New Moon in Cancer Conjunct Black Moon Lilith: Emotional Empowerment Through the Nullification of Authoritarianism in All Forms

Well, this Cancer season, so strongly coloured by Black Moon Lilith energy, has been one for the history books - and not in a good way. 

The authoritarians are swinging their dicks (or their tits) around pretty fast and furious these days on multiple fronts, trying to convince us that they hold legitimate authority over us, over our values, over our decisions, over our bodies, and over our lives.

They do not.

They never have.

They never will.

The man-made, coercion-driven, violence-enforced version of authority they hold is false, fake, corrupt, illegitimate, and oh-so-flimsy. 

But Pluto (power) is in its last gasp in Capricorn (institutions, hierarchy), you see, and the race is on to lock down their Grand Authoritarian Schemes and all the control that goes along with them before Pluto shifts into Aquarius in March 2023.

Of course, most recently, we've seen the (obviously orchestrated) overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the United States, which will make abortion illegal in almost half of the 50 states unless those states overturn their own laws. (That's a very real possibility in some of those states.)

The Sun entered Cancer, the sign of mothers, family, and the feminine, on June 21, marking summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. Roe versus Wade was overturned on June 24. 

The Sun joined Black Moon Lilith, the point of deep, dark, denied feminine experience, in the sign of Cancer. Black Moon Lilith has been moving back and forth between Gemini and Cancer since December 2021. 

Today, we experience an extremely powerful New Moon at 7 degrees Cancer (8:52 p.m. CST) that falls tightly conjunct Black Moon Lilith in Cancer and exactly square Jupiter in Aries. The Sun and Moon are coming together at the lunar apogee - the point in the Moon's orbit where it is furthest from Earth. This indicates a month-long lunar cycle (June 28 to July 28) characterized by emotional extremes and dark emotional states connected to the historical mistreatment of women, mothers, and the feminine. We're being stretched emotionally to the furthest points we can possibly tolerate - and hopefully not beyond. Conditions are being orchestrated to exhaust and deplete us emotionally, and we must see through these orchestrations if we are to maintain an even keel. 

The New Moon in Cancer conjunct Black Moon Lilith is occurring in exact square to Jupiter in Aries, which puts issues around reproductive rights and the active fight for those rights in the Cosmic Spotlight. There is an undercurrent of ugly misogyny being exposed, being thrown under the spotlight, as well as the historical authoritarian control of women and the feminine. These are all Black Moon Lilith in Cancer themes. 

 New Moon at 7 degrees Cancer conjunct Black Moon Lilith and square Jupiter in Aries - June 28, 2022

Click to enlarge.

This astrology indicates a lunar cycle (June 28 to July 28) with a very deep, complex, and often disturbing emotional tenor. The emotional subtext is heavy, immersive, difficult to deny. We're working through some emotional trigger points, some trauma, and some historical (and present day) misogyny and mistreatment of women and the feminine. 

We're also being played. Hard.

One Giant Step Backward for Humankind: Anti-Abortion Crusader Rick Perry Signs Sweeping Anti-Abortion Bill in Texas

Despite Wendy Davis' 11-hour filibuster on June 25 as Jupiter ingressed Cancer conjunct Black Moon Lilith, a sweeping anti-abortion bill has been passed in Texas.

Texas Governor and rabid anti-abortion crusader (yet also, rabid death penalty advocate) Rick Perry called a special session of the Texas Senate specifically to pass the bill.

Unless lawsuits stop it, this bill will close 37 of the 42 abortion clinics in the state, severely limiting access to abortions, especially for women outside major urban areas.

The bill requires that all abortion procedures be performed at a surgical centre. It also requires that all doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles (48km) of the clinic.

Only a handful of Texas abortion clinics fall within those parameters, and all are in urban centres.

Under the new bill, women will be required to travel hundreds of miles to receive an abortion. This brings up issues of transportation, time off work, and the cost of overnight stays, which will be a particular deterrent for women in lower income brackets. When you're low income, taking time off work often means losing your job.

This bill is a direct attack against the poor.

Logically, it will increase the number of low-income babies being born, and the Republicans just love those freeloaders, don't they?

They become cannon fodder or poisoned consumers at 18 years of age, but for some reason, those fetuses are just oh-so-precious to the anti-abortion Republican crowd.

Often, women must obtain abortions in secret. This bill makes it almost impossible for women to exercise their free will on this issue in a discreet and private manner.

Wendy Davis: Black Moon Lilith in Cancer in Action, Protecting Abortion Rights

Wendy Davis on the Texas Senate floor June 25.

Photo: Eric Gay/AP

Last night, as Jupiter ingressed Cancer and conjuncted Black Moon Lilith, Texas Democrat senator Wendy Davis was Black Moon Lilith in action.

Davis successfully talked for 11 straight hours on the floor of the U.S. Senate June 25 to stop an anti-abortion bill from reaching Republican Governor Rick Perry's desk. This is a move called filibustering.

As Davis spoke and the midnight deadline of the Senate special session passed, the bill was officially dead - for now.

Through her actions, Davis is drawing attention to the ongoing attack on women's reproductive rights in the United States. Abortion is an issue that often has difficult emotions associated - shame, guilt, sadness, fear, anger. Perfect Black Moon Lilith territory. Abortion is often kept in murky, unspoken territory in our patriarchal societies. Davis standing up on this issue in such a dramatic way - supported by men and women around the world - helps move abortion out of the shadows and into place as a basic, human health issue - where it belongs.

The anti-abortion bill Davis filibustered would have banned abortion past 20 weeks of gestation, limited abortion-inducing drugs, and required that abortions be provided at ambulatory surgical centres by physicians who had admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles. This requirement would have closed 37 of the 42 abortion clinics in Texas, severely limiting access to abortions, especially for rural women who do not live near a hospital.

You may recall that Rick Perry is the Texas Governor who passed the forced sonogram laws in 2012, which required women to have a transvaginal sonogram before they could have an abortion. The laws, which were passed in four states - Texas, Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina - required doctors to basically attempt to talk women out of having abortions right at the abortion clinic itself.

Happy Astrological New Year and Willow on Ask the Astrologer with Matt Savinar

Today is spring equinox, the Sun has entered Aries, and we're surging forward into a new astrological year.

There's a blazingly potent Aries New Moon coming up this Thursday, March 22 conjunct Mercury Rx and Uranus and trine the Sagittarius North Node, and things are getting mighty hot.

I'll be a guest on Matt Savinar's radio show, Ask the Astrologer, on Thursday between 10 a.m. and noon Pacific to talk about this Moon, the line-up of bodies in Aries led by Ceres, the corresponding attacks on women's reproductive rights, and the horrific forced sonogram laws in the United States being brought to public awareness this month through the Doonesbury comic strip.

Throughout 2011, forced sonogram laws were tabled in 14 U.S. states and were made law in four - Texas, Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina.

These sonogram laws, brought about by pro-life Republicans, force all women seeking an abortion to submit to a transvaginal sonogram of their fetuses - involving a probe that goes into their vaginas - as the characteristics of the fetus are described to them by their doctor. The woman is then asked if she would like to see the sonogram and hear an audio recording of the fetus' heart. She can refuse this, but she cannot refuse the procedure. And in North Carolina, any woman who refuses to look at the sonogram or listen to the heartbeat has her name marked and kept in a record for seven years. The doctor is also required to discuss alternatives to abortion. Under these sonogram laws, women are also forced to wait 24 hours after the sonogram before they are able to receive an abortion, unless they live more than 100 miles from the abortion facility.

These attacks against women's reproductive rights are real, and they're going on right now.

From March 12, 2012: Ceres in Aries and the Fight for Women's Reproductive Rights

Ask the Astrologer with Matt Savinar runs every Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon Pacific on KOWS 107.3 FM. The station serves Occidental, California and West Sonoma county, so if you're in that area, please tune in. If not, a link to the show will be up a bit later on Matt's YouTube channel.

You can also listen live online here: KOWS 107.3 FM

Ceres in Aries and the Fight for Women’s Reproductive Rights

Feminine dwarf planet Ceres, related to fertility and particularly women’s control over fertility, is currently transiting Aries, the sign of, among other things, the war, the battle, the fight.

With the current Mercury-Uranus conjunction in Aries square Pluto infusing the atmosphere, the Ceres in Aries themes are quite apparent within media (Mercury) channels. Case in point: the verbal attack (Mercury in Aries) from Rush Limbaugh of law student Sandra Fluke.

As many are probably aware by now, Fluke spoke at a congressional hearing in favour of the Obama health plan covering the cost of contraceptives. Her support for this was based primarily on health reasons – a friend of hers lost one of her ovaries due to a condition that could have been controlled had she been able to afford birth control pills. Limbaugh, one of those right-wing, privileged, white males who seem to be so oppressed by women having control of anything these days, called her a slut and a Feminazi on his radio show, prompting a storm of controversy and the pulling of multiple advertisers from his show.

Here's Rush at his finest:

“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Limbaugh's language has an undertone of sexual violence and is a broadcasted voicing of the hatred, rage, and fear within the societies at large related to women's control of their own sexuality and reproduction.

The thread of hatred toward women, particularly strong women and particularly feminists, is out with teeth bared these days, not least of which in the race to become the next leader of the United States Republican party.

“The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”

- Scary, scary Rick Santorum from Khamenei or Santorum? You Be the Judge by Reza Aslan

Incidentally, radical feminism does not mean “extreme, over-the-top feminism,” the way most anti-feminist people, like Rick here, use it. Radical feminism is a branch of feminism that pertains, coincidentally, to the idea that the primary force of male oppression and dominance over women is in the control of their reproduction process. This control could be literal physical control – as in continually impregnating them and limiting the access to abortions and birth control – or coercive control through social mores and constructs.

The thread of underlying hatred toward feminists is prevalent on certain astrology blogs, also, and the Team Rush commentary following this incident involved an almost inexplicable rush (no pun intended) to dissect Sandra Fluke’s natal chart.

I understand there are problems with feminism - it is an institution at this point with multiple flaws and areas of bloat, requiring the same Pluto in Capricorn integrity-checks and metamorphosis that other institutions require at this time.

But this isn't really about feminism as an institution - it's about women's rights and the virulent rage and attempt at domination that comes about when women exert those rights. It seems that nowhere does this exertion strike a stronger chord than in the area of women's reproductive rights. There is a continued attempt at the erosion of these rights, including systemic attacks both legislatively and in the arenas of public opinion by people who would like to use Pluto's transit of Capricorn to cement a nice, no-rocking-of-the-boat old school patriarchy.

As usual, "women's issues" are actually everyone's issues, and last time I checked, accessible birth control benefited men, too. Men want to have sex without unwanted pregnancy, too.

Astrologers talk a lot about the revolutionary, future-oriented energy of the Uranus in Aries transit, and that drive is certainly there. We just have to remember that not all visions of the future are versions we would like to see come to realization.

An extreme regressive tendency can also be expected throughout the square series between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn with a move back to a "good, old days" 1950s male-female ideal that never really existed. I've written about this before - a type of nostalgia for the "angel-of-the-home woman/breadwinning-bringer-home-of-bacon man." Gender roles where the man controlled the money and made all the decisions and the woman was happy to birth and rear kids, cook, and clean.

Along with this regression will come the continued attempt to erode access to abortion, the morning after pill, and contraceptives. Nostalgia for back alley abortions, coat hangers, and women dying of infection and hemorrhaging, I guess. Might as well paint that shit into a Norman Rockwell painting.

Feminine Ceres has been reclassified as a dwarf planet and is now on equal astronomical footing with masculine Pluto. These two have always had equal power for growth and regeneration as well as death and destruction. The battles along the male-female, masculine-feminine lines will be intense, sometimes heated, and often in-your-face over the next years on this planet as the equalization and sharing of power is ground out one battle at a time.

These are our fights. Right now, right here. This is where we take a stand. The current feminine force including Vesta, Black Moon Lilith, and Ceres in warrior sign Aries is showing us the battleground, and every woman and man who does not want to see a regression in the areas of reproductive rights, women's rights, and the equalizing of power between men and women must take up the battle now.

Signed,

Willow, defender to her death of women’s reproductive rights

(If that makes me a Feminazi – seriously, that term needs to go – so be it. Anyone who doesn’t like it can mosey on over to the aforementioned Team Rush astrology blogs. Check out some inspirational reading in Michelle Duggar's 7 Rules For Being a Good Wife while you're at it.)