Nourish: New Moon in Cancer

Nurture your creativity in harmony with the seasons

Jul 11, 2023

Dear Ones,

How are you? How is your body, your heart, your soul? How are you nourishing your mind? We’re in the thick of Cancer season (my birthday month!) and I’m feeling it all.

I’ve been crying in the car listening to this playlist, crying in bed while re-watching video diaries I took a few years ago, crying while reading a mother’s birthday letter to her nine-year-old son.

My emotional cup doth runneth over.

I am grateful for this season of rest and renewal. I am grateful for the chance to feel into the changes and transitions, the letting go and opening up. Still, it is not easy, this being alive in our human bodies.

I hope the resources below will guide you through this season with grace, compassion, and love for all you are becoming and all you’ve been.

When we connect to the energy of the seasons around us, we discover a sacred harmony, resonating from one heart to another.

By tuning in, we can build community and strengthen our relationships with each other and all that is.

This month’s theme for our creative practice is Nourish. Our affirmation is, "I choose to water what gives me life, refilling my cup before pouring into others.”

Download the free Creative Contemplation journal with each month’s theme, affirmation, and creative prompts here.

Share Heartbeats

Each month, I host a new moon circle and guided meditation for this community to reflect and share together. Our next circle is this Sunday, June 16th from 11 am - 12 pm CT! I’ve opened it up to everyone, and you can RSVP here.

Some themes we’ll be exploring are:

Gentle perseverance
The dance of showing up and letting go
How when we give ourselves permission not to do something, it allows us to find out if we still want to

Upgrade now

Arriving July 17th, the new moon in Cancer invites us to create a new relationship with our emotions. Which ones do we resist? What feelings persist, stubbornly refusing to move through our system? A highly emotionally intelligent water sign, Cancer thrives in the deep end. Yet, new moons are about initiating fresh ways of embodying our lived experiences.

Connected to the throat chakra, the energy of this season is asking us to get curious about how we express and name the emotional landscapes of our hearts. What boundaries need to be released or redrawn? Is there an electric, barbed-wire fence that could be replaced by a moat, instead? A drawbridge you could extend to a former foe?

Taking the time to check in with your own needs and how they might have changed will give you a newfound sense of grace with which to move forward. Learning the language of our emotions can help us differentiate between fear and frustration, love and obsession, disappointment and fury. When we understand the nuances within ourselves, our connection to others can deepen.

Creative Inspiration

“When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other.” - Brené Brown

No one better equips us to understand the inner workings of our vulnerable selves than Brené Brown. Drawing on research and data to find clear definitions for eighty-seven various emotional states, this book is a tool guide for greater self-awareness and empathy towards others. Compliment it with her podcast series where she explores this book with her sisters, which I think is so fun!

“Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors work together, it’s almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other.”

Speaking of Atlas, one of my favorite artists, Sleeping at Last, created an album series that he describes as “an ongoing series of music based on the origins of the universe and life within it.” The songs are simply breathtaking and so so beautiful.

On Atlas II, he composed an Enneagram song for each number as well as this podcast to dive a little deeper into the music and psychology. Before I knew I was an Enneagram two (duh) I listened to his song Two and immediately started crying.

I’d love to know which one resonates with you and if it matches your Enneagram!

Tarot Reading

I did something new this month. Instead of drawing cards, I was intuitively given three cards over a series of a week or so to focus on. They are the Three of Cups, The Hanged Man, and Temperance. Super sweet energy, perfect for the season of Cancer!

I like working with the Osho Zen tarot deck because it provides a word for each card. In this deck, the Three of Cups’ word is Celebration, The Hanged Man is New Vision, and Temperance is Integration.

I think this combination is a beautiful blueprint for how to work with Cancer season. The Three of Cups reminds us of the power of ritual, celebration, and practicing gratitude in community with others. It helps us stay present to the beauty of what is as a nourishing and renewing force.

The Hanged Man gives us permission to pause and recalibrate before moving forward, speaking to the need to find balance as we integrate the past and create new pathways moving forward. Our foundations are shifting and we need to find different ways to accomplish our goals and dreams.

Integration is alchemical, just like Temperance. More than letting go of the past to embrace our new path, it takes disparate elements and transforms them into something that’s never existed before. I love this image because nature does this all the time (and we are nature).

The traditional Temperance tarot card has the figure of an angel pouring water from one cup to another. This is a sweet reminder that we don’t have to figure this out on our own. Like last month’s tarot reading, we’re asked to call on our higher self to assist in the alchemy. Whether it’s your connection to Spirit, past ancestors, or past/future versions of yourself, help is available and all around.

Playlist

This is a collaborative playlist so add your own songs and let’s cry in the car together!

Vision Board

Here’s a sneak peek of the Cancer mood board! If you’d like to add your own pins for inspiration, use this link.

Creative Prompts

Visualize, draw, paint, or recreate a boundary that needs updating. Maybe you replace a few fallen stones and reinforce a dilapidated wall. Maybe you remove the electric fence and plant a row of tall bushes, instead.
Spend some time meditating on your relationship with water. Are you drinking enough? Do your houseplants need watering, your skin more moisture? When was the last time you were seaside? Took a ride on a boat? Where were you the last time you cried, who were you with, and what caused the tears to fall?
Write down your five most common emotional experiences. See what’s next to them on the emotional color wheel. Are you really feeling frustration instead of anger? Eager instead of anxious?
Using the wheel above, create your own! Here are two examples:

Use your own emotional color wheel as a reference point and make new ones whenever you want!

New Moon Blessing

May my grief water seeds buried in dark soil, yet to be known. May my joy ripple across my body like a longed-for embrace. May my frustration and disappointment clarify structures no longer working in my life. May I treat myself with grace, no matter my emotional state, and extend that grace to others; may peace be the strong foundation on which I develop the elasticity to stretch my open heart.

All my love.