I recently wrote about the South Node in Capricorn and the detachment and release it is offering. However the story isn’t whole without talking about the North Node in Cancer as well. With Mercury moving into Cancer today and bringing its microphone towards the North Node later this month, it seems timely to bring in the story the North Node in Cancer is trying to tell us all.
“I need to care, I can’t ration it or turn it into an efficiency”
This line comes from a favourite show of mine, “Call the Midwife”. It is all Cancer themes – fertility, pregnancy, birth, motherhood, family, community – and it depicts post-WWII in East End London when the norm of midwives and homes births was slipping to doctors and hospitals. Before then, mothers were usually assigned a midwife early in their pregnancy and that same midwife would support her the whole way through, getting to know her home, her needs, her family, her hope and dreams for her child, and any possible issues. She would attend the labour, in the family home, staying for the whole process to provide support and care. But suddenly modern medicine had all the answers, whether mothers wanted it or not, and caring was left at the door.
In one scene, a midwife (Nurse Jenny) is seconded to the local hospital and an anxious mother comes into her care. Jenny calms her and with her sensitive approach, she discovers the mother previously had a stillborn child and is worried sick about the outcome of this birth. As labour comes on, Jenny tries to stay with her but is ordered to leave as her shift was ending, despite the desperate pleas from the overwhelmed mother. The hospital’s model of efficiency (so very Capricorn) dictated the needs of the system over the compassionate care the nurse wished to give (more Cancerian traits). The next day Nurse Jenny stepped into the head nurse’s office to resign, saying those special words “I need to care, I can’t ration it or turn it into an efficiency”.
And so these are the times we find ourselves in. Where logic and reason is valued above intuition and sensitivity. Efficiency over empathy. Concrete over compassion. Brain above heart. Patriarchal above matriarchal.
Cancer is the essential feminine – watery, intuitive, sensitive – the sign of the cosmic mother, the nurturer, the protector. Where Capricorn is practical, logical and rational, Cancer is intuitive and sensitive, as well as nourishing. Capricorn strives to be out in the world, focused and achieving, while Cancer feels best at the home, with family. Capricorn is putting on our “putting our best foot forward” work shoes while Cancer is slipping on a pair of comfortable slippers at home at the end of a busy day.
If South Node is about release and drainage, North Node is where we strive to reach higher, what we need to access for continued success. So with Cancer here until May 2020, it makes sense now that our reliance on logic, traditional structures and efficiency is being questioned or falling away. Some say it’s the patriarchal crumbling so the matriarchal can grow through. Other’s that more female leadership is needed, in the model Jacinta Pell is setting.
Personally, I hope we’re coming back to a time of balance when both ends of this bar can be valued and respected. We can’t have a home without the bricks and mortar it is built from, AND a house isn’t a home unless it is warmed by the love and care of those within. Mutuality is required, with the feminine taking it’s place next to the masculine. Where efficiency is softened by empathy, and intuition strengthened with logic. In my own story with the birth of my second child, I was so glad to be in a hospital as their modern methods saved my baby’s life. However it was done hand-in-glove with a sensitive and compassionate approach, and for that, I will always be thankful.
This week there may be triggers, especially on Thursday and Friday as the Moon highlights this point, and then the few weeks after that it will really come into focus. How can you marry these two energies together in your own world? What structures need to shift or evolve so a softness can grow through? Where have you been simplifying or detaching so a space of growth can open up? I have the image of old stone buildings covered in vines that offer bright blossoms in spring, shade in summer, and natural beauty all year around. What are you visualising?
Image from British Period Dramas