This Wednesday July 15th, the New Moon will fall in the sign of Cancer, along with the Sun, Mercury and Mars. Emotions are highlighted now and the stars urge us to turn inward towards matters of the home and family.
Cancer rules the home front: our house, home and close loved ones. As a Water sign, Cancer is all about intense, and often sentimental, emotions. So don’t be surprised if feelings are overwhelming you right now. Luckily, with loving Venus and high-rolling Jupiter tangoing in expressive Leo, many of these emotions should be supercharged with love and lots of it.
With the Sun in Cancer, you may feel sluggish, eager to nurture your body with lots of rest, delicious food and good company. To complicate things, action-oriented Mars is totally handicapped in lovey-dovey Cancer now. So your desire to act, accomplish and achieve may be thwarted by obligations to spend time with friends & family. Drop the angst about getting stuff done and just enjoy the Summer days with the people you love.
And with Mercury in Cancer too, even conversation now turns to nostalgia, heart-to-hearts and connecting on deeper emotional levels. The flighty, flirty air of Gemini has passed, superseded now by sentimental, schmaltzy and serious Cancer. So it’s a great time to speak your heart and connect with your loved ones in a more intimate way. The words to express your love and affection for those you care about may not usually come easily, but with Mercury’s Cancerian boost, they should flow freely now.
As the beginning of a new lunar cycle, the New Moon is a time to set intentions for the coming month. In magic, we use the darkness of the New Moon as soil for planting the seeds of our intention so that they may grow in the coming weeks. The sign that the Moon falls in determines what area of life is highlighted for magical work. With the Moon in Cancer, we’re encouraged to focus on our home and family. Consider what you want to call in for your house, neighborhood and close loved ones now and use the New Moon as your opportunity to conjure it. Renovations and upgrades to the living situation are also enhanced now, so you may want to cast a spell for a bigger house, a smooth move or a new bed.
Domestic matters are highlighted during the Cancer Moon. Take this time to add magical energy into your relationships, especially with your spouse and any family members you live with. For those who live with roommates, the Cancer Moon highlights these domestic relationships and encourages you to think about what needs changing. It’s also a great time to cast spells intended to upgrade your own domestic skills. If you’ve been meaning to do the dishes more often and keep the place cleaner, or to spend more on groceries instead of eating out, then now is a great time to set those intentions under the New Moon.
The simplest way to work some Moon magic is to perform a basic fire ceremony. Choose a candle with a color appropriate to your working—Brown & Green all work well for home, family and abundance. Create a sacred space with sage, incense or prayer. Set your intentions clearly in your mind before lighting the candle. Visualize the outcome you desire and indulge in what it would feel like to enjoy that outcome. You can also write your intentions down on natural paper as you visualize before burning the paper in the candle’s flame. Let the candle burn out naturally, and know that your message has been received by the universe.
Spells cast on the New Moon typically take an entire lunar cycle—about 28 days—to reach completion. But sometimes, a spell can reach fruition by the following Full Moon, within roughly 14 days. Now, success obviously depends on how much will power you’re using, whether or not the will power of anyone else is working against you, and whether or not your intention aligns with what the universe intends for you.
Look for a sign after 3 days. Look for movement after 3 weeks. And look for completion after 3 months. These are rough guidelines since candle magic is an art, not a science. Acknowledge any positive signs, movement or completion with rituals or offerings of gratitude. A simple prayer with some tossed food crumbs will suffice.
But if you witness any negative signs, you may need to consider what went wrong. Maybe your spell simply requires far more energy, meaning you would need to repeat the spell with several candles, possibly over many Moons, in order to give it the momentum necessary to accomplish your task. Or maybe your spell is actively blocked by another person’s will power, in which case, you’ll need to consider whether or not it’s worth the trouble. Finally, you may feel that your negative sign is telling you that the universe does not support this path of action, in which case, you should abandon it. Consider going back to the drawing board and ask yourself what you really want, because it may not be what you really need.