Cancer Season: Summer Solstice 2025
- Vanessa
- Jun 21
- 9 min read
Updated: Jun 27
The season of the Crab is here with full force!
In this article, we will explore the astrology of the Summer Solstice (for the North Hemisphere, it is Winter Solstice for the South!), and the season of the Zodiac sign of Cancer.
Feel free to skip ahead to each part of this article:
*UPDATE: Check my Podcast episode about the New Moon in Cancer + a New Moon Meditation (starts at minute 21:30)
Summer Solstice 2025: Search for Solace
We reach the peak of the Solar cycle on June 20th, a moment that represents the culmination of the northern hemisphere’s most luminous and warm months of the year.
The summer solstice has, in essence, “Full Moon” qualities: maximum light is achieved for a few days as the Sun gets ready to go back South. Once a year, the Sun reaches this peak which is symbolically equivalent to the Moon being completely filled with light once a month.
For many, this time of year can feel nostalgic. Along with the peak of sunlight comes the not so welcomed but inherent message that our days won’t be increasing in light anymore. From now on, we are inevitably headed towards the colder months of the year. Maybe that’s why this is the season of Cancer, a sign that is focused on developing sensitivity while seeking the emotional safety needed to feel what is being felt.
What is Cancer?
Cancer is the first water sign of the Zodiac, and is ruled by the Moon.
The Moon in astrology represents the emotional nature of humanity, which is developed in early childhood through an important nurturing bond, most of the times between mother and baby. Some will also attribute past life significations to the Moon, because it represents a very subconscious part of us which is usually free flowing, operating within the body as sensations that respond to stimuli.
Cancer represents the symbolic process of humanity opening up to the experience of feeling every emotion available to be experienced. It represents our greatest vulnerability, and simultaneously, our greatest strength.
The first 3 signs of the zodiac: Aries, Taurus and Gemini represent the first encounters with fire, earth and air, respectively. We are no longer babies, or toddlers. When it comes to feeling and cultivating emotional bonds, we need a bit more maturity than before.
Feeling within, and feeling with another. Opening up, only to make no sense because the verbiage learned in Gemini does not seem to convey the size of the experience. We aren't just describing facts, characteristics, or telling stories (Gemini).
We are attempting to share something nonsensical, something that might not be understood logically by another. It is very risky to share one's feelings. We risk hurting more than we already do by feeling misunderstood, gaslit, not seen, not validated.
That high risk to hurt even more is what brings us to the Crab's claws and shell. The Crab is aware of its tenderness. Therefore, Cancer can be guarded. It is a natural protection that must be honored, because the sensitivity of Cancer is high.
Cancer season 2025: Water Overload
Cancer season opens up with a bang. For 12 years, we haven't had this level of emotional depth opening up. The times we are living are so vividly exposing the most vulnerable aspects of humanity. We are collectively traumatized, and between 2025-2026, we are collectively attempting "therapy" while being traumatized.
Our heightened sensitivity is informing us of our own core values. If you are heavily upset right now, please know that this makes sense.
Let me break down the cosmic reflection of this moment in time for you.
Jupiter in Cancer season 2025
Jupiter is a large planet, one that represents expansion, growth, bigness, exaggeration, abundance, cohesiveness, and meaningfulness. Jupiter is usually considered a "good planet", but nothing is that simple in life, nor in astrology.
Jupiter will expand everything it touches. This is not necessarily a positive thing, but for the most part it is still a gentle, soothing energy. In Cancer, Jupiter is "extra", perhaps due to how critical the concept of Cancer is to every single human being.
Home, family, community, the Mother, belonging. These are the topics that Jupiter in Cancer has begun to make bigger than life, since June 9th. As soon as the Sun entered the sign of Cancer on June 20th (Solstice), Jupiter and his abundant energy is now highlighted, increasing significantly the water element in our current cosmic energetic field (literally as I write this there is a heavy downpour of rain in Calgary!)
Aries challenges in Cancer season 2025
The energies of Aries and Cancer are highlighted in the astrology of Cancer season 2025.
Imagine with me for a moment a young person deciding to leave their home to pursue their passion in a remote land. Now think about that young person's family, and all they feel about the situation: their concerns, their apprehensions, their sadness to see their baby fly and leave the nest.
This is just a simple example of how Aries and Cancer challenge each other. On the one side we have the impulse to pursue a passion (Aries), and on the other side, the home that will miss that young human and be worried day and night wondering if they are going to be okay (Cancer).
Now look around. Our collective family is hurting. Homes, families, communities: destroyed by the wars. Women oppressed by totalitarian regimes. Children abused and dying. Our Earth Mother, polluted, exploited and in flames.
There is clearly a Cancer wounding in our world that is weaved into every single human heart. I can't help but think of the years during which Pluto was in Cancer (1912-1939), and how those years left humanity in a state of trauma that still pervades today.
The rage, the desire to defend and fight back, the roar against oppression and injustice has gotten louder this year. Our collective Aries is raging. It is pissed off in a very understandable way. The young person from our example, that left home to pursue their passion, is seeing their home burning down and feeling a fiery call to act stir within.
Saturn and Neptune in Aries
We have just begun the cycles of Neptune and Saturn in Aries in 2025. These cycles last until 2039 (Neptune in Aries) and 2028 (Saturn in Aries).
Since their journeys coincide in 2025-26, we are feeling both the weight of the righteous rage plus the responsibility that we feel when thinking about the waves of collective change (Saturn), and the idealized yet ungrounded perspective towards this righteous rage (Neptune).
Paired together, these two planets are making reality blurred. The "realism" capacity of AI to create deep fakes is just a surface example of this energy. What is happening at a deeper level is that we are collectively reimagining the structures of the world, while we inhabit a new context, and have no clarity of how it will look like, or how it needs to look like.
We are trying to take actionable steps, but the excessively aggressive ways are causing chaos, confusion, and more harm. Is it actually productive and constructive (Saturn) to fight (Aries) when we can't aim clearly (Neptune)?
This is debatable, and I don't want to get political. I am trying to explain astrology here from the most astrologically objective pov, while imbuing this message with my intuitive feelers.
With Neptune being so close to Saturn, and challenging every single thing in Cancer (Jupiter, the Sun, the New Moon), as well as Saturn, we must consider what is the archetypal signification of this moment so that we find some sort of guiding light.
Neptune usually challenges us in the most strange ways: it asks us to refrain. It asks us to stop what we are doing, and tune in. It blurs the entire 3D reality so that we can see beyond it. It presents us with an opportunity to build dreams, to create in our minds individually and collectively.
It asks us to trust what we cannot see, while participating in the creative collective vision that is capable of being true. It is asking us to go beyond ourselves, to dissolve the dividers, the frontiers, the labels. Do you feel that this would make a difference?
New Moon in Cancer 2025
The new moon in Cancer is conjunct Jupiter, quincunx Pluto and Mars, and square Neptune/Saturn in Aries. Lemme hear you say: "whaaat?"
The pressure is on for collaboration, creative thinking, community orientation, authenticity, breaking the old ways, experimenting and materializing new pathways. All these impulses (hello Pluto in Aquarius) are asking to find a way to be birthed within the softest, most tender parts of our psyche.
This New Moon asks us to find a way to create a safety of home that is new in structure, but feels safer than the old ways. To plant a seed of sensitive illusion in our hearts, including our call to defend what we believe in, and be of service to the collective.
It is a New Moon that expands our hearts, inviting us to open the doors of our subjective home to others we may have never considered family before. This is new territory, and it may plant seeds of community villages across the world.
The supportive sextile from Mars in Virgo to this new moon adds a cherry on top, instilling this seed with a devotion to be of service through the passionate work we are venturing into. A lot is still unclear and blurry, just like with the process of gestation where we can’t see the baby yet until it is born.
The challenges come from Saturn and Neptune in Aries. As previously explained, the biggest challenge here is to exercise courage in a sensitive way. To be brave, but also kind. To realize that we all are one enormous family. To kill them with kindness, with the vision in mind for a better world.
Mercury in Leo 2025
The planet of thought, speech and movement splashes out of watery emo Cancer and gets ready to suntan under the Leo summer Sun on June 26th. With this ingress, everything felt under the waters of illogical Cancer can begin to be poured out with vivaciousness.
The expression is loud and artistic, potentially arrogant, and definitely powerful. Mercury will connect with Saturn, Neptune and also Pluto, translating into leonic words what these planets are doing.
Also, take note: Mercury will retrograde in Leo! This means we will have a longer than usual stay of Mercury in Leo, indicating a deepening and reviewing of our ideas around this area of our lives (meaning: which astrological house is Leo for you? How relevant is Leo for you?)
Important Mercury retrograde dates:
June 26th: Mercury in Leo
June 30th: Mercury enters retrograde shadow (it will come back to this point later on so pay attention to the themes that arise from this day on)
July 17th: Mercury goes retrograde
August 11th: Mercury goes direct (no longer retrograde)
August 24th: Mercury out of retrograde shadow (leaves the topics being reviewed and moves on)
Uranus in Gemini: Mad Scientist Flying
This is big. Uranus has been in Taurus since 2018. I am so excited to see this dude leave Taurus and leave me alone.
Uranus has not visited Gemini since 1941-1949. It will stay there until 2033. So... this is what astrologers are talking about people! 2025 truly is crazy in the sense that EVERY SINGLE PLANET is beginning a new cycle. Every single one of them. Uranus is the last one.
And this is tremendously meaningful especially for the USA. We can't make this stuff up. Guess when is the day of the ingress... that's just wild to me, like who did this?
On July 4th, Uranus enters Gemini. This is also where the USA has Uranus. But I am not into these topics and will not dive into that, there are so many great astrologers that know their history way better than me. I highly recommend The Astrology Podcast for detailed and in depth studies and research.
We can expect the archetype of liberation, freedom, experimentation, sudden change, surprise and above all true authenticity, to feel less restrained in Gemini than in Taurus. This is neither good or bad, but definitely a more unhinged energy of change.
In the sign of the Twins, Uranus can bring wild changes and newness to the technologies of transportation, communication, the www, ideas, storytelling, our voices, and our ideas and thoughts. If anything is going to change, says Uranus, we gotta talk about it! We gotta speak freely even if we sound crazy! We gotta find new ideas, and that is done having the conversations with open minds.
More is unfolding this season.. but I will continue on the next post about the Full Moon in Capricorn (July 10th) so that we can get into detail appropriately. I just had a lot to say in this one.
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If you want to get personalized assistance feel free to book a reading with me I would be happy to assist you in these transitional times.
Wishing you a safely heartfelt Cancer season...
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