NEW MOON IN CANCER- A SYNERGY OF SUPPORT

9/7/21

Art Work is a collaboration by poet Francesca Filippa of Hunter And Her and collage artist and painter Ines Loughrey. Follow @inesloughrey for beautiful bespoke paintings and prints. 

Cancer season is the most emotional season of the year that seeks to tenderly unlock all the secret feelings we have been holding to be held and maybe, by grit or by grace, a little healed. 

CANCER AND EMOTIONS

Cancer is an ocean of emotion, a sea of sensitivity and big big feels. Cancer is ruled by the moon and the moon rules our emotions. The moon pulls the ocean’s tides and our bodies made of 75% water into surges and swells of feeling.

When la luna is in its native sign of cancer it may feel like a radical emergence of uncontrollable emotional depths. Let your heart and soul pour and over-pour some more. The moon is very at home in Cancer so trust that you have incredible spiritual support from the cosmos for emotional and relational healing. 

Cancer is a water sign symbolised by the crab that can evoke sweet and sticky nostalgic memories, old and new fears carried in thick sobs and tender tears if we allow ourselves to soften our hard shells and melt away the stories that need to be felt and forgiven, even if it’s just a sliver of forgiveness that is gifted- or, if that’s not possible- the profoundly healing act of having your feelings heard and held. Even if the only ones listening is yourself.

Cancer is the ultimate nurturer and the embodiment of empathic listening. Have a listen to my meditation ‘Heal’ to the sound of the ocean. I truly hope it helps you feel somewhat co-regulated if you need some soothing relational attunement. 

CANCER AND CREATIVITY

Cancer is also a sign of creative gestation, its oceanic depths are an immense and intimate incubator for birthing new dream seeds; its nurturing waters are the amniotic fluid that holds and nourishes your soul seeds to full term. Whether it be new dreams, new ideas, new connections, collaborations and movements this is a beautiful moon to plant a seed of creative intention. 

My creative purpose is very much driven by providing a non judgmental space for people to feel what they need to feel whatever way they need to feel it. I believe our emotions are creative gold that move us into our deepest spiritual, emotional and creative truth when we make ourselves available to the magical and meaningful messages they carry. 

Ritual is a powerful way of tending to the emotional self. Making art with our feelings gives life deeper meaning and is profoundly healing. Ritual is an act of service to the soul, a love language that makes itself known through calling your feelings home.

CANCER AND RELATIONAL INTIMACY

Nearly 18 months of living in a studio alone I hit a wall of physical pain on Monday that I knew I couldn’t deal with on my own; something I had no choice but to do any time I was poorly throughout the heavier lockdowns. 

I had to take the night off teaching yoga as I was completely incapacitated on day 1 of a monstrous bleed. I am highly sensitive energetically and these times have caused erratic changes in my cycle that swing from deep flowing ease to swells of fresh hells. I knew I needed support as standing up for more than 30 seconds was making me feel faint and nauseous and I was experiencing shooting surges of pain deep in my root.  If you know, you know. Calling female loved ones and friends is something that comes habitually to me during my bleed but it felt unexpectedly incredible to share my pain with the masculine. A close divine man heart offered to come and tend to me straight from finishing a long day at work. 

Despite feeling so exposed and vulnerable and wanting to dumb my pain down and hide away in my shell, I clearly communicated what I needed and my needs were tended to exquisitely with soup in bed, painkillers, cuddles and lower back rubs. It felt so good to be held in his protective presence and nurturing care.

This deepened intimacy between us and came from me leaning into the vulnerability of letting myself be seen in my mess and actually admitting I had needs. Something that didn’t used to come to me with ease. He is a deeply kind soul and said "it is so easy to care for you” and expressed that it felt good and natural to him to care for me. It felt like a mutual gift. 

So many of us feel fulfilled by being needed and being of service, yet so many of us don’t want to feel like a burden and this really robs us of basic human nurturing and connection. If the pandemic has taught us anything is that life is dry as fuck and lonely as hell when we don’t share our more vulnerable needs with each other. 

I used to be fucking terrible at asking for support as I was gaslit growing up for being “too sensitive and too needy” so I learned to stuff my emotions and needs down and suffer in silence which lead to anxiety and depression from a very young age. 

How easy do you find it to communicate when you need some TLC and a cuddle in times of struggle?

CANCER AND COMMUNITY CARE

If there is one word to sum up Cancer Season it is Care.

To me receiving a supportive hug is like being held within someone’s else’s soul-shell, enveloped in loving arms that want me to be well. 

Cocooning is a verb I made up that means to hold your own and another’s heart safe. 

This new moon has me feeling so fiercely protective of the ones I love and also craving the feeling of being protected and cared for intimately. Cancer is the nurturer of the zodiac often symbolised by the mother child bond. At Hunter And Her the ‘Her’ is not a gendered term.

H.E.R. is nature’s unconditional tender love that H-ears E-veryone’s R-eality.

H.E.R. is nature’s all-encompassing fierce love that H-olds E-very R-eality.

When I say protective and nurturing, I speak from an expansive humanitarian perspective- we each have a capacity to care, to protect and an intrinsic need to be cared for and protected.

After being recommended it by one of the gorgeous members of The Cocoon I have been reading ‘The Care Manifesto- The Politics of Interdependence’ by The Care Collective and it speaks to my bones.

Chapter 3 on Community Care opens with:

“Over the last few decades, many of us have experienced living in an accelerated social system of organised loneliness. We have been encouraged to feel and act like hyper-individualised subjects who primarily look out for ourselves. But in order to really thrive we need caring communities. We need localised environments we can flourish: in which we can support each other and generate networks of belonging. We need conditions that enable us to act collaboratively to create communities that both support our abilities and nurture our interdependencies.”

This is how I long to live and it is what I’m slowly building with Hunter And Her. 

Through Love, real sustainable nourishing love rooted in one thing- Care. I want Hunter And Her to birth an unconditional care movement, based on mutual support and a deep deep devotion to a long term caring community synergistically co-creating sustainable creative and spiritual health. Committing to each other’s mutual soul and creative wellbeing is the kind of love I want to share don’t you?

CANCERIAN CONTEMPLATION

I will leave you with a Cancerian Contemplation poem that birthed my signature seasonal dance offering ‘Body of Gold’ on the new moon in cancer in 2020. This poem comes from multiple emotional breakdowns and breakthroughs in my life and learning the value of nurturing my own inner child whilst being held by mentors and loved ones on my healing journey. 

Body of Gold

Darling do you remember what it feels looks to be a body of gold?

Before all those scarcity stories you were told?

Sweet love can you imagine that your deepest needs are little golden seeds that long to be nurtured like a newborn as it sleeps?

Angel can you remember what it feels like to be a child worthy of this earth? 

Before you were given way less care than you deserved?

Beauty can you imagine what it would feel like to actually be embraced for being super sensitive?

I’m so sorry you were misunderstood as being angry or too pensive.

Darling do you remember what it feels like to run wild like the wind?

Before you were told there’s a race you must win?

Little one do you even know what it feels like to make sense of what you feel?

I’m so sorry others confused you about which emotions were true and real.

Beloved warrior, have you ever tasted what it feels like to express the strength of your inner fire? 

Before that critical voice squashed your healthy fierce drive and desire. 

Darling, can see your body as the entire ocean, and that your whole life can be a deep dive devotion to honour your emotions?

And this began to set you free from all the pain you’ve been holding.

And slowly allowed you to pour your pain into purpose.

And rewrote the story that your expression is worthless. 

I see and care for you like a lion mother to her golden babe child.

I fully support and encourage you to feel safe, seen and wild. 

Closing Heart Call

The meaning of The Cocoon has recently shifted in my lil brain.

The Cocoon is A C-ulture of Care O-ffering O-penhearted N-urturing 

It would be an honour if you would subscribe to this precious creative community space that is saving the arts by supporting me as an artist as I help others realise their creative gifts. I sob regularly that this is my job. It gives my life such meaning and purpose and every shit bit has been worth it. Let us co-create a micro-culture of creative care.

In synergistic support and unconditional care,

Francesca, Mama of Hunter of Her x