The Full Moon in Cancer on December 22, 2018 (9:48 am PDT) illuminates Solstice time.
What makes a winter? The turning of the Earth away from the warmth of our Sun. This turning time produces the shortest day and longest night as the Sun hovers lowest in the sky.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the December sunturn is called the “hibernal solstice,” or Midwinter (in the Southern Hemisphere, it is Midsummer).
Solstice refers to a pause of the Sun. As the sun pauses, we pause. Stand still. Light a candle and sing the lights back brighter. Experience the power of renewal as the warmth of our great star gradually grows longer from here.
The final lunation of 2018, this Full Moon closes a year of transformation. We are no longer the ones we were 365 days ago. We have shed ourselves, evolved, been changed by change itself, embraced a process of adaptation as the fabric of the world surrounding us shifts.
Reflect. (Reflection is medicine.)
How has the completing of this last year left you? What conditions are present? What was the nature of your transformations? How does your body feel? What are you seeing more clearly? Where are you still feeling weak? What are you needing? What has helped you through the recent process of change?
Like the heavenly light surrounding our Earth, where are you in renewal?
2018 was a time of contrasts. What tensions pulled upon each other to produce the truth of your reality?
What does it mean when something deep inside us communicates a truth that we aren’t yet seeing or experiencing externally? How do we reconcile the familiar life we continue to track around with the pull of invisible futures constantly tugging us onward?
We breathe. We face the times. We read the moments, allowing life to pass through us.
Join Intuitive Astrologer Virginia Rosenberg for an online circle exploring Astrology of 2019. A lookback at the year through the lens of the stars, and gather themes and important dates to help you integrate with the year ahead.
This Moon is an induction. It leads us into a New Year beginning with a season of eclipses. Get ready. There is a new task approaching. Eclipse season will ask for our commitment. (Register for an Eclipse Circle to crystallize your intentions.)
Get clear. Contact the wise ones within. Our commitments and dedications in the new year will look different than they have before. They will be more essential. They will ask us to anchor to what is most important, to live into our integrity, and to show up and greet whatever arises.
In order to do this, we must own ourselves and our place in this world. We must inhabit our bones, trust our wisdom, and claim our inner authority.
We are embarking on a new chapter. We are re-orienting ourselves, changing our allegiance, and shifting course. We are devoting ourselves fully to this path that belongs solely to us and heading it up as no one else can.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
The Moon in Cancer reminds us that before we move forward, we touch the past. Everything we live into is an extension of where we came from.
When we are born, everything we are to be is contained within us. What if we lived in a world that was set up to nourish and nurture our innate self? Instead of pushing and achieving externally to become something more, we could simply know ourselves and hold fast to that, letting whatever is not us fall away, residing in the shape of our sincerity.
Because you are here, the Earth is your home. At birth, we have an invisible tie to the location where we were born; a link to the Mother Gaia. Sense that tie – your original earthly home. Sense the ties you have to all the places that have served as home. All the places and people and situations that have been safe containers for you and have let you know you belong. Breathe life into those sweet attachments.
There is a symbiotic relationship between ourselves and the mother who feeds and protects us. Feed from the mother and she will replenish. Allow the mother to be nurtured and restored, and show her the affection of your devotion.
What we appreciate, appreciates.
We can live in the world that nourishes, supports, and protects us. Everything we need is right here. Through the cavern of each day we live, we can re-create that world. We came here to be ourselves, and to be in loving relationship with all that feeds us.
You are supported to be who you came here to be. Your life purpose is not a set of tasks. It’s you. Because you are here, your being in and of itself is the purpose you are meant to fulfill.
Time and energy is limited. Use it to grow love.
Be intentional. Clean house. Make space. Make a home inside yourself for what you care about. Choose what you want to cultivate, carve out the time to tend to it, and eliminate distractions.
Close your doors to unnecessary fears and obstacles within. In the worldly world, remove your support from what doesn’t feel true. Make nests for whatever warms your heart most. Let your attention settle in the direction of what you wish to cultivate. See to it that they grow and flourish.
What are you intentionally tending?
This Moon delivers big news, vision, and heightened perspective. Explore discourse, take in meaningful messages, and welcome new opportunities for growth. Try to see the bigger picture or map out where you are going. You might not see the details yet, so for now gather intuitive impressions of your next destination.
Remember that your perceiving of something changes the thing you perceive.
This Full Moon features Mars conjunct Chiron, inviting us to integrate our agency in the week ahead. This is a classic wounded masculine archetype, asking us to reclaim the animus (our male aspects and motivation), heal the masculine, and become defenders of what we hold dear.
This week can show us our achilles heel, where we feel most weak and vulnerable, where we harbor guilt, regret, or shame. This is a place where your energy leaks or becomes drained. Where we procrastinate, hesitate to assert ourselves, or are ineffective at engaging. Look at patterns of avoidance and escapism. Look at where you feel the need to prove yourself and ask why. Look at this clearly, and offer yourself forgiveness. Release dreams that have shown themselves to be fantasies. Grieve them. Accept what is within your reach and range of ability.
What are you doing that you don’t want to be doing? What aren’t you doing that you want to be doing?
Seek right-uses of energy. Admit and embrace the desires that most inspire.
Discipline is remembering what you want.
Ask the grand question of what you really want. Intend it, make space for it, then open your mouth wide and speak the grand proclamation of YES.
Join Intuitive Astrologer Virginia Rosenberg for an online circle exploring Astrology of 2019. Lookback at the year through the lens of the stars, and gather themes and important dates to help you integrate with the year ahead. Register for an Eclipse Circle to crystallize your intentions.
Read Full Moon Reports for your Sun and Rising Signs Below
The Sun pauses on the most public part of your chart, Aries. Let yourself be seen and recognized. Consider what contributions you are offering the world through showing up in your leadership. You have been working hard on changing your presence so you can be in integrity and alignment with what’s really needed in this world. Perhaps you’ve had to change tack, shift career, or accept more responsibility for your impact. This year offers the opportunity for you to apprentice as a student of life. Use this moon to look ahead at your course curriculum; what do you want to learn and how do you want to learn it? Feel into what supports are necessary for you to walk this path. The subconscious is very active for you right now. Pay close attention to your dreams and work on healing the subtle layers of self.
This Moon offers you the strength of your intuition. Feel into the depth of insights available to you now. News might come about inherited content, intimacy, or shared resources. Perhaps there is a hidden place you’ve been asking questions about for a long stretch of time. An answer you have been seeking may emerge. Our possessions, our wealth, our access – what we have is meant to be circulated to support causes that matter to us. Distribute your resources towards areas that make life most meaningful. Imagine that doing so is not only of compassionate benefit towards the community you choose to support – but it also helps you to learn, grow, and become better for it.
This Full Moon could show you where things are out-of-equanimity between you and your partner, a close friend, or anyone who crosses your path meaningfully. It might feel like a stand-off or a political battle. Notice where you tend to hoard time, energy, and attention – and how the other person may mirror these tendencies in their opposite. You are being asked to realize energy leaks in the areas of career, control, and how you show up in life-outside-the-home. Where your energy is most scattered and amorphous, embrace better boundaries. Look back to your parents modeling about work-home balance for more insight. Conversations with your partner (or the Other who is teaching you now) can be most enlightening. Let in a new perspective.
Has work taken you away from your primary relationship(s) as of late? There may be a reason for that. What are you getting out of your role at work? It seems like this is still a busy time and much is being asked of you. What do you know about yourself as defined by your roles at work? What do you know about yourself as defined by your relationship(s)? What do you know about yourself without either of those influences – when you simply come into communion with your own inner being? This Moon could show you where you are too much of a Yes person. Have you been over-extending yourself? Make some decisions and come to clarity about what, exactly, you want to say yes to. Let the rest go – someone else can take care of it.
Possibilities are at a high right now, Leo. There is a lot you can see and open yourself up to. Take in the good news! Potential with learning, teaching, and creating abounds. Embrace the vista of how these potentials could converge into something great. Whatever you gain from the experience of offering your creations is meant to be invested in your community, your hopes for the future, and your most intimate loves. The path might not be totally clear.. This visioning Moon also offers you a chance to glimpse hidden barriers within yourself. There may be energies drawing from your person.. Old contracts that would benefit from being buried. Shadows that are ready to be recycled into empowerment. Attend to these inner planes.
Home can be a place of growth and creativity. It can serve as soil for future goals and wishes. It can be a great foundation for your work in the world. What visions are unfolding about your homeplace? Consider the fortunes the growth in your home affords you now. Give thanks and cultivate your connection with the land. Relationships might be challenged around this Moon. Where are you too lenient with others? With whom do you need to stand up and claim what you really want? There may be passions you could express and desires you can own. Find the balance between assertion and aggression.
The solstice Sun pauses on the womb of your chart. You inner chamber. Your personal life. The lineage of security and support that preceded your arrival and continues through your line. The Moon is on your point of public expression. Someone can see what you came here to offer. Be careful of a tendency to give too much. Don’t let the lines blur around uses of your time. Keep those edges crisp and clear unless it’s dedicated relaxing/dreaming time. Where are you still sacrificing yourself, Libra? There may be a spirit of subservience at work. Pull back. Communicate further. Say what you need to say – particularly the things that haven’t been said for far too long. Conversation will open things up for you and give you the insight you need to carry on well.
Your creative center is sacred. Your ability to be intimate is something to fiercely guard. Your power is clear when you curate how it is shared and asserted. Stand on behalf of yourself as creative force. This Moon illuminates give and take for you, Scorpio. It asks you to look at what’s at your disposal. How much do you have to invest on this next chapter? Invest in the teachings, learnings, and exposures that will take things higher on this next year. Good news or opportunities could come down the pike to open up more wealth. Connect the dots and sign the contracts. Our creative work in the world flows as an expression of our sexual, sensual nature.
Something of your past is healing, Sagittarius. Something is healing at home. Home may be a place where, right now, you need more boundaries. It may be a place where you are asked to stand up or create a better container. Speak for yourself. Use words on your own behalf. Focus on the positive – what you appreciate appreciates – but also firmly articulate your truth. Trust your insight. Look for ways to grow. Embrace impressions that people offer you, now. They might be inviting you to come further into your integrity.
This Moon asks you to use your words, Capricorn. A necessary conversation may arise. Perhaps a relationship is asking you to improve your communications. Trust your voice. Notice the places where you feel blocked in verbally expressing. Listen quietly to those places, and ask the space in between the thoughts what those places might need to share. Give form to those words. Let them spill from your insides to the outside. This Moon invites a balance to enter your life between yourself, others, and your spiritual nature. Listen to the quiet. Listen to the dreams. Tend the energies that are invisible and yet make up the physical. Speak what is most necessary, and allow integration to heal through the sounds you make.
Sometimes we can lose sight of ourselves, and we need the be reminded about our specialness. Gather your people, Aquarius. Call them to you. Let them be like a crystal, a prismatic mirror, circling around you and reflecting back to your your truest essence. Ask them what they want of you. Ask them to remind you what your gifts are, what your niche is. Ask them how your talents might best serve them in the coming times. If you haven’t been able to gain traction through your efforts, focus on your body. Inhabit your flesh, and feed yourself well. Focus on experiencing more pleasure. Invite yourself to bring attention to the material. Heal your worth. Ask your people to remind you what you have to offer. Listen, and really take it in.
This Moon asks you to flow with your inspirations, Pisces. You are your dreams coming to life. Shed any shame about what you want most and live into it. Fight for your sweetest desires. Heal yourself with the depths of your own compassion. Your purpose is expanding. Spirit is taking you further towards a vision you are meant to fulfill. Fly further into the reaches of your creativity. Allow your reach to touch more hearts. Are there other communities where you can work? Dive in.
