A Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice Cancer New Moon With Puppy Dog Tails Brought To You By Juno Direct in Scorpio

Soul mate asteroid Juno goes direct at 21 degrees Scorpio on July 16 after a 3.5-month retrograde period in Scorpio and Sagittarius.

Juno first entered Scorpio October 24, 2011, entering Sagittarius January 29, 2012, and retrograding back into Scorpio May 17, where it has been kicking up the subterranean spice ever since.

In Scorpio, our soul mates are the people doing the same undercover, stealth energy work that we are - or the people who are making the work necessary.

Scorpio-flavoured soul mate connections can be pretty hardcore. They kick up a locked-in working out of thorny underlying issues, often hidden, and often with long, ancestral histories. These soul bonds can relate to the trauma and damage done by abusive domination/subjugation dynamics on Planet Earth and the hidden stealing/using/usurping of other's resources.

Scorpio involves figure-eight energy exchanges, and these can often be unequal or coerced. Due to their underlying, hidden nature, they are easily misused and abused, with Scorpio's role undervalued and denigrated in comparison to other signs. I wrote a bit about that last October: The Bodies in Scorpio Oppose Jupiter Rx in Taurus: A Conscious Re-Valuing of Soul Energy and Scorpio's Mad Skillz in the Nether-Realms

At its best, Scorpio wants things to be energetically right, and it peels the layers that aren't. As part of getting to bottom-line reality, it identifies, examines, and eliminates dishonesty and corrupt motivations. It digs in and gets hands dirty on emotional, psychological, and metaphysical levels, dealing with underlying issues most would prefer to keep firmly under rug. This often means annihilating denial and blinders via confrontations with the "dark," the uncomfortable, the brutally honest, and the squirm-inducing.

The common soul thread here is the belief that you go deep, you go to the root, or you get the hell out of the way so someone else can.

Juno in Scorpio understands the fuzzy end of the lollipop, and it understands how our soul-level connections and commitments can often dish them out.

Not necessarily your standard lovey dovey take on the soul mate, is it?

These Juno themes have been percolating beneath throughout the retrograde period and are now drawn to the surface as Juno goes direct. Their coming to the surface is of particular value with the New Moon in Cancer coming up July 18.

The New Moon at 26 degrees Cancer is square Saturn at 23 degrees Libra. The Sun and Moon in Cancer will also be trine Juno at 21 degrees Scorpio, and the influence of Juno in Scorpio is going to help this Cancer-Libra square get real.

Cancer-Libra can be a tricky combination as far as the "getting real" goes.

You have the mother (Cancer) and the diplomat (Libra), and both are invested in being nice - or at the very least, in appearing nice. Both these signs like to be seen as giving, congenial, and self-sacrificing for the happiness and betterment of others.

Both Cancer and Libra have a tendency to deny any characteristics - in themselves or in the people around them - that would show them in a different light. This is particularly prevalent when bodies in the signs are being squared, as they are now.

The truth is, both these signs have "dark" characteristics (as all the signs of the zodiac do) that they like to keep off the radar screen, and as far as signs of the zodiac go, there is very little discussion of these.

(Compare that to Scorpio, which is always having its "darkness" outed.)

It just isn't right that Cancer and Libra should get off lily white, squeaky clean in the standard astrology of the day while other signs are dragged through the muck. And with the long Dark of the Moon period in Cancer (7:30 p.m. Central on July 16 until the New Moon at 11:24 p.m. on July 18), during which the Moon trines Juno, Juno in Scorpio is asking for a little energetic justice. This is the fairly quick and painless variety within easy trine aspect - it's really just a matter of owning up to it. But if it isn't owned up to now, the Saturn/North Node in Scorpio transits coming up very soon will start holding noses in it.

Both Cancer and Libra, particularly when in square formation, are prone to denial, phoniness, avoidance of uncomfortable issues, blaming others for their own disappointed expectations, underhanded social or familial power plays, and guilt-tripping. All stuff for which Scorpio has little tolerance.

It's the "I bend over backwards for people, and this is how they treat me" syndrome. The "I give and give and give, and this is the thanks I get" thing where people are held hostage by all that selfless giving and concern.

Because these are two signs that will go to great lengths to keep up the nice, self-sacrificing image and because both like to avoid conflict at almost all cost, they'll agree to do things they don't really want to do but then rebel by acting out in passive aggressive (yet still, on the surface, "nice") ways.

Both signs have a tendency, unless overcome, to pass the buck rather than standing their ground in an honest and upfront manner. 'Selfless' becomes 'complete loss of self,' and chaos follows. At a certain point, it becomes impossible to know where these signs really stand, and their word becomes very slippery.

Both signs love to be needed by others, but there is a tendency to overestimate how much they give altruistically and how much is given with an already-expected return. 

Cancer is certainly warm, cosy, and sweet, but it will bitch and moan to anyone who will listen about everything it does for you if it doesn't find an expected level of gratitude coming its way.

Libra is lovely and socially-welcoming, but be careful accepting its graces, as it will often be looking for a tit-for-tat reward. It'll wag tongue about you, too, if that reward is not forthcoming or if it does not meet preconceived expectations.

Both signs will give too much (their own issue) and then become resentful when they do not receive what they believe is their just desserts, placing blame on others.

Both Cancer and Libra are highly attuned to what the other person is feeling or thinking and strive to maintain harmony and emotional comfort - even to a fault. It's true they put a great deal of effort in to keep people happy, but it's often as much for their own comfort as anything, as both like to avoid distasteful "negative" emotions and realities.

In order to avoid these scenarios, Cancer will hide in its family unit or home. Libra will hide in its social scene.

Juno in Scorpio knows that every soul expressing through a human form has its foibles, it's darkness. It isn't pointing this stuff out to vilify Cancer and Libra or those who have strong placements there - we all have Cancer and Libra in our astrological charts somewhere, regardless of whether any bodies or points fall there. Juno is just leveling the playing field here after having its own stuff laid bare so many times in the astrological discourse of the day.

A New Moon indicates a new layer of expression emerging in the sign in which it falls. Squares provide challenges that strengthen weak links. With this New Moon in Cancer, squared by Saturn and trined by Juno, we have the opportunity to dig into this Cancer-Libra square, dropping the denial and the insistence on the nicey nice in favour of something more true to reality.

Juno re-enters Sagittarius September 16.