!! OMG Stars: Second New Moon in Cancer !!

OMG Stars is an astrology column written by queer astrologer Amelia Ehrhardt (@soft_aspects). Every two weeks, on the new and full moons, Amelia interprets the upcoming astrology with a focus on how to navigate current events (astrological and global).

I talked the last lunation up quite a lot when writing my last horoscopes, before even realizing that this new moon was a real big one too. Happening late in Cancer on Monday, July 20th, this is the second new moon in Cancer in a row and takes place opposite Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter in Capricorn (with an exact opposition to Saturn). I’ll spare you any additional didactics on the subject of Capricorn or the Cancer-Capricorn axis (my last two lunation posts will give you a lot about that), and get straight into some of the significance: from where I’m sitting, 2020 has been all about the Cancer-Capricorn axis.

New moons – new beginnings, the time for planting and intention setting – typically pass through one sign at  time, but this Cancer new moon brings us back to the last Cancer new moon which occurred this past June 20th. That time around I was writing about Cancer’s natural opposition to Capricorn, but this time around the opposition is particularly strong with the new moon’s (and sun’s) exact position 180 degrees away from Capricorn’s ruling planet of Saturn, in Capricorn.

I’m thinking of this as a second shot at a new start, and one that with Saturn’s discerning glare asks us if whatever we started last time really has been working out for us. Saturn moving over points in our charts is often asking us how well something’s going, and with Saturn retrograde we have a bit more time to answer those questions. Whatever intentions you tried to put forward under the June new moon, consider that the June new moon was a dress rehearsal for today’s big show.

I’ve been reflecting that Astrology is not determinate, but descriptive, and interpretive. Just as I am seeing descriptions of our collective being and feelings (sun and moon) taking up characteristics of care (Cancer) and opposing the toxicity of society’s structures that have been built to serve financial rather than interpersonal needs (Saturn retrograde in Capricorn), I feel that Conservative or Right-Wing Astrologers (they’re out there) could interpret this moment oppositionally. It’s clear many see this moment as being about Americans standing up for traditional American family values and trying to squash dangerous protests against the status quo. Astrology is like that: without quality or leaning, offering a neutral description of the energies we face that it’s up to us to interpret.

With that said, I am held by the perspectives of others in this field at seeing space for hope, revolution, freedom, and rights. There’s no two ways about the pain and fear of this moment, Astrologically or otherwise, but this optimistic Sagittarius (and relatively new Astrologer) needs to pay attention to the ways that change *is* happening, and that the present action will continue until we are all free.

Find your sun and rising sign horoscopes after the jump!

Horoscopes are written using whole house calculations and are meant as inspiration and affirmation of what you already know. They are written for both sun and rising signs, but specific information is calculated for the rising signs. You can access your birth chart at www.astro.com or many other apps and websites using your birth date, time, and location. You can also read the horoscope for your moon sign for extra emotional information.

Aries and Aries rising
Much of this year’s astrology has taken place in charts which for Aries rising people have to do with the polarity of home vs. career. I’ve spoken to a number of clients in the past couple of weeks with astrology butting heads in these two areas, and I’ve reflected that home and career are not opposite parts of our lives, but two parts of what make our life whole. We need the safety of home in order to go out into the world, and in order to tend a home, we need to go out into the world.

Integrating these parts of your life is the lesson of this new moon, Aries. See the ways that your career brings you safety and your home challenges you (and of course, vice versa). All Aries people continue to have the energy of your ruling Mars gunning through your sign. Throughout the next two weeks Mars will Square Pluto and Jupiter bringing some added stress from big structures and authority figures. I hope that you Aries folks can help us all learn that conflict is a necessary tension towards resolve.

Taurus and Taurus rising
Revisiting this moon might be useful for the especially fixed among your lot, bringing us back to potentially familiar energy. But at the same time, the way that tumultuousness in 2020 is this year’s version of stability, I’m not surprised if Taureans (particularly those of you with multiple plants in your sign) are starting to wish that things were less predictably unpredictable. Taurus rising people are able to revisit any new amends that you made back in June relating to the ways that you communicate.

With Saturn now opposing this new moon, you can ask yourself: are those resolves really working for you? Uranus has been moving through Taurus since 2018 now, which I think describes accurately the predictable-unpredictability of our recent times (particularly underscored this past by your ruling planet Venus’ long transit through erratic Gemini). See if you can spend some time with Aquarians or Geminis to get more used to that unpredictable energy, since it seems that the last we can expect over the coming years of this transit is for the volatility to continue.

Gemini and Gemini rising
For those of you with Gemini rising, I hope that you will be able to think about this new-moon do-over as a blessing. It’s taking place in your second house of resources, so whatever resource-related changes you were starting out in late June will likely be revisited around this New Moon. Any new financial efforts that you started in June will likely get another shot of energy, or simply another shot. The last set of eclipses also took place with relationship to this house, and to your 8th house which has to do with other peoples’ resources and traumas.

Continue untangling yourself and setting intention to move forward with independence while caring for people around you: entanglement isn’t bad, and the cluster of slow-moving planets stationing through your 8th house has probably taught you a lot about how you are caught up with other people this year. My hope for all Gemini-people is that you find a sense of purpose and pleasure in this moment, and think about how these two things can feed each other on the daily.

Cancer and Cancer rising
Cancer rising folks, did you set some intentions at the last new moon to move forward as a Brand New Independent Woman that you took back the second your ex texted? It’s cool, because this moon has come along to tell you that you can be independent *and* want a stable partnership all at once. The slow-moving giants traversing your 7th house of partnership have likely meant that this year has been tumultuous to say the least when it comes to your closest one-on-one relationships.

Move through this next lunation knowing that your greatest gift is to be caring, and that it’s okay to want someone to care for. All Cancer people are going to help us see that care, healing, and vulnerability are as key to revolution as are rebellion, upheaval, and action. Be there for your people when they need a soft space to land. Remind us that care is necessary. Think of the Moms who are organizing in droves to protest in the USA right now: if there is a more new moon in Cancer image for this moment, I don’t know what it is.

Leo and Leo rising
It wouldn’t be unlike Leo to have set some lofty goals around the last lunation, and it’s traverse through your ooky spooky 12th house meant that many Leo people probably felt a call to reimagine themselves as occultists and purchase a special spell-casting outfit. No matter, because this second time around might be a humbling opportunity to remember that setting intention is a slow process (a fact I apologize to have to share with my particularly Leonine readers).

Leo rising people have a chance to re-set, re-shift, and re-visit any spiritual processes you started on during the last new moon, and see if you can bring them into your day-to-day more. As the sun moves into your sign this week, we all stand here at the Lion’s gate excited for your season.

Teach us to party! Encourage our most gregarious outfits! Buy the next round of drinks (and take them to go)! Here where I am writing this it’s summer, folks are spending tons of time outdoors, and we all gotta let loose before it gets cold again and we probably need to go back inside. Remind us of how terribly beautiful this moment can be despite all the pain, Leo, because your fiery optimism does that better than anything.

Virgo and Virgo rising
Okay, Virgo risings – just because you may have set some community-oriented intensions at the last lunation that have not yet come to fruition doesn’t mean they never will. Although Virgo is an earth sign, your sign is mutable and has a deep need for perfection, so waiting out a process isn’t very familiar for you lot. In June the new moon in your 11th house of friendship created opportunity for you to set anew the way that you relate to groups of people, and this new moon, opposite Saturn and his friends in your 5th house is asking that you maintain your own unique creative vision even as you open yourself up to larger groups.

The unpredictable earth energy of this year is likely to have kept a lot of Virgo people up at night as you deal with the uncertainty of how moving forward will be possible, so my hope for all Virgo people is that you can enjoy Leo season as it comes this week as an opportunity for fun and self-expression before the sun moves into your sign and we begin the time of year that is about retreat.

Libra and Libra rising
Libra’s ruling planet continues to float in Gemini over the end of this month and has brought a different quality of air-energy to sensual Venus. I expect Librans have been faced with an influx of information in a way that is affecting your deepest needs for balance – I mean, that’s hardly astrological, that’s just a thing about the present moment.

Libra rising people have this lunation taking place again in your axis of home and family, with the new moon in your 10th house of career opposite Saturn in your 4th house of home. By revisiting any new beginnings you set to seed around your career at the end of June, this lunation gives you the opportunity to ensure that your sense of safety and your sense of authority can be one and the same.

Scorpio and Scorpio rising
After your ruling planet, Pluto, opposed the sun last week, I hope Scorpio people used your natal ability to see the light in the dark on local and global levels. I’ve been reflecting on the process of metamorphosis, and how when a caterpillar cocoons it turns into a tube of mushy unrecognizable goo that then gets reformed as a floaty winged thing. I tried reading the Wikipedia page about metamorphosis for some good factoids on this, but there were too many pictures of bug-like things that really creeped me out. Suffice it to say, this process is truly a Scorpionic one.

Scorpio rising readers will have this lunation returning to your 9th house of expansion, with Saturn and the other giants in your 3rd house of communication. The 9th house is about going out into the world at large for large quests that will better you: the 3rd is about the way that even a trip around your neighborhood is also a learning process.

Look at the lofty goals you held for yourself on June 20th and ask if they can be achieved more locally. Do you need to learn a new language or do you need to refine your communication in general? Do you need to go to church or do you need to go for a walk? Do you need to travel or do you just need to move? Your sign is intense and passionate, so use those qualities to whatever local projects you’ve got on your radar.

Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising
Sagittarius’ ruling planet Jupiter has been moving in opposition to the sun these past weeks, and I’ve wondered if Sagittarians have all been feeling a bit like they’re not at the top of the priority list. Jupiter is uncomfortable in Capricorn, as the gas giant likes expansive energy and is in uncomfortable restriction in Capricorn.

Sagittarius rising readers have this lunation in their 8th house: back in June I advised you to let go of other peoples’ shit and find your own sense of power. I return to this for this lunation, and ask that you go over the ways that you have committed to yourself. Be sure in detangling yourself from drama that you don’t leave yourself alone.

The remaining few months of Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto together in Capricorn transiting your 2nd house are a good time to tidy up any loose ends in your finances, so get a head start now that the new moon and sun are bringing them into your line of vision.

Capricorn and Capricorn rising
I saw a tweet recently that said “a reminder to check in on your Capricorn friends this year.” I keep repeating it but shit if it isn’t true, if for no other reason than that everyone really is complaining about your sign a lot. As your ruling planet moves retrograde until the end of September, continue to revise/revisit/revision all the ways that you relate to form, system, and boundary.

Capricorn rising folks have this new moon in your 7th house, bringing an opportunity to go back over the intentions you may have set about one-on-one relationships back in June. Have you continued to stay in a toxic dynamic? Are you still feeling like your friend isn’t seeing you on your level? Are your work and collaborative partners taking you for granted?

Or are there ways that one-on-one relationships have been moving positively since June 2020? Whatever is going on in this area of your life, take the new moon and its opposition to your ruling planet as an opportunity to set (or keep) the most appropriate boundaries to you. Boundaries should serve your relationships, not cut you off from them.

Aquarius and Aquarius rising
Aquarius, I feel the need to prepare your lot for December of this year when tons of shit starts to go down in your sign. As much as 2020’s thematics have been about Capricorn, 2021 will be deeply about Aquarius. This makes me feel hopeful: Capricorn is about restriction and Aquarius about rebellion, so I hope it bodes well for our collective needs for freedom.

In the meantime, the clawing astrology of the moment is certainly not good for the Aquarian need to be free. Aquarius rising folks have this new moon in their 6th house opposite Saturn/Jupiter/Pluto’s long trip through your 12th house: the relationship between your spirituality and your day-to-day life is highlighted yet again. Revisit what was going on for you around June 20th and ask how the ways you are in service also serve your spiritual growth.

Pisces and Pisces rising
Neptune made a flowing trine to the sun last week, one that I wish I’d caught sooner to write about for Pisces people since the murkiest and most sensitive sign in the Zodiac would probably have really felt any little cosmic help coming your way. It’s moved away now but sometimes transits are best felt after, so look at anything that happened for you from about Saturday the 11th until Tuesday the 14th as a space of plenty. Any good news come in your life? New people? Mysterious opportunities?

For all Pisces people I advise that you pay attention to what the Universe deposited at your door on those days. Pisces rising people can use this new moon to get into creative expression as a means to communicate with the groups around you. Pisceans have a way of engaging with things that the rest of us can’t quite fathom, and this new moon is a time to revisit those qualities in ways that can hopefully help you connect (or reconnect) with the groups that you want to be a part of.