Cancer Full Moon Eclipse: Snatched from the Jaws of Death

I stopped by Computer Geek yesterday to get a new battery for my old Iphone. But the process turned out to be more complicated than it first appeared. As Omar, the quirky proprietor, was removing the old battery, it suddenly caught fire!  He yelped as a chunk of charred metal flew out of his hand. Acrid plumes of smoke filled the air. I stared in horror.

Omar turned on a fan to clear the smoke as we waited for the phone to cool down so he could assess the damage. A blister was forming on his thumb. “I saved your life!” he exclaimed. “This could have exploded while you were driving!”  At last he was able to put in the new battery. We tested the phone and all was well. I paid him, thanked him and drove to CVS for some pain-relief ointment. His new customers wanted to know what it was for. As I slipped out, he was recounting the tale of how he had just saved my life.

Whether or not my life had truly been in danger, this incendiary event was a sign. And I love it when the Universe gives me signs! How did I interpret this one? Things are at a flash-point now. The old is burning to make way for the new. If you heed your instinct to make a change (time to replace that old battery!), dire circumstances can be averted with the help of skilled allies.

This is, in fact, the message of Friday’s Cancer Full Moon eclipse. On January 10 at 11:21 a.m. PST, the Sun in Capricorn will eclipse the Moon in Cancer. Lunar eclipses are dramatic and emotional. And this Moon is strong in her own protective sign of Cancer. On the same day, Uranus, planet of change, turns direct in Taurus, sign of the Earth, signaling that we have reached a tipping point, both personally and collectively. As Luna gets eclipsed by the Capricorn Sun and Mercury (old patriarchal ways of thinking), outrages against Mother Earth can no longer be ignored.  And on a personal level, we are facing parts of ourselves and our lives that are unsustainable and must be transformed.

This eclipse is even more of a turning point since it also activates the fateful Saturn-Pluto conjunction (exact just two days later). In his masterful book Cosmos and Psyche, Richard Tarnas notes that Saturn-Pluto alignments “seem to coincide with the calling forth, both individually and collectively, of unusually sustained effort and resolution, intense focus and discipline with minimal resources, and exceptional courage and acts of will in the face of extreme danger, hardship, death and moral darkness.”

Times like these call forth the best in us. The survival instinct is activated at moments of great danger. And an eclipse on the Cancer-Capricorn axis is alchemical in nature, especially with Saturn-Pluto involved. In alchemy, energy must be contained (Saturn) so it can be transformed (Pluto). If we can stay with the discomfort of change and have faith, something new will be born. So let’s welcome this intense time and all that may follow with the courage to face what is no longer working – to feel it and transform it.

Watch for unusual happenings this week that reveal the way forward. You’re apt to receive a message that, if heeded, could change everything for you. And if you’re lucky, you might even meet a skilled ally (a higher expression of Capricorn) who snatches you from the jaws of death.