Cancer Full Moon: That Girl You Used to Know—She’s You

Dear Friend,

I wrote three different articles for tonight’s Moon…yet it was the one you’re reading right now which took me by surprise, big fat tears sliding down my face almost the entire time.

Paired with the energy of a Full Moon after the year we’ve just had—you may be crying a river too, or maybe you’re just too tired to shed one more tear.

I understand.

You might know that Cancer guards these areas of our life—hearth & home, sanctuary, community, safe spaces, mother & mothering, nurturing, our roots, our ancestors, family, creation, birth, intuition, healing, food, nourishment, deep listening. 

A cardinal water sign, Cancer will go into the emotional spaces and places that our minds may not want to go and life’s demands seemingly won’t allow us.

I guess I shouldn’t be so taken aback, working with the Goddess yesterday morning, journaling about Cancer in the Full Moon, all three energies weaving a warm blanket of comfort around me, allowing me to feel safe enough to take a nostalgic trip to my childhood home and the first time I remember cooking. 

In Grade 4, my mom, I’m sure in a desperate attempt to silence my constant cries of boredom, handed me The Joy of Cooking cookbook, encouraging me to make something from it. Anything.

Obsessed with chocolate since birth (I swear I was bottle-fed chocolate milk as an infant), I went straight for the dessert section and over the next few hours baked from scratch my very first German Chocolate Cake.

It was incredibly satisfying to read a recipe, create something from a difficult list of ingredients and then watch people consume the food I intensively labored over. 

For the next couple of years, my mom let me plan meals, create the grocery lists and cook as many meals as I wanted to. However, when I turned 10, my relationship with food turned.

The powerlessness over my parents’ divorce and my father’s unpredictable violent behaviour gave birth to an constant companion in my anxiety and a need to find some semblance of control, which I found over the food that I ate—or didn’t eat. By the time I was 11, I received more attention from my light frame then my lightly scrambled eggs. 

However, in my first marriage, at the age of 20, my enthusiasm for cooking was reignited as I set up my own kitchen with all the tools and ingredients I needed to cook up the meal de jour seven jours a week.

My friend Rich would come over after work with an abundance of fresh seafood and ingredients lovingly sourced with his expansive palette and discerning eye. It was as if the sun rose in our kitchen as Rich lit up our lives  with love and laughter, throwing us little peace offerings here and there amidst some wild tale he was always weaving. 

I loved the times we’d sit around the table, lingering over second and third helpings, a spoonful at a time, sharing stories, one at a time, with Rich and whoever else was sticking around. 

Shortly after the first marriage ended, I fell in love with a Taurus who loved anything I made him (except those once—those darned soggy, flavorless crab cakes).

Friday nights I’d pour over cookbooks, planning the weekend meals. Saturday mornings were my favourite, strolling through the colorful stalls filled with local produce and the buttery smell of freshly baked bread down on Granville Island.

At that time, our home was a hub for family and friends who’d stop over on their way to some faraway destination or to see a concert or hockey game just a few minutes down the road. 

When I wasn’t spending money on books, I was spending it on the ingredients it would take to craft elaborate meals and fancy tasting plates. 

Perhaps the Performer in me enjoyed the praise from appreciative family and friends.

Maybe it was the Lover in me who felt satisfaction knowing I was doing what I’d seen a wife do—take care of my husband, creating a foundation for the children I thought I’d be feeding one day.

Maybe it was the Artist in me who loved creating something fresh from a bold palette of ingredients.

Perhaps it was the Mother in me who took pride in being able to feed and create space for the ones I loved so they could rest and heal, eat and drink, laugh and cry.

Maybe it was all of this and much more.

Whatever the reasons were, that person I was—the Performer, the Lover, the Artist, the Mother—in the way that I was when I was in the kitchen…changed.

Over the years as relationships began and ended and the homes I lived in were created and then dismantled, my instinct and passion for cooking waned—dramatically.

And then for a time, I was sensitive to most of the food I ate. What Cancerian energy can teach you is that when you don’t emotionally digest life’s events, they will start to digest you.

For a time, I didn’t have the money to make the type of food I’d been accustomed to making. Often soup noodles and boxed macaroni were a welcome staple.

For a time, I was single and didn’t feel inspired to cook just for me—no matter what well-intentioned article told me how important it was to love on myself.

But that was then.

The Wheel of Fortune, as it always does, responded to the laws of motion alongside the vision I was holding, and indeed my life’s circumstances changed.

Now I am blessed with a beautiful partner as well as the health and the money to re-introduce myself to this passion for planning, prepping, cooking and sharing food like I once had.

Yet I don’t—as I write, my husband is cooking us dinner, something he so lovingly and willingly does 95% of the time. If I were honest, the percentage is closer to 99.

And for some reason, 36 hours later after being taken back to this memory of this girl I used to know—the one who was so excited to cook, share and eat—I’m still welling up.

I’ve been here before and I trust the process—every emotion a guest in my inner home as Rumi reminds us—time to welcome Sadness in for a while. She’ll leave soon.

A Full Moon will open that kind of door to that kind of guest if we’re ready. And in Cancer? It’s almost guaranteed.

So why the tears? I still ask. 

How I nourish myself and my passions has changed. And some part of me is sad for that girl who no longer cooks but I have no desire to be her again.

My passion for food and the time spent planning, shopping and preparing meals has now been replaced mostly by this work that I adore—the time to write, to chant the Goddesses’ names, to be in community, to create spaces for transformation, to witness people’s healing and aha moments.

And I feel a little awkward writing this type of Full Moon love note. A lot is going up in those skies of ours. This Moon is opposite Mercury in Capricorn and sextiling Uranus in Taurus and while all this planet-sign relationshipping has something to say, I’ve learned to trust that Cancerian part of me that is called to write from an inside space and to see what springs of emotion are welling up or what emotional fires are burning.

Cancer asks that of us—honesty about the inner inventory. 

How about you?

Before setting intentions for reinvention, maybe you’ll also feel the call to grow quiet, rest for a while, go into your inner home and see what’s cooking, what’s ready to be eaten, to be digested—and how you feel about any of it.

Perhaps as we come to the year’s end, you’re feeling some nostalgia too–for some part of you that you loved, some part of your life that you adored but because of life circumstances, your soul called you some place new and you had to tuck away that part of you for now or for good.

This would be the Moon to ask for that type of illumination. This would be the Moon to lean into how you feel about that. 

Until we meet again in 2021, sending you and yours all the warmth, healing and peace your heart can hold.

Love Jenn

What are you releasing this Full Moon? And how do you feel about that? Sad? Excited? Ready? P.S. We grow and flourish when we share with one another.  I’d love to hear how you’re doing as close the year together.