all dedicated to ways that we have of thinking about the Cancer-Capricorn axis, and how to hold that tension in ancient astrological theory. There is probably nothing more important than an understanding of opposites. Most people, for example, don't understand dignities because they don't understand how they work, which means they don't understand the opposite pairings of planets and the logic behind them.

That's not to insult anyone. It's just very basic. When people think that, for example, a fallen planet is just purely bad, that's usually evidence that they haven't been trained in order to understand the way that dignities work through opposites and oppositional tensions, which once you understand the titles or labels of exile or detriment or fall, they take on a very different meaning, and they're a lot more flexible than they initially may seem, and a lot more you can use them a lot more intelligently.

The reason I'm saying this is because when we think about the Cancer-Capricorn axis, really all we're talking about is the tension of opposites that exist between the moon and Saturn. The moon and Saturn, like the sun and Saturn, the luminaries and Saturn in general, were considered opposites by ancient astrologers, and so when you place the moon in Saturn's sign, it's not that, oh my god, the moon is bad, or oh my god, anything the moon represents in my chart is bad.

No, it means that whatever the moon is representing in your chart naturally is a lunar thing that has lunar significations, or through house rulerships, whatever that is, will carry a moon-Saturn tension. Learning to carry that tension is part of our evolutionary homework, you could say, and we can very easily, through the tensions of opposites, through rulership and detriment, through exaltation and fall, that the temptation is always there for us to get stuck in polarization.

The polarization has to do with understanding the way that these two planets tend to struggle with one another and polarize. It's either me or you, that both of us can't exist, but whether it's the Buddhist, Taoist, the yogis, the ancient Western esoteric traditions, they're all telling us that the answer to enlightenment, and a very important factor on the path of enlightenment, is how well we're able to recognize and hold the tension of opposites, as opposed to getting torn apart by them.

So, when we think about Cancer-Capricorn, the very first thing we need to start with is, what does it mean for moon and Saturn to be opposites? The moon in the sign of Cancer is the astrological emblem of life in the material universe, in the material cosmos. Cancer, the gateway of mankind, was thought to be the portal through which spirit descends into matter. It is very much the womb, it is the egg, it is the space of gestation, and it is the actual formation of it; it is form and formation, and so it is the archetypal yin.

The moon is all of which is thought of as a kind of reflective medium through which spirit, which is sort of intangible and can't exist without form, comes to be, and even saying comes to be tends to place it in a linear time sequence, and then we start going well, there's a source, and then everything comes from the source, and everything derived from the source is not as good as the source, but all of this is a trap of linear thinking.

The metaphors that ancient mystics used, source something descending from source into form, these are all just metaphors, as Plato said, and I've repeated so many times on this channel, time is the moving image of eternity, which means we have nothing available to us but metaphors to talk about how spirit comes into matter, but the deep esoteric mystical truth is that they're inseparable, you can't, it's like the chicken or the egg, you can't separate the two. Somehow from a timeless perspective, one does not precede the other.

Now I know that might sound a little too mystical for a Monday, but there's a reason that we're talking about this, which is that when it comes to Cancer, we really are talking about the birth of the cosmos, we're talking about the embodied material universe now. Its nature, like the moon, which gets full of light and then sloughs off its light, the nature of the material world is to be constantly changing, in flux, impermanent, and things come into being and pass out of being in form.

So the moon is that sense of the living, breathing ecosystem of life, and it's contingent, it's relational, and when we're embodied in life in forms in life, we need to feel safe, because very naturally living in a body includes mortality and death, which means that we are not ever safe. We are not safe from the final ending of life. We can't protect ourselves from eventually dying. We can try as we may, we will eventually die, but we want to live as long as we can with as much happiness as we can, maximizing our pleasure as much as we can, without hopefully harming other people.

So, the question becomes, How do I feel safe at home, at ease, comfortable, connected, and happy, or at least relatively comfortable, none of which can be realized perfectly, but for all human beings we have this goal, and these are very much the concerns of Cancer. We need a mother to help us feel safe, to raise us, to care for us, to help shape us, to feed us, and so we can grow into a form in a safe way.

Once we're established as adults, the project of caretaking for ourselves, for others, the bonds that we have that help us feel not just that establish material safety, but that create an interior experience of belonging, at home, this connection, and some degree of emotional and biological fulfillment. These are very basic goals of life that every living being has. We can get lonely, we can get sad, we can feel depressed, and so we naturally seek to feel not maybe elated 24/7 but at least to stave off the antagonizing forces of our psychology and of nature, and so this is Cancer.

On the other hand, we have Capricorn, a Saturn-ruled sign called the Gateway of the Gods. Capricorn was a sign that speaks to the natural way in which life has to be about something beyond the immediate life that we're living, or several things will happen. The Capricorn mountain climbing goat, the gateway of the gods, where the sun starts rising up to the pole star, as opposed to the sun sinking down toward the earth, spirit descending into matter, in Capricorn spirit ascending out of matter.

So we have a sign that says, okay, look, on the material level, if you only make your life about the most immediate concerns biologically and emotionally, you're actually going to be at greater risk for losing those things. For example, you can just imagine this as a story. It's like Clan of the Cave Bear, or something. Early humans could not just sit back and prioritize emotional bonding and safety and good feelings, right? We also had to prioritize a longer view.

A longer view means what happens beyond the immediacy of feeling safe, connected, and happy. Well, we're going to get hungry, and so we have to eat, so we have to hunt, so we have to learn how to cook, so we have to know what we can eat and can't eat. Well, the elements are going to come after us, so we have to build shelters, we have to build containers, we have to build structures, we have to build things that will endure, that can be passed on culturally, and as a community, we have to build containers that will allow life to be safe perpetually.

So, Capricorn is a bit more like, I always like to joke that it's like Planet Earth, you see the BBC Planet Earth show, and you go, "Oh my god, there's a lot of things trying to eat each other out there, and so in order to survive here and have that sweet, tender, embodied feeling of being at home in a life that will eventually die, but to create a little nest, a nest of safety and connectedness and well-being to nurture life in that way. You also have to build a nest, you know. You also have to have traditions and containers that can carry life and steward the interiority.

So, if the interiority is my good feelings, or relatively good feelings, then I also have to be really concerned with how to build containers and structures that can facilitate that interior warmth. If I'm going to have a warm place to sleep, it better be safe from predators, so I have to build a wall around me in the form of a shelter or something. All of this side of things, the awareness of death, the awareness of danger, the awareness of impermanence, the need for a long view, the fact that you can't just be immediately bonded in some perfectly sweet, safe experience here on planet Earth. You have to have this bigger, broader understanding.

We'd all be hypocrites if we said this wasn't the case, as we sit in homes with air conditioning that we have because we prefer a structure and an infrastructure and an energy grid that provide us with creature comfort. Creature comfort and this larger sense of systems and structures that create or provide it, that's the long view. Well, it also matters spiritually that you have a long view. Ancient astrologers said, "Yes, you're here in life, you've descended into matter to have a human experience, and you're here to learn from it, and grow from it, and evolve."

It's said in the Buddhist tradition that if you are born into a lifetime where you happen to find a spiritual path and take to it wholeheartedly, that it's sort of as rare as someone popping up somewhere in the ocean and having to come happening to come right up through a life preserver. These spiritual traditions are life preservers. Spiritual traditions come about and of course there's problems with institutions, and that can be a Capricornian shadow, just as much as only having an immediate short view of emotional well-being can be a shadow of Cancer.

But the general idea of a religious tradition is to provide a structure that's in Buddhism, it's like a raft that everyone gets on and rows to the far shore, the far shore being eternity, our eternal self-realization, Buddhahood, Christhood, Bodhisattvas, whatever you want to call it. The illumination of the spirit soul from within matter happens because we have vehicles and traditions and practices and things that help create a path up the mountain of transcendence from within a lifetime that is always being tempted to get ensconced in only what is immediate.

So Cancer, like the moon, can be all to do with forgetting and sleepfulness, or Cancer can be about remembrance, not just remembrance of each other and sweetness and bonding and protection and safety right now, which is very important, but also remembrance of the eternal home that we're walking each other toward, as Ram Das said, we're all walking each other home. Cancer is also about remembering we have a home in the stars, we have a home as spirit souls that goes beyond our birth and death in this material experience.

Capricorn is the one that keeps our life molded to structures and practices and containers that can make sure we don't lose that focus. They're like rungs on a ladder that we're climbing now. If spirituality becomes all ladder and no heart, we don't like that, and that's where religious institutionalism comes around, and we don't like that. If, however, when we are keeping the main thing the main thing, then we have structures, traditions, practices, we have rafts and ores, and we also have heart and presence and care, and those two things are really the synthesis of Capricorn and Cancer.

I was born with the full moon in Cancer-Capricorn, and so I feel like I can speak to this really fully. I mean, I'm in midlife, and there's a lot more to learn, but at times in my life where I've needed structure, but there's not been heart, there's been a lot of lessons, and if there's been all immediate emotional concern with no higher sense of responsibility, maturity, or an aim that's higher, there's also been a kind of neediness or emotional immaturity that's been connected to things like addiction.

The moon is a planet that can be about neediness and getting lost in the material soup, and on the other hand, Capricorn can be cold and dry, and its focus on the top of the mountain can come at the cost of the immediacy of connection and care and heart. How do these two things come together? That is the tension we're trying to hold right now, and so you're going to see those constellate along some very predictable lines right now.

Remember that Mercury is turning retrograde in Cancer, and remember that the full moon for a couple of days is in Capricorn. At the outset of Mercury turning retrograde in Cancer with the full moon in Capricorn, these tensions are going to be rather acute. They could go in a lot of different directions, but let's talk about it. Number one would be tough versus tender. Let's just imagine that these are voices present in different dynamics in our life, within ourselves, or maybe constellating between ourselves and someone else.

Tough versus tender might be how strict, how stern, how real, how grounded, how disciplined, how much of a realistic long-term picture do I need to have? What kind of structure do I need to have? And I might have to set aside some more childish or selfish needs or emotional immaturities and just toughen up a little bit, because the moment requires it, so that a long-term reality that's very important is kept at the front of things.

On the other hand, the tenderness is the other side of it. Are things so tough that they've lost heart? Do rough edges need to be worn down by sweetness, by love, by connection, by the immediate care and concern? Do the animals of our bodies need to lie down and have their bellies rubbed? Sometimes the answer to that is yes, and I think often a lot of us err on the side of my career, my money, my budget, my long-term success, my ambitions. We work too much, and we often avoid the more tender immediate space.

That's why, personally, for me, I have to start every day with meditation, and I have to include some physical self-care. However we do it, whatever practices we bring in, weirdly enough, it takes practice, it takes containers, it takes some discipline and some devotion to stay tender, and to really recognize that the two things can work together, that they inform each other. There's also a way to be tender in your practices. Your practices may be formal, like I work out every day, I meditate every day, but are those places soft? Is there awareness soft?

I lift weights, but I will tell you, I've really learned how to bring a lot of care and thoughtfulness and presence into each rep, into the breath, into the movement of blood. So it is possible to fuse these two things right now, but you may notice that you're being asked to do so because it's not coming naturally. The two things are polarizing. The other way of framing this is difficult versus easy. We all need an easy lane in life. Do you have an easy lane? Do you know how to get into it?

Do you know how to set the cruise control and look for things that allow life to just be easy and simple and soft and sweet? On the other hand, do you need a bit more difficulty because, you know, Capricorn is just like a crusty gym coach. Capricorn says, the reason you're getting so pushed around by everything is that you haven't built up a tolerance for discomfort. This is Capricorn's MO. I'm not saying you have to agree with it. Maybe this isn't the message you need to hear, but it is a Capricornian message that can speak to Cancer sometimes.

It says, yeah, the reason that you're always crying, that you're always depressed, that you're always feeling like a victim, that you're always feeling beat up by life, even if people really are treating you poorly, or even if things really are difficult, one of the reasons that you're always spun out is because you're not pushing yourself to learn how to withstand and endure difficulty. I mean, look, meditation can be a very soft, sweet, relaxed thing, but if you have the discipline to do it day in and day out for years of your life, there are going to be many days where you just don't want to do it, but you have to do it, because that's part of training yourself to be able to withstand difficulties with heart, with presence.

The two are not opposed. Doing difficult things makes it easier and softer to encounter difficult things later. So, Capricorn is all about the school of difficulty, but it's difficulty ideally for the purpose of softness, for the purpose of safety, for the purpose of connectedness. So, what's the balance between those two things in your life right now? Do you know how to stop working? Do you know how to do hard things to help you do hard things later, you know what I mean? All right, let's go on.

Old versus young, what's the elder in the room, and do they represent wisdom? Are they sort of crusty get-off-my-lawn personality, and that needs to loosen up and allow the spirit of youthful spontaneity and love and ease and simplicity and sweetness to come in, or is the elder in the room right now speaking to the immature young part that needs to grow up, that needs to get a job, that needs to learn how to take care of themselves.

I find, as a parent, that it's a constant balance between helping my kids take that next step of growing up and not being immature, clearing their own plate from the table and contributing to things around the house, and becoming more aware of what it takes to cooperatively manage a household, chores and things like that, and on the other hand, I find that there's always a part of me that has to enter their world and let them soften my heart, and let them open, because that's part of what parenting is doing.

The young minister to the old, and the old minister to the young, and this is an exchange that can get polarized when it comes to power struggles between which is better. The old and young need one another in ways that are as old as human history, so watch for that tension right now, and just think, how am I navigating this? Am I always with opposites? Am I truly appreciating the extent to which whatever part, whatever pull I reside in, that I need the other? That the other is a part of me that's not an easy thing to face, but facing it makes it a lot easier to hold the tension.

Containers versus interiors, what are the containers that we have in our life right now, professionally, relationally, personally, that allow us to feel good, to feel at our best, to do our best work, to have our best connections with other people. How do we build practices and containers that allow for the best of us to come forward, so that the interior space of our relationships, of our work, of our own bodies are just glowing with well-being. The container and the interior go together, the outside and the inside go together, but notice the tension you might be feeling between that right now.

I practice every day, but it feels lifeless. Okay, the interior needs to matter more. The container sounds like it's too much. Change the container, maybe you change the interior, or you could say I'm just so emotional all the time. It's like, well, what are you doing to create some containment for that, some grounding for that? Whatever the case might be, again, attention to hold. And number five, broadly speaking, right now, with the full moon in Capricorn, the sign of Saturn's domicile, and a Mercury retrograde in the sign of the moon, there might be some reworking of old stories that come from your past that come from your family of origin.

So thinking right now about home and family karma, broadly speaking, where you live, the environment, your neighborhood, the environment of your body and psychology and its connection to how you were raised or where you come from, some revisions around things like emotional intelligence, communication dynamics, and close family-like places or settings, groups that are like families. So, look for the emotional intelligence of Cancer to be informing work that we're doing, very Capricorn, on our roots, on home and family matters in general, so those are some things to watch for.

I hope this talk has been enlightening. And again, tomorrow we'll get together and we'll be talking about Mercury retrograde horoscopes, so stay tuned for that. Otherwise, I hope you're all having a great day today, and this was a good way to start your week. We'll see you again next time. Bye.