An ode to mothers; the one you had (and the one you had to be for yourself)

New Moon in Cancer Horoscopes

The day of my birth, my mother‘s midwife was running late. My mom hopped in the bathtub, doused in rose petals and prayers, and pulled me into this world herself, alone at twenty two.

One random Monday in 1981, my grandmother, also a single mother, was unemployed and looking for a job, driving town to town in northwest Tennessee in her white-roofed cordovan Thunderbird. One dead end after another, she started to head home, uncertain of the future. That Saturday had been her 10-year class reunion, and an old friend exclaimed, “Teresa, you should come to Texas!” To this day, my grandma says she might as well have suggested to fly to the moon. She was jobless, Tennessee was all she’d ever known, and she had a young daughter counting on her. As she drove homebound on Highway 51 after an unsuccessful job search, she heard what she could only describe as god’s voice, clear as day in the car: “go to Houston.” It was so audible she turned and looked in the backseat for a stowaway. Then she heard it again. “Go to Houston.” Shocked but unafraid, resolve formed in her gut. A mile later, a man in a delivery truck flashed his lights and asked what she was doing driving around so late. She replied, “I’m headed to Houston.”

That’s where I was born, sixteen years later.

One decision, one act of maternal courage, set our lineage on an entirely new course. I would not be who I am, where I am, or perhaps I would not exist at all, if she hadn’t trusted the mysterious voice in the backseat.

You see, all developmental archetypes of woman, on the scale of child to maiden to matriarch to wizened witch in her rocking chair, can be found in Cancer; the fourth sign of the zodiac and cardinal angle (IC) that rules home and linage.

As it just so happens, my mother is a Cancer. My grandmother is a Cancer. My IC is in Cancer. My mother and grandmother respectively gave birth in a Saturn square, meaning that all three of us go through life lesson transits at the same time. Our karma overlaps like doubly exposed film, a blur of images woven together.

Me and my mom in Houston, Texas.

Consider how the DNA in your body was carried in your great-grandmother‘s womb. The study of epigenetics, how trauma can be inherited, how maturity can be stunted at the age of first significant trauma; the sacrifices or absences that shaped you, your comfort meal, the smells that take you home, the sounds that trigger your fight or flight. The karma of Cancer placements is intergenerational. I think about how, when my mother was the age I am now, she already had a six-year-old daughter. If science says we can inherit their trauma, I’d like to believe I inherited her courage, too.

It’s true what they say, all roads lead home… And under this Cancer New Moon, I invite you to consider the karma of your family tree and the role you signed up to play on your generation’s branch.

I am the first woman ever on my mother‘s line to make it past twenty two years old, child-free. I am the first to have the freedom to decide what family means and looks like to me. I look at my grandmother, who worked every job under the sun to provide for my mother; my mom, who took it a step further as an artist and entrepreneur and wore countless hats to provide for us before building a successful company from scratch; and now me, blending their cardinal courage, filling my own cup, learning sovereignty by a new name — one that is a gentle embrace, and thanks to them, does not require so much sacrifice.

The hardware of new computers stays relatively the same, but it’s the software that changes; we are inherently responsible for the updates to our behaviors, nervous systems, beliefs, and actions.

The house of 4° degrees Cancer is the area of life to consider your next software update. Six months from now, where are you nurturing your evolution next? How are you informed by your linage in the house(s) of Cancer… both the traditions you want to keep and the patterns you endeavor to break?

The chart of the day is a powerful one! With Sun and Moon conjunct Jupiter, one degree apart, your intentions are magnified. There’s a perfect sextile to Mars in Virgo, asking for mindful cultivation. Once you set your intention, sit down and make a plan as well. The tight square to Saturn and Neptune in Aries illuminates themes of disillusion and where we get in our own way… But with a yod to Pluto in Aquarius and another to Mars in Virgo, we can activate new paradigm shifts in our own lives, families, and in the world around us when we have the courage to take a new approach.

1st house: you carry the karma of a generational cycle breaker. The karma of your lineage is carried in your body more than anyone else, and you may have inherited or been privy to your mother‘s self-esteem issues or relationship to her own body. Perhaps your mother greatly influenced how you feel about your physical self. How can you take care of your body like a temple, and forgive anyone who ever made you doubt that?

2nd house: family has greatly influenced your relationship to money and security. At times, you might be trapped in patterns or behavioral responses that were shaped by either the fortune or scarcity that was modeled to you. Over the next six months, how can you deepen your relationship to resources more on your own terms, in a way you would be proud for future generations to emulate?

3rd house: you are here to speak up on behalf of all of the women before you who couldn’t. Your voice carries the karma of all generations, past and future. Remember that the next time you need to stand up for yourself or set a boundary or express your heart. You’re not just doing it for you. Over the next six months, how can you use your voice to honor family or heal from them?

4th house: you may have grown up quickly, or with a pronounced maternal figure. The karma between you and your mother is one of the defining pillars of your life. You are here to do the work so that it feels like a solid foundation upon which to build everything else. Even in matters of abandonment or estrangement, the way you build your own home and hearth is directly related to the work you are willing to do to repair the mother wound, or carve a new path. Over the next six months, how can you take more accountability for the life you’re choosing to build for yourself, not just as an echo of where you came from?

5th house: were you allowed to shine as a child? Or has family affected your relationship to ego? You are meant to shine on behalf of your lineage. There is a stage carved out for you in this life, and it is deeply healing to step onto it for everyone who has come before. Whether you had a “momager” who pushed you onto said stage, or a mother who clipped your wings and made you doubt your radiance, your mission as a cycle breaker is to determine just how much space you want to take up in this lifetime, and claim it. What stage are you claiming more deeply in the next six months?

6th house: you may or may not have had the systems for a successful life modeled to you. Perhaps your mother was extremely diligent, helicopter, health conscious, almond mom… Or perhaps you had to raise yourself, run your own bath, and learn how to do taxes because no one ever showed you! This life is about deciding which rituals and patterns benefit you and make you feel like healthiest… And which are out of habit, but don’t serve you anymore. Over the next six months, how can you refine and examine the way your daily habits and behaviors are co-authored by family? Which ones would you like to keep, and which ones are you rewriting?

7th house: you learned how to be in relationships from your mother. There is an element of your attachment style that is copy and paste on your maternal line, and the success of all future relationships requires you to examine how deeply that goes. Are you looking to be loved the way she did or didn’t love you? Do you accidentally echo the qualities you saw her search for in men? Or perhaps you’re chasing for what feels like an impossible ideal, to emulate your parents’ 30-year golden marriage? Over the next six months, how can you update your relationship rubric so that you are conscious about what you seek in others?

8th house: multiple things can be true at once. Your family has made you strong and emotionally resilient, one way or another… Inheritable trauma may also live in a Cancerian eighth house. Despite any tangible resources that were passed down to you, this encourages you to dig deeper and consider the shadow work you have also been saddled with in this lifetime. Consider that you are the first in your generation to have such an array of tools at your disposal; somatic work, therapy, breath work, EMDR, even the ability to have a credit card in your own name… Instead of falling prey to the idea that there are corners of the psyche you may never fully heal or explore, over the next six months, consider the advantages you’ve inherited as well.

9th house: did your mother go to college, or are you the first? Did family instill the importance of higher education? The way you learn and seek in the world is deeply informed by your lineage. Consider the opportunities that are available to you to spread your wings and explore new horizons, that perhaps were not an option for the women who came before. Even when the future feels scary or unpredictable, remember that you can choose at any moment to set course for a new destination, a luxury a few women before you have had. Over the next six months, how can you nurture a new destination with that freedom in mind? How can you let freedom be an ode to the woman who came before?

10th house: these are often people who got their work ethic from their mothers. She may have been no nonsense, sharper around the edges, but that was the love language that she knew how to give, in order to provide and protect. Consider how stay-at-home moms also sacrifice a great deal to prioritize homemaking. How have your personal ideals, goals, and ambitions been influenced by your family? Is it truly what you want, or just what you’ve been told you should achieve in the name of everyone who came before you? The way you can truly honor your family is to chase what you want, to be the first to truly live for yourself and achieve the truth in your heart.

11th house: did your mom have many friends? Did you inherit community through family, or did you grow up feeling isolated? Consider the karmic implications of watching your mother build connections as a child, how that is reflected in your own community building efforts, or even the way she moved through the world. What do you like and dislike about it? Over the next six months, how can you be more intentional about the patterns that play out in your friendships, and how that ties back to your mother? If you have the tendency to become the “mom friend,” consider where that comes from.

12th house: your family has deeply influenced your spiritual beliefs and practices. Either you were raised secular and esoteric, or in the pews every Sunday… Your karma in this lifetime is to establish your own relationship to spirit. You may come from a long line of intuitive and witchy women, but your relationship to spirituality is allowed to evolve and be different than where you came from. Over the next six months, are there any aspects of your spiritual practice that are still tied into or hung up on what was modeled to you? Is there anything you’d like to explore?

If you have any stories about your maternal lineage or family karma that you notice in their birth charts, I would love to hear family stories in the comments!

To the moon and back,
Ocean Pleasant