The New Moon forms at 14 Cancer 2 at 3:57 PM PDT of the 5th, both Sun and Moon ostensibly on their way to meeting Venus, roughly 8.5 degrees ahead in Cancer. Within hours Luna will perfect conjunction to the goddess, but the Sun chases and chases her yet never arrives, their next meeting months away. So, can they be considered conjoined Venus for the purposes of understanding the New Moon? My vote is: yes and no.

A New Moon in Cancer is about discovering what we care for–but what comes is twofold: Luna meets Venus, reflecting back to us the emotional meanings behind relationships, assets, and issues of fairness or equity; but Sol doesn’t complete contact anytime near this New Moon, suggesting that we focus our attention on Venusian matters (Love, finances, who has what, with whom to partner) and yet we are distracted from realities by the pure feeling of Luna and Venus meeting. That is, we want to see Venus’ subjects in a clear, realistic light, but find our emotions overwhelm and even obscure the ‘What Is’ picture. The feeling nature overtakes and swamps our connection to the objective state of things, and so keeps us from applying mind adeptly to material matters (which it seems that we can, encouraged by the Sun’s rulership of Mercury, currently in Leo). We want to be rational, to use the mind to decide what we care about–but our intuitive and feeling nature has other plans, and the placement of Mercury (the mind) in Leo says we are likely to tailor our perceptions and thoughts to things that serve our ego or paint us in a positive, shining light–that’s not a bad thing, just one that may skew our interpretations and conclusions.

The answer, I think, is to see with feeling, to use the intuitive and emotional as senses, as information collectors–like we typically have to do during a Mercury retrograde (maybe this is practice for the next retro period, in August, in Virgo and back into Sun-ruled Leo, mimicking the clear sight vs. feeling conundrum we’re facing now). We must put out feelers, read the room, trust the intuition, trust ourselves, but still maintain a sense that the mind is not really equipped right now to put what we perceive into words–so that the more generally and nebulously and calmly we incorporate what we ‘know’ into the psyche, the more successful we’ll be at choosing and acting correctly, without surrendering to the ego traps the mentality might present at this time.

The New Moon is in wide sextile and trine, respectively, to Mars and Saturn, which are themselves in a close sextile. This adds stability to the emotional perceptions as we cross-check our feelings with the reality picture (how closely does this adhere to our idea of the ideal–Saturn in Pisces), and tells us to act with that same sense of connection to the reality picture and to the comfort and stability of the material–if it enhances our security, our enjoyment, our well-being, then it’s the right choice (Mars in Taurus).

The New Moon also forms a Cardinal T-square with the Nodal axis; think of this as offering an energy lightning rod, the actions (Cardinal) that connect past and future (Nodes) prompted by the feeling picture of the Now (New Moon). Add to this that Ceres opposes the New Moon from Capricorn, and we suddenly have a Cardinal Cross, with the bonus placement of asteroid Hades conjoined the New Moon. Ceres introduces the concepts of autonomy, responsibility, and our relationship to the natural world to the feeling perceptions of the New Moon–with our feelings juxtaposed this, we learn how suited our personal authority is to the world in which we operate–and Hades paired with the New Moon may have a special message for us: we make our own hell, perhaps by allowing feelings to dictate too much (or for some, too little). Balance, then, between our personal responsibility (Ceres) and the indulgence of our own preferences and feelings (NM conj Hades) is very likely the thing we must achieve.

The New Moon Sabian is, ‘In A Sumptuous Dining Hall Guests Relax After Partaking Of A Huge Banquet’. This brings to mind a quote from an old stage play: “Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!” This suggests this Moon’s offering can clue us in to where our emotional abundance can be found. Do we really know where the potential satisfactions, the banquet in our own life, lies? Use our New Moon feelings to find it and partake; that’s what it’s there for.