on the full moon in cancer & shifting how we show up

Happy New Year, beloveds. If you’re looking for a month-ahead forecast and thoughts on the coming year, check out the January forecast at Call Your Coven (a podcast I do with my tarot reading wife and our numerologist bestie). But if you’re in the mood for slowing down, getting cozy under the blankets, and reflecting on this Full Moon in Cancer, stay here.

Here, we have the first lunation of 2026 (although not the first lunar cycle of 2026, which is initiated with the New Moon on the 18th). The moon is opposite both Venus and Mars, and co-present with Jupiter, which energizes our ambitions toward rest. There is a drive here to find, or create, comfort and intimacy — whether with the people around you or in the (creative) work itself.

It feels fitting that this Full Moon, so soon after the Gregorian New Year, would have drawing on 2025 to make meaning. Astrology is simply the study of the quality of time, and while there isn’t anything astrologically significant about January 1st, it would be silly to deny the collective energy that rises up around the calendar turnover. For the last few days, journalers, list-makers, goal-setters, and “new year, new me” people (myself among them) have been reflecting and dreaming. Notable, then, that this Full Moon highlights the initiations and dreamed-up beginnings, the themes and conversations from around June 25, 2025, when we had the New Moon in Cancer.

June marked a significant turning point for me in my business last year. I had just sold the book inspired by this newsletter, Astrology for Artists, to an imprint at Hachette for $30,000 on the nose, and was expecting my first check for half of the advance, which would be about $12,000 after my agent’s cut. I could have paid off bills, or put it aside for living expenses, or splurged on a Mulberry bag, but I already knew what I wanted to do: re-invest in my business. I was already talking to different designers about re-branding and websites, but I hadn’t had that perfect aha! click — which, frankly, I expect when hiring someone for that much money.

The New Moon in Cancer last June marked two things: my annual LGBTQIA+ Pride Publishing Q&A that I cohost with my agent Dana Murphy, and my discovery of Tarantula Studio. That day, they announced the new website and collaterals for a fellow writer-occultist, and I immediately DMed my friend to ask about the studio. I was in love with the way the experience of her branding and website so perfectly captured the brilliant, multifaceted artist I knew; I had full body chills looking at someone else’s website! There it was: the long-sought aha. Within days, I was on a call with Virginia, the founder of Tarantula Studio, committing to a 6+ month process of re-branding and a total website overhaul that would cost mumbles nearly $20,000, but that I knew was the kick-in-the-ass transformation I needed to start taking my business more seriously.

That June 25th New Moon was a scream to get real with myself about how I felt about my business and how I made decisions for it. In my chart, Cancer is the sixth house: the day job, the labor we do for money, our daily obligations, the way that work pinball-ricochets through the rest of our life. And having the sixth house, which also has so much to do with work-life balance!, being ruled by the moon is demanding, because the moon requires not only safety but also emotional authenticity. It demands alignment between our emotional energy, our physical health, and — in the 6th! — work that honors the heart and the body, both.

And let me tell you: my body always tells me when the work is out of alignment with what I need. Back in January 2019, this looked like leaving my last in-office job in order to work remotely from home. In January 2021, it looked like leaving my last full-time, salaried-with-benefits job which, even with remote work, had approximately zero work-life balance (and regular panic attacks).

Which is to say, here in January 2026, as we approach the Full Moon in Cancer, I am once again crossing a new threshold with my career. My website is close to being done, and I’m so excited to show y’all. But it’s not just new aesthetics that I’m celebrating. It’s clarity in my purpose, and how that crystal-clear clarity has enabled a transformation in my business behind-the-scenes, that will become more public as 2026 progresses. I am clearer than I’ve been in years on what I want to be known for, how I want to work, and what I want to actually spend my time doing (spoiler: I want to be doing the shit I care most about!).

This means letting go of parts of my business that helped me stay afloat, but didn’t help me rise.

It’s not just because I opened my books more and yet booked less than ever in 2025 (a common plight among practitioners in this recession). It’s that my body is screaming at me that I need to stop. While I have great love and affection for my clients, it is physically exhausting in a way that is hard to describe. On client days — by which I mean seeing one client for 60 minutes, since I finally stopped booking multiple people per day — I usually end up on the couch semi-catatonic for the rest of the day. My wife knows not to schedule anything; my practitioner friends are aware that if I said it’s a client day they probably won’t be hearing back from me via text.

I am very mindful of my spiritual hygiene. And so it’s notable to me that even with all my protective precautions and shower cleansing after, my body is still saying a firm NO. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how my first astrology teacher, Rebecca Gordon, took one look at my chart and told me that writing horoscopes and teaching was my sweet spot, that she’d never expect (or advise) me to rely on 1:1 clients as a major part of my business. Nearly eight years later, I’m finally taking her advice.

Because it was through the transformational brand work I did with Tarantula that I have finally given myself permission to release “traditional” astrologer or writing offerings and focus purely on that which brings me the most joy: which is, containers, classes, and workshops squarely in the center of the Creativity & Spirituality Venn Diagram. (To which end: the next Grove will open for registration soon!)

Astrology is still a tool I use to bridge those topics — such as writing a 2026 creative calendar for y’all with SET YOURSELF UP! But astrology is not the whole point, for me. It’s astrology plus Spirit. Astrology and creativity. Never one without the other. Which is to say…

This Full Moon, I am bringing my body and spirit into alignment, as Cancer energy most desires.

Thank you for being here. I hope that I can continue to support your journey with Creativity and with spirit in 2026.

🗓️ Set Yourself Up 2026: Your 60 Best Days for Creative Success is now available for immediate download. (This is the plan for everyone whose planner is not yet filled!)