Cancer New Moon & 4th House Musings: Nurture your Roots

What up, it’s been a minute! I been fighting demons and sipping tea with em afterwards (they like earl grey), how bout you?  

July 17th and the days before and after mark a new moon in Cancer. Cancer’s a sign that deals with your desire to nurture yourself (and others), your desire to create and your desire to simply feel, amongst other things. And Cancer being the 4th sign in the zodiac is loosely associated with the 4th house in our charts. If Cancer is the desire to nurture, create and feel then the 4th house is the place in our charts where those desires often come to life.  

There are a lot of keywords that get thrown around with the 4th house; home, heart, hearth, the psyche, inner life, roots, foundation. The underlying thread with all of these is the 4th house describes where we go to get quiet with ourselves (and with others who can honor that quiet).  It’s where we go/what we do when we are home with ourselves. Our 4th house shows us the kinds of behaviors that make us feel comfy when we just wanna cry or have some wine with our bestie or watch a movie with the fam, or sit alone content in the hush.  

The sign on your 4th house cusp and any planets therein can tell you a lot about what nurturing, recovery & your foundation look like. And what better time to honor our nurture nature than a new moon in Cancer? 'Tis the season for planting seeds from the heart of our gentle.

These days I particularly like the 4th’s house association with roots and foundation.  Basically whatever roots do for plants, that’s what your 4th house does for you.  You know when you see trees get blown about in really high winds yet not fall down? What keeps them up? A strong trunk for some, flexibility for others but either way the underlying support is from the roots. Strong roots allow you to be blown over but not knocked down. Strong roots let you dance and sway with the winds. Strong roots let you lap up the rain like the life water it is. Strong roots let you lose branches with no sweat, trusting you’ll eventually grow more. Strong roots allow you to connect with other trees while still being grounded in self. Strong roots make your flowers possible. And for some strong roots are the eating itself– I see you, sweet potatoes! Often times nobody sees the roots but the roots make life possible.

Aight, lemme stop before I completely uproot this metaphor.

The Fourth House In Your Chart

Understanding your 4th house is understanding your root system. Pull up your chart and peep what sign is on the 4th house cusp. You can see an example chart below from astro.com. I’ve also listed some qualities associated with each sign to give you a feel for the style of your root system.

(To work with the houses you need to know your birth time but if you don’t know your birth time the Moon rules both Cancer and the 4th house so simply knowing your moon sign gives you plenty of information on how nurturing goes down for you…just apply the following to your moon sign.)

Aries on the 4th house cusp: Physical activity that feels good to you, facing challenges, facing fears, starting shit– ok actually I meant initiating things, affirmations. Finding a way to let off steam.

Taurus on the 4th house cusp: Trusting your own pace, art, silence, sensual play in all its forms, food, touch, nature, music (making or listening), a craft or practice you enjoy, Giving yourself permission to not be so hard on yourself…maybe some inner critic dialogue shit.

Gemini on the 4th house cusp: Learning, reading, teaching, joking, play, writing, story telling, listening. Finding a way to work with the nervous tension aka the Gemini dirty word, mindfulness.

Cancer on the 4th house cusp: Creativity, honoring your softness, subtlety, chilling with birth family and/or chosen family, imagination, discerning what parts of working with our inherited emotional patterns actually serves us and what needs to be left behind.

Leo on the 4th house cusp: Expression, self admiration, sharing, vulnerability, singing, play, joking, performing, affirmations. Having a way to honor ourselves and our light (without needing someone else to always do it for us…not that that’s wrong but it’s important we see our own light too)

Virgo on the 4th house cusp: Trusting a higher order than what is immediately seen, developing competence in a craft or something we feel attuned to, routines, honoring our digestive system. Giving things permission to not fit our plans.

Libra on the 4th house cusp: Creativity, aesthetics, beauty of some sort, letting things not make sense and trusting that, somebody to talk it all out with who also understands our own spaciousness. Flipping a coin and saying, "Fuck it, I’ll make the decision based on whatever it lands on."

Scorpio on the 4th house cusp: Developing a relationship with our instinctual knowing, intuitive and psychological authors/thinkers, radical honesty, deep sea dives into the psyche at a pace that honors our softness, shit reminding ourselves we are soft, therapeutic practices, humor (!).

Sagittarius on the 4th house cusp: Connecting dots and ideas, travel, exploration, honoring our curiosity, trying new things, teaching, learning, reading, imagination time, affirmations, religious practice. I met someone with this placement who loved watching movies, documentaries and podcasts while at home #expandingperspective 🤷🏾‍♂️

Capricorn on the 4th house cusp: Honoring the baby steps, the ambition of creating home, honoring traditions that make us feel honored, creating stability, routines. Discerning the difference between self denial for a larger cause and pointless sacrifice.

Aquarius on the 4th house cusp: Unconventional ways of looking at home, home as your own invention, honoring your unique vantage point regardless of social pressure or ridicule, creating home out of exile, giving yourself permission to process feelings in your own way which might not match any examples you’ve come across.

Pisces on the 4th house cusp: Developing a relationship with your dreams, developing a relationship with intuition and the unseen, home informed by spirit, a never ending process of letting go (while also getting deeper), fighting the family addiction and the nuanced ways it may show up, surrender, not letting ideals and imagination cloud out reality, honoring imagination as part of our reality (Contradictory? Yes, Is that how Pisces rolls? Yes)

OK that’s it*.  I believe honoring your 4th house is a great way to get soft with yourself in a world with too many sharp edges.  As a dude with Gemini in the 4th house there's something about reading the right book, listening to the right teacher or journaling that puts me back on solid ground when I need it. Hope this was helpful.

Hope you have an awesome new moon and week!

*P.S. If you wanna go deeper these qualities can be modified depending on whether there are any planets in your 4th house or by the planet ruling the sign on your 4th house cusp (e.g. if your 4th house is Taurus, Taurus is ruled by Venus and so the sign of Venus in your chart would add some more nuance to the mix) — but again simply honoring the sign on your 4th house cusp is a great place to start!