The year doesn’t really begin for me until I stand bathed in the glow of the first Cncer full moon of January. In the same way, the spring doesn’t start until I hear the African cuckoo and that liquid throaty music pouring out from within a polygala bush smothered in mauve. And autumn is the heraldic gold and purple of the veld, the bauhinia and tecomaria in flower, and large white pumpkins drying on corrigated roofing.
This year I am writing my usual simple and hedgewitchy rituals for celebrating the full moon in Cancer. In the lunation chart for this full moon, the Sun in Capricorn forms a rectangle with Saturn in Virgo, Uranus in Pisces and the moon in Cancer. When I am working with moon energies or star constellation symbolism, I always map out the astrological readings quite carefully. This is a time for nurturing, caring and compassion, that is the gist of these conjunctions. Pragmatic and collective nurturing and vision: that resonates with me. This is also a ‘Supermoon’ since the moon gets as close to the earth as possible.
And the Sabian symbol for the moon at 22 Cancer is ‘A young woman awaiting a sailboat.’ The theme of expectation.
The Cancer moon is maternal and a water sign, so I might begin by taking a bath to commence the ritual. A sly little bit of shapeshifting with the Crab and the tides, the shell of protection, the brittle exterior and the vulnerable soft being within, the tides of the Crone in the bloodstream, salt and flowing, flooding and ebbing. Travelling sideways in an awkward guise.
If it is warm I can work out of doors and skyclad (pause while I remember that my nudity will send my tiny puppies into a worshipful frenzy and I do not know how to get them to stay quietly indoors. Do I need to have my toes nibbled off as I salute the Lady Moon?)
I have a small sealed jar of seawater for use as a cleansing symbol in my water sign rituals, but it is empty. If it rains this evening, I shall collect some fresh rainater and work with that. And I shall burn my own dried lavender and sage, the herbs that have flourished and flowered so bountifully all through this summer. Then I may use a cinquefoil healing oil.
Slowly the elements and the rubric of the ritual are coming together. Like others, I don’t post certain details of my rituals because I dislike the mindless imitation and borrowing of spells and rituals found across the Internet, but also because these are powerful gestures and words specific to my own lived truth here in Africa and in Europe. There is always meditation. Always improvisation, space to respond freely and to change what needs to be changed. There is always listening and paying attention. And each movement or spoken word done in full consciousness of intent, faith, trusting that I will grow and learn and stay receptive.
And then there is the girl standing alone on the shore of the lake, waiting for the sailboat. Something of the allure of that old Annie Lennox song, Love is a Stranger in an Open Car, coming to take you away…
There is a lake in Wales with an island only glimsed every once in a while, perhaps twice in a century. There is Iseult waiting in vain for Tristan to return to her. There is the shadowed sailing boat with a black sail, the veiled women seated within. There is the sailboat flying in across the waves in the last shaft of the sun before evening. Dreams of loss and wonder, and the silent Watcher on the shore of widening conciousness, the tides coming in and the waves lapping her feet.
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