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A lovely sliver of a Moon sailed through the western sky at sunset last night, as the Sun prepared to leave emotionally fraught Cancerian waters for bright and playful Leo.
With everything stirred up during the Dark Moon–New Moon time in Cancer, though, relaxing enough to play could be difficult.
The Moon's in Virgo now, ready to serve the needs of others but also anxious. Opposing Chiron and squaring the Jupiter–Ceres–Venus group in Gemini, this Moon looks for reassurance and healing in community.
Our basic understanding of how we deal with stress is the classic flight-or-fight response: Pumped up on adrenaline, we run like hell, or turn and fight.
That pattern expanded to include freezing as another response––the deer-in-the-headlights thing. Researcher/ healing professionals like Peter Levine expand our understanding of what happens in the body when we experience trauma, and how to heal it.
There is another model, documented especially among females in many animal communities, that's relevant to today's Crescent Moon. It's called tend and befriend, developed by Shelley E. Taylor and colleagues and first published in 2000.
The tend and befriend model notes that some animals respond to stress by finding community, making sure the young and vulnerable are cared for, and supporting each other. This pattern seems especially prominent among females and has been related to the hormone oxytocin, which plays a role in much of our affiliative behavior.
Sometimes our responses to stress and trauma are to move into intense emotions like fear and anger, escalate, and polarize––possibilities seen in the Mercury–Uranus trine, and an inconjunct from Mercury to Pluto.
We feel a strong desire to act (Mars opposes Uranus and squares Pluto). We want that action to be dramatic (Sun square Saturn). Fight or flight.
A pair of overlapping Yods, one pointed right at fiery Mercury with Pluto and Chiron at its base, and the other pointed at Chiron with Mercury and Mars at the base, point to the challenges in expressing our thoughts and feelings without causing more trauma.
Where's the remedy?
The Virgo Moon loves to tend. Are the kids alright? Is anyone hungry? How can I help? Opposing Chiron in Pisces, there's an awareness here of deep emotional and spiritual needs, beyond the day-to-day concerns of Virgo, and a desire to heal.
Jupiter, Ceres and Venus hanging out together in Gemini are squaring this Moon–Chiron opposition, and they love to befriend. Those three, how could they meet a stranger and not find a way to connect?
This Crescent Moon T-square opens our eyes to the sometimes hidden value of getting together with friends. It's not just about having fun. It's about connecting, checking in to find out how people are doing, offering a hug that means more than it seems.
The intensity of this New Moon in Cancer may have knocked us off balance, revealing depths of old emotion we thought already resolved, or pitching us into rough waters in other ways. Now the Moon grows again, and we look for new ways to grow with her.
This Crescent Moon points to something we might miss. When the going gets tough, the tough call their buddies. This is less about circling to wagons to fight something off, than about checking in, tending, affiliating. It's about love, basically, offered in some practical Virgoan ways.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ––Dalai Lama
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