Full Moon in Cancer on January 6, 2023

Full Moon in Cancer: January 6

Dear Magic Makers,

While January’s emotional Full Moon in Cancer invites us to connect with our inner child and nurture our feminine side on January 6!

The first Full Moon of the year takes place in nurturing Cancer, highlighting our progress in home and family-related matters and bringing powerful memories and emotions to the surface. Full Moons might be emotional, but a Full Moon in the most sensitive sign of the zodiac is bound to bring deep healing, especially when it comes to our childhood patterns and our inner child. How are the results of your healing process visible at this time? What parts of the past can you further invite into your present, with love and compassion? 

Earth and water: finding a balance between mind and heart

On January 6, the emotional Cancer Moon forms an opposition with the pragmatic Capricorn Sun, challenging us to integrate the energies of these two complementary signs. Cancer is the sign of home, family, security, and intuition, while Capricorn rules our careers, our public image, our inner authority, and our drive to succeed. When Cancer understands, nurtures, and helps us feel safe, Capricorn motivates us and pushes us to grow. How do you strike a balance between the two in your everyday life, especially in your relationship with yourself?

The way we function as a society is naturally more inclined toward the energy of Capricorn: we’re asked to be productive, to focus on our social image, and to follow a vision of success that is often defined by other people’s expectations. Because we’re following a patriarchal model, most of us are out of tune with the natural ebb and flow of life. Nature’s cycles and the rhythm of our bodies rarely follow the linear pattern that we’re asked to fit into day by day. 

The Cancer Full Moon highlights the hidden heritage of the suppressed feminine: because we often have to follow external standards that we don’t resonate with (Capricorn), our inner world, our intuition, and our deep need for comfort, intimacy, and gentleness (Cancer) can push back in unexpected ways. Whether it’s shopping, emotional eating, love addiction, or a resistance to responsibility, many of us are expressing the energy of feminine Cancer in unconscious ways. During this Full Moon, how can you make the unconscious conscious by connecting with your deeper needs and emotions? 

For your Full Moon ritual, you can write down a few self-sabotaging behaviors that you want to release and set the intention to shift them with love and compassion. If you notice that you’re judging yourself, take a few deep breaths with your hand on your heart and ask yourself: Where does this behavior come from? When did I first start to do it and how has it helped me face difficult situations in the past, in the absence of other solutions? How can I take gentle responsibility for it in the present and replace it with a healthy alternative? Our tip: you can meditate with the Healing Soy Herbal Filled Votive Candle as you set intentions of tenderness and flow during this Full Moon.

Connecting with our roots

The archetype of Cancer is deeply connected with our family, our ancestors, our roots, and our childhood. Before we’re clear on what we want to achieve (Capricorn), we know ourselves through our interactions with loved ones, interactions that often repeat patterns that have been perpetuated generation after generation. What information about your family, your ancestors, or your personal life story is being revealed at this time? What is the Full Moon illuminating and how can you integrate this knowledge into the way you see yourself now? 

With Mercury retrograde in Capricorn, the sign of rules, structure, and responsibility, many of us can revisit past conditioning around performance and success at this time. If we look at our parents and think of our ancestors, we can realize that some of our current behaviors are more deeply engrained than we’d previously thought. 

This is the essence of the Cancer-Capricorn axis: like a tree that grows roots and reaches toward the sky, we’re also connected to our origins… and doing our best to outgrow them. During the Full Moon, you can think of the family patterns and values that you want to continue in this lifetime and set the intention to move beyond the emotions, thoughts, and habits that your true self doesn’t resonate with.  

Breaking free from limitations

In an easy aspect with Uranus, the planet of change, rebellion, and awakening, the Cancer Moon offers her full support in this process of liberation. This is a great time to make a powerful change when it comes to our habits, our work, our relationship with family members, or our inner healing, knowing that the Full Moon encourages us to take (small, mindful) steps outside our comfort zones. What is changing in these areas of your life? Where do you feel called to release the fear of judgment and embrace a new version of yourself?

Cancer is a deeply subjective sign that predisposes us to identify with our emotions, but the Full Moon’s aspect with Uranus takes some of this pressure off, supporting us to see things from a slightly more detached perspective. A situation that seemed heavy or overwhelming in the past can benefit from an unexpected solution at this time. An emotion that was difficult to process can come to the surface in unpredictable ways… and the release can be powerful, leaving us with more energy and vitality than before.

It’s no coincidence that the Sabian Symbol for the Full Moon is “The seed grows into knowledge and life”, interpreted by astrologer Dane Rudhyar as “The life urge to actualize one’s birth potential”. The events that happen around the Full Moon and the emotions we’re experiencing are not arbitrary: they carry the potential for a new reality to unfold in time. Rather than force progress (especially because Mercury, the planet of thinking and communication, and Mars, the planet of action, are both retrograde at this time), we’re supported to nurture ourselves into making positive life changes.

Our advice: because Cancer is the sign of comfort, security, and emotional validation, the Full Moon is a great time to connect with people who have a soothing presence (long hugs and deep conversations can ease the intensity of these days) and focus on the activities that make your inner child happy. Purifying your space (a few Incense Palo Santo Sticks can work wonders) and curling up under the blankets or taking a healing bath can all be great rituals during this cozy, emotional Full Moon. 

Those of us with planets around the 16th degree of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn can feel the influence of the Full Moon the most, but all signs are experiencing a moment of insight, fulfillment, and emotional release in the life area ruled by Cancer in the birth chart.

Full Moon Journal Prompts:

What message do my emotions have for me? How can I slow down and allow myself to feel them as they are?

How can I continue my family’s heritage by valuing the gifts I’ve received from my ancestors and releasing patterns that no longer serve me?

If my inner child had a voice, what would she or he say to me right now?