Full Moon in Cancer: Embrace Your Inner Journey

With 2025 having only just begun, we’ve already had so much of the swirling energies greatly impact our lives. Venus entered Pisces on January 2nd (Venus enters Pisces – time to birth our deepest desires) where we were asked to start birthing our deepest desires. Then Mars Retrograde entered Cancer on January 6th (Mars Retrograde enters Cancer – time to show emotional maturity), with Mars creating chaos to test our foundations. Finally, Mercury entered Capricorn on January 8th (Mercury enters Capricorn…the messenger of the Gods teaches us to face our fears), with Mercury asking us to face those fearful conversations or handle the thoughts giving us fears. On Monday, January 13th, we will have a Full Moon in Cancer at 24 degrees.

Although the Full Moon won’t reach it’s peak until Monday, January 13th – the effects will be felt the 12th, 13th & 14th. The lesson for this transit comes from the sign Cancer, while our teacher will be the Moon. Since the Full Moon will peak at 24 degrees, our theme for this transit will be the Four of Cups. Finally, the energy we are trying to embody will be the King of Wands. Let’s break down what each of these mean and how it will affect everyone.

The High Priestess as our Teacher…aka the Moon

The celestial body we know as the Moon is associated with The High Priestess in Tarot. This is one of my favorite Tarot cards because this is the representation of learning about yourself by bring forth what you hide in your subconscious. Which also happens to be the purpose of the Full Moon, shining light in the dark so you can bring forth that which you hide from yourself. When The High Priestess appears, she asks us to be brave and learn the truth about ourselves.

The High Priestess represents a choice that is being placed in front of us, do we ignore what we hide in the shadows? Or, do we take that leap of faith and dig deep so we can learn about what we hide in the shadows? Her purpose is to remind us of our own duality – each of us having both a light and dark aspect to ourselves. When The High Priestess comes up in a reading, we may not be ready to start integrating our shadow selves, but we can at least acknowledge our shadow selves. Which choice will you make – shining a light on what you hide in the dark or ignoring it until it comes up on its own?

“Her purpose is to remind us of our own duality – each of us having both a light and dark aspect to ourselves.”

The Chariot as our lesson…aka Cancer

As our lesson, The Chariot represents the sign Cancer. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you’ll remember that Mars Retrograde is currently in Cancer. So we’ve got The Tower testing our foundations and forcing change to anything that isn’t on stable ground. Now, we’ll have the Moon reaching its full peak in Cancer as well. As an overall theme for The Chariot, it’s about: resilience, determination, and pure will. In the RWS deck, The Chariot is represented with a man in armor in a cement chariot being pulled by two opposing color sphinxes without reins. I prefer the card above from Weird World Tarot because I believe it embodies the meaning of the Chariot more fully. In the above image, a traveler has left the castle to embark on a journey using only a small carriage and one horse. Their goal is complete their journey regardless of whatever obstacles come their way – whether a wooden wheel breaks, there’s mud the horse has a difficult time navigating, whatever.

As our lesson, The Chariot is asking us to embark on a journey to bring to light those aspects of ourselves that we repress in the shadows. When combined with The High Priestess, The Chariot is asking us to test ourselves and be honest about things that are no longer serving us. What holds us back from completing tasks? What stops us from fulfilling our dreams? When we are determined – do we stop when there is trouble or do we push through? This journey over these three days is a journey of self-discovery so we can release those emotions or thoughts that cripple us. Maybe they are unwarranted self doubts we pushed down instead of dealing with so we could release them. Either way it goes, we are asked to be honest regardless of what we find so we can emotionally deal with the self sabotaging aspects that hold ourselves back.

“This journey over these three days is a journey of self-discovery so we can release those emotions or thoughts that cripple us.”

The theme of this transit…aka The Four of Cups

Believe it or not, the Minor Arcana cards were assigned astrological correspondences almost 140 years ago…yes, almost 140 years ago in the 1880’s. This was done by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Originally, they called this card “Lord of Blended Pleasure” (The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 1888). For me personally, I think the title is a little dated and doesn’t fully embody the message of this card. For my own uses, I call this card the Lord of Disillusionment, Retreat, and Awakening.

Often times, we perceive our situations in a certain light without truly going back to look at different memories or situations once they’ve passed. We stick with the overall idea we originally had, and this can cause the “disillusionment” mentioned above. We’ve told ourselves something that is totally true. Something happens that causes us to retreat and look inside…I call this going deep. We’re forced to re-evaluate our past held beliefs and see them in their true light. This leads to an awakening – which can either be liberating or devastating. Either way, it awakens us so that we can start making the necessary corrections to course and requires us to stay determined and resilient on our inner journeys.

As a theme for this Full Moon transit, we will experience a shift in a view of ourselves if we decide we are willing to take this inner journey. Whatever truths we uncover about ourselves will help us progress forward in the long run, even if they feel like a hard pill to swallow.

“We’re forced to re-evaluate our past held beliefs and see them in their true light.”

The energy to embody during this transit…aka The King of Wands

Overall, the suit of Wands represents our spiritual growth, how we use our energy, and our inspirations. As a King, this energy is about ruling. Court cards each have their own themes: Pages are messengers telling us it’s time to start paying attention to a certain aspect of ourselves; Knights represent the quest we go on to learn about what fuels those aspects; Queens represent mastering those aspects of ourselves; and Kings represent ruling over those aspects of ourselves.

How can we embody this energy during this transit? Well, The High Priestess as our teacher has given us the assignment to go deep and learn about ourselves. The Chariot will take us on our journey so that we can identify those self-sabotaging thoughts or actions that hold us back from progressing forward to be the best possible person we can be. The Four of Cups lets us know that we may have become disillusioned about some aspect of ourselves that we need to acknowledge by retreating and learning so that we can awaken and see the world, as well as ourselves, for what it is. While all of this is going on, we have to make a choice regarding the embodiment of the King. Choice #1 is to rule with an iron fist that refuses to acknowledge anything that would wound the ego. Choice #2 is to rule in a way that not only inspires us, but others. The 2nd choice is about growing spiritually so that we use our energy to become the best possible person regardless of how fragile our egos may be.

To see how this transit will personally affect you more than what is mentioned above, grab your birth chart and look for the house that Cancer rules. That house will be where you will feel this transit the most.

I hope you’ve found this post helpful in understanding this upcoming transit. There’s been a lot going on, and it’s understandable if it’s too much to deal with right now. Just remember that eventually these things will have to be dealt with, or they will come up whether you want them to or not. If your mental health is struggling at all, please reach out to a Mental Health Professional who can guide you through this process. There are numerous therapists and psychologists all over the United States and world today that follow Jungian or Humanistic beliefs that can guide you mentally and spiritually.

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