The Earth moves into its June solstice position in relation to the Sun on June 20, just before the Capricorn Full Moon blossoms on June 21 at 6:07 p.m. US/Pacific.
We may feel the undertow of our past tugging at our feet as this lunation’s naturally high emotional tides wash over us, since both Cancer and Capricorn deal with all which has preceded us in time. Dream-maker Neptune takes to center stage during this Full Moon, stirring our imagination in ways both productive and confusing. Dropping into our physical form, connecting with Earth’s rhythms and wisdoms, can steady us and also calm any anxiety that Saturn—who is forever pressing us to take life seriously—may provoke as he slows down to turn to retrograde motion on June 29.
Whether we experience Saturn as a generative form of constraint, or as a worry or obstacle, a creative pulse is also moving through the cosmos while Venus wends her way through intuitive Cancer from June 16 to July 11. Exploring the symbolic realm through art and music is favored, and can also aid us in dislodging any stuck feelings or emotional states which have grown stagnant or perhaps over-ripe.
The mind of Mercury is also wading through the intuitive waters of Cancer through early July, encouraging the symphony of thoughts and feelings that color our experiences to find greater harmony. The June solstice seems to be encouraging us to focus first and foremost on who we are rather than what we do. It is impossible to know who we are unless we know what we are and where we are located. A patient and reverent inquiry into such simple yet profound and foundational questions could bring forth some rewarding perspectives, or perhaps helpful affirmations of our current trajectories.
Full Moon in Capricorn
June 20 ushers in a solstice point on the wheel of the year, when the Sun enters the nurturing sign of Cancer and turns Earth’s season to the northern summer and the southern winter. The Capricorn Full Moon follows on June 21, making her exact opposition to the Cancer Sun at 6:07 p.m. US/Pacific, draping the night in various forms of sentimentality or re-enactment of past stories. Both Capricorn and Cancer deal with tradition and predecessors, and Cancer’s powerful pull on the past is magnified as the planets Venus and Mercury join the Sun in illuminating the full face of the Moon.
This could turn many minds towards social and romantic dreams and aspirations, feeling into our desires to reconcile our visions and intuitions with apparent realities. Our emotions may carry us into ruminating on unfinished business that feels burdensome or hard to grapple with.
Can we trust our dreams to draw us through the karmic eye of the needle which our history insists we thread?
Do we really have to let go of our big dream to accept some apparently safer, smaller path?
Perhaps the great poet Lucille Clifton offers us some helpful perspective when she notes, “In the bigger scheme of things, the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that’s a whole different thing.”
Since foggy Neptune’s heavy involvement in this Full Moon could bring about confusion, over-idealization, and escapist or addictive tendencies, we might try tuning into the slower rhythms of Earth and feel into our bodies, noticing how we are supported by gravity. We might be struck by the realization that we don’t actually have to do everything all by ourselves, or that the web of life supports us, too. This kind of felt connectivity can bring us more patience and receptivity. Adjusting our vision to a softer focus, and letting go of the details to appreciate a holistic vision, can also alleviate any unnecessary anxieties that the high emotions of the Full Moon may churn up.
Saturn Retrograde
Saturn Conjunct Neptune
The Capricorn Full Moon is ruled by the reality principle of Saturn, who might be amping up anxieties due to slowing down to enter retrograde motion on June 29 (until November 15). This cosmic movement will lead many of us to review our plans, revise our goals and adjust the structures which support our lives, such as schedules, routines, and living or working spaces.
Saturn comes within 10° of conjoining the unity of Neptune in Pisces, moving us deeper into an important new cycle of time that began in March 2024 and lasts through May 2027. Fundamentally representing the merger of the real (Saturn) and the ideal (Neptune), this decade will very likely feature a major revision of how we understand or imagine these two principles. Material possibility and our most transcendent dreams will fuse and refract through each other, such that working to calm and discipline our minds and thought processes will help us make the most creative use of this world transit over the next three years. Saturn-Neptune can magnify fears and worries, causing us to fixate on what we don’t want and unwittingly bringing that into being. Remaining in touch with what we do love and wish to nurture and generate will support a genuine creative response to various real pressures and openings as they occur.
Venus Square Neptune + Conjunct Mercury
Venus Into Cancer
Venus Sextile Mars
Though we must pass through the testing grounds of misgivings and doubts represented by Saturn, creativity is a vital current running through mid- to late June. The ability to work with images and multiple meanings that pierce through the ordinary and the literal comes through artistic Venus’ traverse of the intuitive sign of Cancer (June 16 until July 11), where she fires off the imagination with a square to Neptune (exact June 16), and a conjunction with the mind of Mercury (exact June 17). Although this combination does have a tendency to romanticize a past that never really existed, we can welcome all these imaginings and conjurations to the surface of awareness, and then take a step back to evaluate their claims to truth. Whether we’re mired in sentimentality or not, making art of all kinds—visual, musical, tactile, or freeform dance—can help move energy out of any place it’s stuck or stagnant. A welcome boost of energy to reconfigure our imaginings will arrive when go-getter Mars makes a harmonious sextile to Venus (exact June 28).
Mercury Into Cancer
Mercury Trine Saturn
Mercury Square Chiron
The communicative and mental capacities of Mercury will also be moving through the intuitive waters of Cancer from June 17 until July 2, infusing our thoughts with feelings. Depending on how well we work with our emotional state, this can provide a useful portal into our longings and desires, and help us think more in harmony with our hearts. Any incongruence between our thoughts and emotions may become especially noticeable at the end of June, when Mercury makes a helpful trine to clarifying Saturn (exact June 26) and a challenging square aspect to the vulnerability of Chiron (exact June 28). The June solstice seems to be a time for setting our sails to catch the winds of courage that enable our being to precede our doing. We are encouraged to consider that the way we walk our path is integral to how life unfolds before us, and if we drop our roots into a spiritual trust of the unknown, receptive and curious, the vessel of our being will itself know the way. It is only for us to stop our activities long enough to genuinely listen to our souls.
Full Moon in Capricorn by Moon Sign
The Moon represents who we are before we even think about who we are. She represents our instinctual self, and she describes our deepest vulnerabilities as well as our most profound capacity to connect with others. Full Moons amplify energy and emotions, and this lunation asks us to reconcile our dreams and intuitions with our attachments to the past.
Let’s see how the Capricorn Full Moon impacts your own Moon placement!
Aries Moon
Family provides the ties that bind, Aries Moon—both in the positive and negative senses. Though the early nurturing you received has provided important foundations to your current phase and its successes, the Capricorn Full Moon is ushering in a more imaginative period, one that calls on your adult connection to the divine and all the growth it can foster.
Taurus Moon
The rational mind cannot fully comprehend our cosmos, which is always one step beyond logic. The Capricorn Full Moon may call forth your faith in the good, the true and the beautiful, and all the ways that you hold the complexity of those whom you love, Taurus Moon. Don’t underestimate the power of your care and compassion to carry you through any confusing contradictions.
Gemini Moon
It may be that an unfounded or inherited fear is preventing you from opening up to a good opportunity. The Capricorn Full Moon would like to enlarge your viewpoint and help you take in deeper dimensions of whatever has been troubling you lately, Gemini Moon.
Cancer Moon
Who turned up the volume on the sentimentality, Cancer Moon? Though you may want to erect your defenses against the incursion of the present (and future) on all those old, familiar feelings, the Capricorn Full Moon is set to breathe new life into your relational landscape—and none too soon!
Leo Moon
A deep weakness is likely to emerge under the gaze of the Capricorn Full Moon, and call you out of hiding, Leo Moon. It’s no longer working to stuff away your passion in the pursuit of safety, and this pattern or habit must be metabolized in order to find your freedom.
Virgo Moon
Your creative possibilities are not completely determined by the groups you associate with, Virgo Moon—or are they? The Capricorn Full Moon provides you a ladder to climb up a bit higher to survey the breadth of landscape available to your inventions.
Libra Moon
Are you feeling a bit duty-bound and tied up in obligation, Libra Moon? Wherever that may be true in your life, the Capricorn Full Moon offers a chance to see into and through the stories that are keeping you stuck.
Scorpio Moon
The Capricorn Full Moon is shining a light on the goddess within, the great giver of life and renewal. As mythologist Christine Downing writes in her book, The Goddess: “The truth that will give us back a lost part of ourselves is also the one that takes away a self to which we have been deeply attached.” Trust this deep truth, Scorpio Moon, she has come to bring new life.
Sagittarius Moon
May your heart anoint you with the nectar of your own desire, Sag Moon, as this lunation illuminates your quest for material security and sufficiency. The Capricorn Full Moon suggests that you distinguish between true security and a mindset of scarcity, to not neglect the wealth that fills you.
Capricorn Moon
This is your Full Moon of 2024, Capricorn Moon! (Actually, it’s the first of two, as a True Blue Moon happens in your sign next month!). Your relational sphere is softening, edges giving way to connection and a full-throated YES to all the different shapes that love takes in your life. If you still have the taste of bitter—disappointment, betrayal, loss—at the back of your mouth, trust that time’s passage will carry you through and into the arms of the Sacred Other.
Aquarius Moon
Your joy for service and dedication to the commonweal is under the spotlight of the Capricorn Full Moon. This lunation may help you, Aquarian Moons, to better understand the difference between the sense of self or meaning you derive from your service, and the truth of your own intrinsic value and worth, regardless of how it is appreciated by others.
Pisces Moon
Don’t leave yourself out of the picture in the quest for the summum bonum, or the highest good, Pisces Moon. Your chameleon and fluid ways of fitting into the crowd can be a wonderful gift and also a weakness, and the Capricorn Full Moon invites you to imagine your true shape, your most beautiful form.
