Good morning everyone,

This upcoming full moon in Cancer–January 3rd, depending on where you view from–is known as the Wolf moon, a time when the wolf’s howl is heard strikingly clearly amidst the silent, stark, and snowy winter landscape, maybe even with a ricochet (but not if you are in the Southern Hemisphere!).

It’s the first full moon of the Gregorian, solar calendar year. For this reason it usually gets emphasis; despite my title that de-emphasizes “bigness,” it is still appropriate. I will elaborate on my “tone-down” later. But before that, another contrasting amplifier to my “tone down” is that it’s another Super Moon.

A Super Moon is astronomically defined when the full moon takes place at the same time that the moon is closest to Earth during its (elliptical) orbit, also called perigee. This phenomenon causes the moon to look larger. This will be the 4th consecutive super moon since October.

What makes this particular Cancer full moon unique astrologically is that it is comes at a time when the Sun is sandwiched between Mars and Venus— all in close conjunction. Mercury is also forming a square aspect to Saturn. It’s this Mercury square Saturn aspect and its energy that endures because it carries on for a few brief days. It helps us remove what is no longer serving. The full moon is close to Jupiter, but not close enough (not with a tight enough orb) for it to have a significant influence on energy/meaning.

Since a full moon is astrologically “Sun opposite Moon” and the Sun is sandwiched in between transiting Mars and Venus in Capricorn, this full moon is opposite Venus and Mars. Cancer and Capricorn are the duality and the two-sides of the same coin. The opposition aspect brings clarity, objectivity, and sometimes ‘balancing’ tension. It’s a dynamic balance, not fixed. Cancer relates to inner world, home, and family; while Capricorn relates to the public, business, and reputation/status. Capricorn pursues outside “world” action, while Cancer pursues inner beingness and creation.

The call to balance the Masculine and Feminine response, action and receptivity, matters here. Since the moon culminates in Cancer, it values what is protective and requires tenderness. Often times this is the small. The small can be the unborn, the “just born,” and the creative urge for new life that wants to be born.

A Cancer full moon is a good closure for the festive holiday season which often involves family and home dynamics. Over the years, cultural interpretations for how to celebrate the new year have shifted in favor of widening into multi-cultural dynamics. Many celebrate the new year with the lunar calendar and consider the beginning of the year as the second new moon after the Winter Solstice on @December 21–the typical calendar in Asia. In recent years I’ve been hearing more and more people treat the Lunar New Year as a 2.0 version, or a “do over.” Gosh, take your pick.

I like this.

Basically it gives people a soft landing for a New Year. There’s not got to be a lot of haste around the start. In this day and age when living is like cramming for constant performance exams and everyone is eager to live “their best lives” all in this one, the pressure to live life “well” is a bit absurd, considering a good life also requires the balance of some rest and relaxation.

So, back to my title.

This morning I thought about how rare it actually is to have real success in most any endeavor, especially the most important endeavor: life. You could use the sperm and egg metaphor, which I will down below. Keep in mind that phenomena of healing is also a very delicate and tender process that requires not only quite a bit of willpower, but also a big dose of the wisdom of “allowing.” The body knows the way, it just needs to be supported. Back to my analogy.

It takes something like 300+ million sperm to fertilize an egg. Despite natural aberrations, it’s usually just the one sperm that fertilizes the egg. That means that all those other 299+ million are “wasted,” or shall I say they do have purpose but not in the endgame. They are part of the process. Only a few dozens actually contact the egg and work to weaken the outer layer or zona pellucida. But each one did play a role—just not the star role.

Nature works with probability and not necessarily with efficiency. The work is done by large numbers but what actually fertilizes is the one. See? The small one, or the bigness of the many… everything matters but focus is selective.

Similarly, look at planting seeds to create a plant. Hundreds to millions of seeds planted produce 1 plant. That is less than 1% of seeds make a mature plant.

So when we sit with this first lunation of 2026 (what we actually use to time the writing of the calendar, and therefore this solar calendar sets into motion the machinery of our global and societal systems), think about how many choices you’ve made in your long lifespan, the people you’ve canceled or who have canceled you, the failed attempts at tending to your own gardens, your own body and health, the creative projects that lay fallow; but not so fast: be very encouraged.

There is a small but abiding few values, adherent lifestyle passions, choices, creative developments, and long term close friendships that survive from year to year.

This is the precious few that I want you to focus on in this New Year, 2026. You might want to run out charging against the wind like a fire horse (wait for it…), but let’s first get our gear on, temper ourselves, and balance all our tendencies to charge or be lazy, size up our inner world one aspect of us against another while we prepare for this onset of 2026. This brand-spanking-New Year. What will you put your energy into to help it survive?

Take the time you need, rest, and nourish that inner world with this Cancer Full Moon, see what wants to truly live and carry on with you in 2026.

With love and appreciation,

Happy New Year, 2026

Ka 💗

P.S. That whole slogan “Go big or go home” came out of the Pluto in Capricorn years. We are now in the age of Aquarius. Pluto settled into Aquarius on November 19, 2024. So 2025 was its first full year in Aquarius— it will be in Aquarius until 2044. It’s time to take our power back from systems and corporations. It’s time to be an individual in full. It’s a long term trend.