This Cancer New Moon is a Goddess Moon. Like the summer season itself, Cancer holds our nostalgia for and faith in good things: family, patriotism, apple pie, watermelon on a hot day, unconditional love and our belief in others’ good kind hearts. This innocence is precious. When spread like butter on hot corn, it is compassion embodied, and it is what we Cancerians do well. Maiden-Mother-Crone Goddess reminds us to hold our hearts high and holy.

Yet, at this lunation, something stronger and fiercer is being served. Mars and Mercury join and oppose Pluto while Uranus squares the Sun. Pluto speaks the currency of personal power; Mars, self-assertion, courage and boundaries; Mercury, language and expression. Right now how we use language, how we define and draw our boundaries, matters, especially in areas of the heart, family, self-care, nurturing and mothering. By and large, how well we are doing with the above allows us to either move forward as wise adults or child-victims.

I just returned from going home, home being my (A*C*G*) Pluto ASC line, in New Mexico. In the past, I’d been thrust into the underworld of Plutonian family undercurrents and after a particularly difficult time with family I’d essentially avoided going back for years. But as Pluto started to square my Moon, I felt pangs of regret: this was costing me not only a relationship with my father but to my power as well. So I made sure I was good and ready (my intuition said, “Okay,” with contingencies: Take charge, and make this trip your own. With help, I set up a radio show, book talk and a booth at a spiritual fair). Once there, I knew everything could backfire — I was so incredibly busy and emotionally stretched. When I wasn’t “on” professionally, I was “on” with the family, or meditating and doing EFT for sanity. Yet it all worked. Because for the first time, I was prepared; I went in with a strategic plan. I had mapped out “safe topics” and those to avoid, had a clear understanding about exactly how my boundaries get violated by certain family members, language to use, and when/if all else failed, a back up plan. Growing up, my family had unhealthy boundaries so this plan heavily relied on my tenuous ability to draw strong boundaries. Why? Without boundaries, says MFT Stephanie Ladd, we are innocent like Little Red Riding Hood, weak, victims, at the mercy of others who try and control us. Without boundaries we are at the mercy of wolves.

This New Moon carries the message of the Goddess, and she may be pissed. Now is the time to embrace the Dark Goddess within. The embryonic fluid of our innocence may be blissful, but it gets icky after awhile when: We blame others. We project. We complain, feel victimised, too paralysed to take action –signs we can no longer afford to remain innocent Persephone skipping through fields of Narcissus without great cost to our happiness. We need to heal. To take responsibility. Stephanie again: (The Dark Goddess) helps us to face patterns, false, beliefs and wounds. She forces us to grow up, to die to our old self so we can thrive in the upper world as a Queen.

Because let’s face it: Life isn’t always fair. People die. Parents don’t always get the kids they deserve; kids don’t always get the parents they deserve. Those who love us also hurt us. And just because we love them doesn’t mean we can’t burnout or occasionally despise our dear child, and vice versa. These are Pluto hard truths, ugly truths we know in our bones, if we’re honest. It’s okay. We are human. But how we hold this information in our consciousness, and exactly what we do about it, makes all the difference in whether we feel resigned, bitter, victim or powerful strong.

We each have different areas of life that challenge us to be more resourceful. This is a powerful New Moon for compassionately holding our self in unconditional love -and- for doing the hard thing we must do in the name of self-care and sanity. So at this New Moon claim some private space and time to honor your feelings and your innocent, sweet heart. Then make a plan.  Because Persephone is ready for her well-seasoned, wiser, second act -as Queen.