The first Full Moon of the year is a Mini-Moon – Smallest Full Moon of 2014 and this is being experienced today. It’s also known as the Full Wolf Moon (each Full Moon has a Native American traditional name), as well as Old Moon or Moon After Yule. It is a Mini-Moon because it will appear 12.2% smaller than the largest Full Moon of the year and roughly 4% smaller than average.

Mini or not, the energy of this Cancer Full Moon is fertile and potent for illuminating our emotional and intuitive sensitivities that can assist us in flowing with the natural energy rhythms and realize the unlimited potentials we have the ability to actualize. We are asked to focus our concentration on ways to help sustain our extended actions we are taking with clarity for the bigger picture and long range perspective.

Dramatic shifts are in progress and along with other planetary aspects, you will need to remember the importance of keeping balance, nurturing your well being, and learning how to act directly and quickly with wider perception of all that is simultaneously happening.

This is also an important time to integrate your personality, shift old feeling patterns, and nurture aspects of your individuality/personal frequency to support the things that truly matter and are authentic to your newly integrated life.

Feel, feel, feel! And really be aware of everything that is you and not you through those feelings. You have them for a reason and they can assist you in understanding what emotions are yours, others’, and which are conditioned old patterns, or truly your natural essence. Balancing your energies is crucial and while the Moon and Cancer focuses on that “Mother” and feminine energy, do not forget the “Father” and masculine energy, as both are needed.

Capricorn Sun, at this time, makes sure to remind us of the male aspects, while we are nurturing the female aspects. Capricorn provides that discipline to help us understand our emotions and how to make productive use of them in realizing how we can be in the driver’s seat, rather than having them rule us from behind the scenes. Capricorn will be the stabilizing force to provide wise discernment, clarity, focus, and grounded balance with its Earthy foundation. In this way it is the rock that will be our anchor while we travel through the emotional healing waters, providing a reality check and helping us to create new structures with real security that come from a true sense of personal identification and self. In this way we can redefine and re-evaluate all aspects of our life, but most importantly the way in which we relate with others from the wholeness of our personal frequency.

Personally, this is a life teaching for me, as someone with North Node in Capricorn and South Node in Cancer, so I do understand both the trickiness of this, along with the value and benefits that come with commitment to the process. Having Pisces (another water sign like Cancer) as my Sun and Mars in Capricorn as my Ascendant in my First House, it’s definitely a pretty glaring energy that has meant all the difference in dedicating work on and something to keep mindful of.

But back to the energy of this Cancer Full Moon – The past, subconscious, and karmic things may crop up at this time, old childhood memories, family history, people from our past…this may bring hidden things to the surface, or ask you to courageously explore them yourself by going backwards momentarily to retrieve parts of you that you left behind. It’s time to put things to rest, understand, forgive, and lovingly release. Unproductive, unhealthy, and dysfunctional emotional patterns will no longer serve you, other than to keep you down. See them for the gifts they have been and realize you are not defined by them, or anyone else, any longer than you choose to be.

This is a time for renewal and restoration from the inside out and this starts with swimming in your deepest emotional waters so that you can turn the turbulence into safe passage.

You could be feeling an emotional roller-coaster has swept through your life, and yet these very things that feel like challenges, have the ability to set you free from old wounds. Release of resentment and embracing of your power will be required as a way to absolve and to heal. Again, you are not defined by the past or by anyone else. All of the voices you’ve heard in your head over the years have been based on an acquired false identity you learned from other people’s values and ideas, which were not yours. The pain of this has likely been great, but the biggest loss was in losing self. It may not feel easy to let go of the harmful energy that has been around so long, as by now it likely has become a form of a comforting crutch. This may feel falsely safer than the unknown of being in your own power to create anything you want when you are free.

So provide yourself with extra love and patience at this time, while you may find yourself feeling irrational emotions and extreme moodiness, as well as experience the same from others. The more you can open your heart, the more healing is available. Closing it to try to avoid more pain may seem like the logical thing to do, but is actually counterproductive and will create greater pain and loss. In order to move through to the other side, you must open wider and deeper.

So let yourself feel and experience closeness, express a good healing cry, speak sensitively and tenderly with self and others, and share your heart in this now moment, as you would always have wished to have felt. See and experience life, one day at a time.  A good thorough cleansing of body, mind, heart, and spirit will be of great benefit for creating a new foundation. Self-nurturing will be in store, as you will likely have over-sensitivities crop up and perhaps even feel like the crab wanting to hide in your shell sometimes when this happens.

Realize that people are responding through emotions rather than reason at this time, so open your understanding to encompass mindful presence of this reality so that you don’t take things personally. Old emotional wounds can easily be triggered, but this is simply a message of what you can look at and release, or a sign that the change is underway, as things sometimes get worse before they get better.

Since Cancer is connected with that “mothering” energy and comforting, this expression of caring may sometimes come through food and the tendency to overeat. So that is just something to be also mindful of, as we use food to numb ourselves, just as much as other substances and diversions. A little extra food love is wonderful (I actually made some vegan pancakes this morning myself when my breakfasts are usually only smoothies), but be aware if you find yourself engaging in something more than just a nurturing treat. Perhaps there is something underlying that wants your attention and by going into that, you will nurture yourself with lasting effects rather than the temporary comfort the food will supply.

Cancer is a very fertile sign, which is all about supporting creation and growth. So this is a great time for initiating and activating creative energy into passions you are bringing forth and building. It’s also a potent time for expansion and harnessing what you integrate into some really powerful fuel for personal evolution. For some it may be about actually child birth, but I always share that “birthing” energy isn’t just about a biological expression. That is only “one” way to express this. We need to learn to expand our patterned emotional and mental perspectives on all definitions and concepts, so we can really take advantage of the limitless possibilities that energy provides us.

Yesterday I was prompted to take a mid-day beach walk break – not surprising since you know my ocean love, but intuitively guided and spontaneous nonetheless. It was an unusually warm day from onset of morning and hitting 88 degrees in the afternoon. I was already feeling the Cancer Full Moon’s energy in the mystery of the warm breeze and the very deliberate and powerful Capricorn Sun beaming down upon me. Being called to the ocean makes sense and there was an unusual energy felt throughout the day, including during my time at the beach. It felt exciting and also like an unknown but welcome friend was entering my experience. There was a low tide because of the Moon, and tons of starfish were abound, which was such a gift. It seemed like all of the Star People were gathering for the Full Moon celebration and I felt a sense of acknowledgment for the changes I’m implementing.

You’ll find photos I took of my starfish friends throughout this post, including some really interesting energy captures around them (especially shown in the last 3 that were taken one after the other in an area that had many starfish in the water and on the rocks – one of which you see that was both holding on with a couple of arms, while the other three were released – interesting symbolism).

Having written about their symbolism before in my post: Starfish Symbolism – Exploring the Magick of these “Star People” their energy felt very supportive to working with the emotions and the opportunity for renewal that is available so I thought you may find viewing these images to have a positive effect on you.

Starfish are symbols of Moon Magick, beauty, tidal movement, divine love, protection over troubled waters, inspiration, guidance, intuition, keystone of connection, healing, and regeneration. The most profound and amazing characteristic is their regenerative ability, as they can completely rebirth not only an arm, but an entirely new Starfish from a detached arm and part of the central disc. Speaks to our own abilities to rise again and recreate ourselves from what ever place we are in life.

Know that you are being supported with the courageous steps that you are taking. Wishing you a very deep healing Full Moon.