Okay. I have to talk about this new moon… a day late as it’s my sons birthday today!
Yesterday, July 14th, we got a New Moon in Cancer, sitting right on top of my sun AND my moon. Which if you know anything about astrology, you know is basically the sky handing me a personal invitation and saying “it’s your turn now.”
I am a Cancer through and through.
Sun in Cancer, moon in Cancer, and both of them tucked into my 12th house, the house of retreat, the subconscious, the hidden and the healing. It’s the house that rules hospitals, isolation, spiritual undoing, the parts of ourselves we process alone before we ever show anyone.
If you’ve read my birth story, you already know I’ve lived that placement in the most literal way possible.
For years, that 12th house has had me…Retreating. Going quiet. Processing motherhood, trauma, identity, all of it, mostly behind closed doors.
There’s a reason 12th house placements get called the house of self undoing, it will absolutely swallow you whole if you let it, and for a long stretch, I let it.
This new moon cracked something open. Add in Mercury, Neptune, and Saturn all retrograde right now, which is a lot of planets asking us to slow down, look backward, and get radically honest with ourselves, and it’s basically an astrological permission slip to finally stop hiding.
My Cancer New Moon Awakening (and Why I Started Prozac)
Here’s the part I haven’t said out loud in this space yet. Last October, I started a low dose of Prozac. 10mg to be exact.
I want to be honest about how long I resisted it. For three years after Damian was born I did everything else first. Therapy. EMDR. Walking every single day, sometimes twice. Journaling during naptime. Guided meditation. Cutting things out of my diet. I built an entire toolkit and I used every piece of it, and it helped, genuinely. But there was a floor underneath all of it that none of those tools could touch. A low hum of PTSD from the birth itself, the living will paperwork, the “we need to deliver or you’re at risk of stroke,” the 63 days of NICU vigilance, layered on top of postpartum depression that never fully lifted, it just got quieter and better disguised.
I kept telling myself medication meant I’d failed at healing myself. That taking a pill would mean the breathwork didn’t count, that I wasn’t strong enough to do it the “natural” way. Very on brand for a Cancer with 12th house placements, honestly, we will suffer in private before we’ll ask for the one thing that might actually help.
By last fall I was so tired of white knuckling it that I finally said yes. Low dose. Nothing dramatic. My doctor and I started small and just watched what happened.
What happened is that the floor came up to meet me.
It wasn’t instant, it took weeks before I noticed anything, and even then it wasn’t fireworks, it was quieter than that. The intrusive flashes of the operating room started showing up less. The hypervigilance around Damian’s health, the part of me still bracing for something to go wrong, started to soften. I stopped white knuckling my way through ordinary days. I could feel things again without immediately drowning in them, which is a very different experience than not feeling things at all, which is what I was afraid medication would do to me.
Nine months in, sitting here on the other side of a Cancer New Moon that landed directly on my sun and moon, I can finally say it plainly. The Prozac didn’t replace the healing work. It gave the healing work somewhere to land. Therapy, EMDR, all of it works so much better when your nervous system isn’t white knuckling survival every single day.
Motherhood cracked me open.
The NICU cracked me open.
And somewhere in the quiet of my own 12th house, with a little pharmaceutical support I resisted for way too long, I’ve spent the last four years rebuilding from the inside.
This new moon feels like the moment I get to stop rebuilding in private and start actually living out loud again… who is with me!?
So consider this me, coming back online. Out of the shell. Cancer season isn’t just my season, it’s apparently my whole comeback arc.
A little breakdown for you, by rising sign -short and sweet, because this new moon is asking all of us to rest, not read a novel
🏡 Aries rising: this lands in your 4th house, home and family. Expect an urge to nest, call your mom, or finally deal with that thing at home you’ve been avoiding.
💬 Taurus rising: 3rd house, communication. Old conversations resurface. Say the thing. Send the text. Mercury retrograde wants you to finish the sentence.
💰 Gemini rising: 2nd house, money and self worth. A quiet reset around what actually makes you feel secure, not just what pays the bills.
🌊 Cancer rising: 1st house, straight to you. This one’s personal. Identity, appearance, how you show up. You’re the main character this lunation, as you should be.
🛌 Leo rising: 12th house, rest and release. Your invitation to retreat a little, sleep more, and let something quietly close.
🤝 Virgo rising: 11th house, friendships and community. Reevaluating who’s actually in your corner.
👑 Libra rising: 10th house, career and public image. A pull to reconsider what you want to be known for.
🔮 Scorpio rising: 9th house, beliefs and big picture thinking. Old assumptions about faith, travel, or purpose get a gentle audit.
🕯️ Sagittarius rising: 8th house, intimacy and shared resources. Deep, private, transformative. Don’t force conversations here, let them come.
💞 Capricorn rising: 7th house, partnerships. Relationships get emotionally honest whether you planned on it or not.
🌿 Aquarius rising: 6th house, health and daily routines. Your body is asking for softer care, not a stricter schedule.
🎨 Pisces rising: 5th house, creativity and joy. Permission to make something just because it feels good, no audience required.
Cancer suns and moons, are you feeling this new moon too? Tell me where it’s cracking you open.