Cancer Full Moon of Subterranean Release with Wrinkled Peach and Oregon Black Truffle

Welcome to Earth's 6th Full Moon of 2018, the full moon of Subterranean Release on Saturday December 22nd, 2018 9:49am (PST). 

Full moons are always in relationship with the intentions of the previous new moon, bringing stories to culmination. How have you been meeting your intentions? What have you dropped to the wayside? This could be a good time to see how your emotions have reacted and to fine-tune your intentions. This is also the last full moon in the current eclipse phase that began with the July 2018 Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse. How has your story progressed in the last 5 months?

Transit chart for Saturday, December 22nd, 2018 at 9:49 am (astrotheme.com)

Last month's full moon was at zero degrees Gemini, this full moon is at zero degrees Cancer, and the next four full moons will also be at zero degrees. The beginning degree of each sign holds unlimited potential of what might be birthed, so these 6 full moons each hold opportunity to open to our little baby selves -- 6 cycles of energetic and spiritual births and releasing. We may be opening deeper than before to what we are feeling, hearing, seeing, tasting, breathing, and learning.

Cancer Full Moon December 2018 MycoAstrological Associations

1) Wrinkled Peach (Rhodotus palmatus): relationships, well-being, freedom, self-love, unconditionality, resistance, catalyst

MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Sun; Secondary Planet: Venus; Day: Sunday, Main Organ: Heart, 2nd Organ: Blood, System: Circulatory; Tissue: Plasma; Action: Hot/dry

2) Oregon Black Truffle (Leucangium carthusianum): subsurface, concealed development, sexuality, romantic feelings, primal spark, shadow work, love, lust, imagination, boredom, discernment, freedom, equality, liberty

MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Moon; Secondary Planet: Uranus; Main organ: Brain; 2nd organ: Stomach; System: nervous; Tissues: Marrow; Action: Cold/moist; 

On December 22, the sun is welcomed into Capricorn at 0°49' in the 11th house of idealism, vision, harmony, relationships, hopes, and wishes. On the same day the moon enters Cancer at 0°49' but in the 5th house of the heart, children, creativity, pleasure, speculation, and sex. The darkest night of the year on the winter solstice (21st) opens unto the morning of the full moon on the next day. There is a very fertile and loving energy in this wave, let yourself ride your harmonic and grounded love into every day and every moment.

The nearest star to the full moon is luminous Betelgeuse, who although lives at 29° Gemini will be closely influencing this full moon. Varying between 0.0 and 1.3 in magnitude, Betelgeuse brightens and fades between periods of ~400 days and is on average the 9th brightest star in the night sky and the 2nd brightest star in the constellation of Orion. If the human eye could see all wavelengths of radiation, Betelgeuse would be the brightest star in the sky. Astronomers believe Betelgeuse is relatively young (only 10 million years old) and has evolved rapidly because of its great mass. Betelgeuse magnetizes the lightness that is inside during this time of darkness. 

Capricorn and Cancer are opposite signs and their polarity highlights the relationship between our achievements and our femininity or regenerative and emotional energy. Capricorn is the 10th sign of the zodiac, the grounded goat, a sure-hoofed animal who scales the heights of mountains by taking advantage of every foothold. Cancer the crab (or turtle, or shell-inhabiting aquatic creature) is the 4th sign of the zodiac, living in the water but also capable of walking on land. How can your inner mother tread lightly in water, shore, into the forest and up the valley walls?

Venus trine Neptune (exact on December 21) is another strong influence on this full moon. The desire to nurture is in the air and we use this cycle to connect to companions at spiritual level.

Mars also goes into Aries next week (December 31) until transiting into Taurus on February 19.

The next new moon on January 5, 2019 at 15° Capricorn will be a partial solar eclipse which will bring not only a regular 4 week but also a 6 month cycle of influence. 

1) Wrinkled Peach (Rhodotus palmatus): relationships, well-being, freedom, self-love, unconditionality, resistance, catalyst, boundaries

MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Sun; Secondary Planet: Venus; Day: Sunday, Main Organ: Heart, 2nd Organ: Blood, System: Circulatory; Tissue: Plasma; Action: Hot/dry

Wrinkled Peach or Rosy Veincap helps us to commit to unconditionality in life and can be used as a catalyst to bring issues to the surface and allow them to boil over, rather than continue to simmer endlessly. Rhodotus palmatus are beautiful peach colored mushrooms, generally considered inedible, with intricately webbed or reticulated caps. The adnate to free gills are pinkish and moderately spaced.

Since first observed by mycologists, Rhodotus palmatus has been thrown across a smorgasbord of taxonomies. Rhodotus is a genus in the Physalacriaceae family. At one point we thought it was related to Amanita but have realized through molecular phylogenetics that it shares evolutionary history with Xerula, Armillaria (a genus that includes those Honey Mushrooms), and Flammulina species. Wrinkled Peach shows ut that it's hard to define love, to pinpoint or define its place. Love is a shapeshifting force of unconditionality. Variations in the color and quantity of light received during development also leads to variations in this mushroom's size, shape, and cap color.

Wrinkled Peach observations have been dwindling since the 1980s in conjunction with the spike of global greenhouse gas emissions. This fungus is now extinct or endangered in many places across Europe and is on the Red List for many European countries. Does the Wrinkled Peach depict a tragic tale of the danger of disappearing unconditional love? 

Wrinkled Peach often exudes little beads of moisture on its stipe, a process called guttation that happens to other fungi and plants. Scientifically, these droplets are seemingly caused by an increased metabolic rate, though minimal research has been done. The water droplets can bear minerals and moisture for the little insects and trotters on their journeys to and from the fungus, spreading its spores across the forest floor. Mythically, the Wrinkled Peach musters so much liquid love within itself that it just has to sweat it out and show it off to the world! 

Wrinkled Peach (Rhodotus Palmatus) growing from the end of a log. (Bhutan 2018)

2) Oregon Black Truffle (Leucangium carthusianum): subsurface, concealed development, sexuality, romantic feelings, primal spark, shadow work, love, lust, imagination, boredom, discernment, freedom, equality, liberty

"We don't care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles." 

-- Mark Twain

Oregon Black Truffles (Leucangium carthusianum, formerly Picoa carthusia) that can grow 4"-10" deep in the earth, found with help from Stella the dog with Cascadia Truffles. (Sunny Diaz)

Like the truffle that fruits below the surface of leaf litter, our emotions and healing process does the same. Truffles grow underneath the ground and are easier to find with the help of pigs or dogs -- train them to sniff out their scent and it's a uphill from there (Capricorn pun!). In many cultures, like the Toltec or Siberian traditions, dogs have been symbols of the journey to the separated reality of a dream or shamanistic realm in which the dog was guide and company. As the one who travels with the shaman, the dog represents the trace of consciousness that remains within the dreaming world and within any other experience when we move from the normal self, or into our magical side. This dog will show us the way, to the "truffle", and will be faithful to us just as we must be faithful to the giver of life. Very often our own growth actually depends on the capacity to serve others and at the end being loyal to your heart and its connections will orient you in times of uncertainty. As the Spirit has guided us so we can achieve and develop everything we came into this body to be, so too we must support others on their journeys to the Spirit.

Truffles have no stalk, no gills, and usually form 4"-12" under the ground. They tend to be spherical in shape although can be molded by the stones or features in the ground they are adjacent to. When mature truffles tend to be firm, dense, and almost woody. The typical Oregon Black Truffle is dark brown or black with a rough peridium or outer skin. The cross section shows the gleba or the inner solid mass of spores that is marbled with dark chambers surrounded by pale, whitish veins. Its pronounced smell hints of sweetness, pineapple, musk, cedar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Truffles are also said to be an aphrodisiac, wakening our senses. 

Cross sections of the Oregon Black Truffles to show their gleba, or inner solid spore chambers, surrounded by pale white veins. (Sunny Diaz)

The Oregon Black Truffle grows underground in the fir forests of the Pacific Northwest from November - February. They are part of a three-way symbiotic relationship between the fir trees, voles, and the truffles. The truffle provides minerals to the fir trees through mycorrhizal relationships between mycelium and roots, the voles eat part of the truffle and spreads the spores throughout the forest, and the truffle obtains nutrients from the tree. While I highlight the Oregon Black Truffle (Leucangium carthusianum), there are over 100 other genera in various families that truffles belong to including Tuber, Geopora, Peziza, and Choiromyces.

Truffles remind us of our poignant realities that may be surfacing during this very powerful and dark time (in the Northern Hemisphere). This is a time of resurfacing water, especially water that was once close to you in your life. Use this time to unload the weight carried in your body. The traumas you and your ancestral bloodlines have experienced are revisiting and are trying to boil over, in perhaps separated realities. Attachments to comfortability and dependability have changed as the flow has continued to align. This may be a time of great release and many tears. 

This fungus also speaks to the Moon trine Uranus, which is indicative of intuitive insight, positive change, and pleasant surprise. 

Truffle helps us understand our complex and intertwined human psyche, how many masks may be used to cover pain and suffering. It helps us discern the motivation and recognize the connected mycelial web of our pain and suffering we may feel below the surface.