Abandon your ho, ho, hos and ready your howls — the full cold moon in Cancer rises just after yule, at 7:33 p.m. EST on Dec. 26, 2023.
The moon is at peak shine on Tuesday, but it will appear full on the evenings of the 24th and the 25th, lending Christmas celebrations visibility and volatility.
Pass the schnapps, press play for pain, and read on for more.
Full moons are the pinnacle points that mark the end of a 29.5-day lunar cycle, which begins with the dark night, sown seeds, and fresh potential of the new moon.
Not big on subtlety or soft-shoeing, as the full moon rises and shines, it casts a glaring light on what can no longer be ignored or endured.
The sign that the full moon falls in lends its specific energy to the lunar cycle. In this case, we have the emotionally sunburned, moody as life, smother mother, home is where the hurt is, promise you’ll never leave me, hard shell, soft belly sign of Cancer.
Per the Farmers’ Almanac, December’s full moon is known colloquially as the cold moon. Attributed to the Mohawk, the name speaks to the frigid conditions that fall over the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year.
The chill is more intensely reflected in the Chinese name for this lunation, which could be a Bright Eyes album title, “Bitter Moon.”
December’s full moon is also known as the long night moon, as it rises near the “longest night of the year,” aka the Winter Solstice — when the dark is at its darkest and most enduring, allowing the moon to burn brighter and longer.
The limited presence of the sun around the solstice led the Zuni tribe to poetically refer to December’s full moon as the “sun has traveled home to rest” moon.
Apropos of the sun at rest and the moon in full tilt, Cancer rules the root system and mother’s milk; the homes we are born into; and the homes we build of our bodies and for ourselves.
Cancer is the apron string that ties us to the past and the blood line that links us to our mother’s mother’s mother’s mother.
The full moon in Cancer coincides with the sun shining in boot-strapping, belt-tightening, legacy-building Capricorn. This is the axis of foundation and ambition. In terms of archetypes, Cancer is the cosmic mother and Capricorn the stern, celestial father.
Cancer rules the root system and mother’s milk; the homes we are born into and the homes we build of our bodies and for ourselves.
Cancer leads with feeling and Capricorn with form, yet both are ultimately seeking security while struggling with vulnerability and issues of care as control.
Because full moons demand that we address what we can no longer repress, this full moon is a call to reparent ourselves with tenderness and structure, kindness and accountability.
Because love — to paraphrase James Baldwin — is a kind of growing up, learning to love the child we were includes forgiving ourselves and those who failed us. Progress asks us to recognize that a state of blame is a state of bondage and that to give live birth to the life we want, we need unconditional love (Cancer) and uncompromising boundaries (Capricorn).
A state of blame is a state of bondage, and to give live birth to the life we want, we need unconditional love (Cancer) and uncompromising boundaries (Capricorn).
In a similar vein, or milk duct as it were, I highly recommend incorporating the following affirmations, courtesy of Sarah Faith Gottesdiener — author and founder of The Moon Studio — into your full cold moon in Cancer rituals.
In terms of ruling bodies, Saturn (Capricorn) concerns itself with structure and limitation, deadlines and definitives.
By contrast, the moon (Cancer) keeps no time but its own. It does not rush, and its only consistency is its fluidity. The lesson this dance teaches us? You can be realistic without being cynical, emotional without being unstable.
“The No. 1 reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they’ve gotten.”
Mac Miller
The tension between these energies is made manifest in Capricorn sun, Cancer moon native Mac Miller who espoused, “The No. 1 reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they’ve gotten.”
Here lies the true lesson of this moon and this polarity — in order to evolve, and to deepen and sweeten the process of that evolution, we must look back with gratitude and ahead with fortitude.
Because this moon is going down and rising up on a cardinal axis, the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) will feel the effects most directly and acutely.
The next full moon and the very first of 2024 will be the full wolf moon in Leo — rising, shining, and mane shaking on Jan. 25, 2024, at 12:54 p.m. EST.
Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports back on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience. She is also an accomplished writer who has profiled a variety of artists and performers, as well as extensively chronicled her experiences while traveling. Among the many intriguing topics she has tackled are cemetery etiquette, her love for dive bars, Cuban Airbnbs, a “girls guide” to strip clubs and the “weirdest” foods available abroad.