Matriarchal Integration: Lunation Cycle of August 21 - September 19

Some grudges never die. But with time and conscientious resolution, all are transmuted, as outdated patterns are laid to rest and new methods crop up from the dense Earth to nourish new versions of ourselves. The Sun entered bountiful, matriarchal Virgo yesterday, but the fields we tend and harvest here are still strewn with the debris of Monday’s Solar Eclipse, and the entire season of radical transition that has been upon us, particularly upon those of us in the continental United States. This current lunation cycle will be largely oriented around integration of Monday’s New Moon Solar Eclipse, and expansion on those themes.

So let’s revisit what all of this has meant. Indian mythology has it that Eclipses are borne of an ancient grudge between a primordial dragon, and the Sun and Moon.

As the tale goes, when Vishnu was creating the universe, he decided to make the planetary deities immortal. He began to churn the milky sea to extract a nectar of immortality to feed to the deities. Upon the nectar’s manifestation, a furtive demigod dragon, RahuKetu, snuck into the scene and began drinking this nectar when Vishnu’s attention was elsewhere. The luminaries Sun and Moon, however, spotted the dragon drinking the elixir, and they alerted Vishnu. Vishnu promptly put an end to this behavior by cutting the dragon in half, producing the lunar nodes of the moon, also known as the North Node (Rahu, head of the dragon) and the South Node (Ketu, tail of the dragon), where the Moon’s path around the Earth intersects the Sun’s ecliptic. Rahu and Ketu did penance to Vishnu to earn their place in the zodiac, but because the Sun and Moon tattled on the dragon at the beginning of time, to this day Rahu and Ketu eat up the Sun and Moon whenever they pass over the nodes in the sky, creating dramatic performances of the luminaries’ rhythmical death and rebirth.

The work we dive into during Eclipse Season, then, is healing this eerie ritual between the Sun, Moon, and Dragon, since it will play out until these planetary bodies cease to be.

So as we all know of grudges, they get old. It becomes constructive to understand that although the Dragon still goes through this same ritual with Sun and Moon all these billions of years later, it is possible that the Dragon no longer does this out of spite. The death and rebirth we are afforded during Eclipse season is, in fact, gracious.

"The work we dive into during Eclipse Season, then, is healing this eerie ritual between the Sun, Moon, and Dragon"
“Yellow Dragon” | Katsushika Hokusai | Sourced via Wikimedia Commons

We have yet to see how the “Great American” Solar Eclipse will impact the collective and particularly the United States during its extant crisis of leadership. One thing I do see in the astrology of this lunation cycle is that the energy is promising for radical shifts and unforeseen growth. This is no cause for unchecked optimism as historically troubling conservative extremism crops up across the Western World. This occasions us now to rigorously meet our inner work, to evolve where it is challenging to evolve, and to answer accountably to ourselves and to the collective.

And let’s remain aware that several astrological events will continue to occur around the North Node and the Eclipse degrees during this Lunar cycle, so the work of this Eclipse is anything but finished. We must remain committed to the gradual comprehension of the fragmentary psychic breakthroughs this Eclipse Season has yet afforded.

As Harvest Season comes upon us, then, with Sun, Mars, and Mercury all entering Virgo, we begin to feel prudent, ready to serve responsibly, for ourselves and others. We are always more in the place to get industrious when Virgo Season takes hold, to organize ourselves and, after excitable Leo, to remember what it’s like to want to regulate our energy. We begin to retreat into our native terrain and sort through our harvest, scheming from behind the veils how we can most efficiently apply our reserves.

Virgo is a feminine sign: it is the only female figure in the zodiac. She has been assigned the archetype of Virgin but this is a censored understanding of her work. Goddesses associated with Virgo like Ishtar, Isis, and Demeter are fertility goddesses, and others associated with that sign (Dike, Erigone, and Astraea) represent Justice. Virgo is more archetypally a mother with serious integrity than she is a virgin. So let’s understand her that way. Rather than purity of the flesh, Virgo has purity of intention. She is the highly experienced matriarchal master of integration, prepared to gather our collective chthonic fears, ritually metamorphose them, and yield from them impressive harvest.

Mercury is still in Retrograde in Virgo as this lunation cycle begins, and this has not been a retrograde to titter at. Mercury rules Virgo so the effect of its Retrograde is heightened here. Because Virgo rules health, diet, exercise, colonics, etc., this Mercury Retrograde has wrought strangely bountiful havoc on people’s health. Latent systemic disturbances have erupted and demanded care, so the reality of physical well-being has made itself exigent. With the preponderance of Leo energy in recent days, we have also been turning our attention to how we build strength in the aftermath of carnal collapse, as well.

Note also the very real danger/violence to bodies we have seen recently in the Charlottesville riots. This began on August 12, the day that Mercury stationed retrograde in Virgo. Beyond the personal experience of the body, we were collectively jarred into the urgency of demanding respect for all bodies.

So we are making sense now, of how to handle this newly invigorated awareness of the material realm’s pertinence. We may catch some glimmer of these solutions during Mercury Cazimi on August 26th, but answers may wait to make themselves readily apparent until Mercury stations direct on September 5, and it does so right on the degrees at which Monday’s Eclipse occurred, rehashing what opened up for us during or around the Solar Eclipse. Information about what took place on or around that day will flood in, and pieces of the puzzle may begin to fall into place.

However this is a lunar cycle that brings that sometimes troubling sense of multiple inner projects needing to splinter off from the more basic core growth cycle. Between the movements of Mars, Venus, and Mercury, intimacy and creative work projects are not in sync this month, but will give us the opportunity to develop some ambidexterity.

Finally, we will have several events occurring on the Virgo/Pisces axis this month, including the Full Moon on September 6. This is a sacred axis: no other pair of signs represents the microcosm and macrocosm so succinctly. After redeeming the dramatic death and rebirth tokens the Leo Eclipse cycle promised, we have earned some time to drop into the quiet required of a truly devotional life, which Virgo adores. “As above so below” begins to show us a path beyond the dualistic model of human experience, and into the rich, mysterious soil of a truly authentic life that integrates logic with mysticism, the literal with the otherworldly.

Blessings in the integration and expansion of this lunation cycle.

La Moisson | Camille Pissarro | 1882 | Public Domain

Sun enters Virgo: Flaxen Fields
Monday August 21
5:20pm PST
Beautiful Virgo embraces the Sun, and our will becomes quite naturally captivated by the concept of the fruits of labor. We want to work, to produce, to do right by our physical vitality. We are in an agricultural age after Leo’s fiery hunting and gathering, so allow yourself to settle, develop your ingenuity and problem-solving logic. Craftsmanship is ripe to explore, and we may go in to diligently pursue our creative projects as the light wanes, and the Equinox approaches.

Mars in Leo Trine Saturn in Sagittarius: Rewriting the Classics
Tuesday August 22
21 degrees
Mars in Leo in trine with Saturn is a facile aspect. From here the young warrior has the opportunity to make friendly with his elders. He is prepared to fight for the weak here, but not recklessly. Aware of the wisdom he must acquire, he also remembers he must retain individuality as he parses through Saturn’s relationship with convention. Tradition has substance, but we must use it as the unique warriors we were born to be. The mature dynamism of Mars in late Leo conversing with Saturn in late Sagittarius echoes Heracles’s final of his twelve labors: his confrontation with Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades. Before he sets off to capture Cerberus at the mouth of Hell, Heracles must be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. Esoteric initiation is no easy task: it takes incredible care and discipline, and profound surrender. This is precisely how the vivacious Leo Mars approaches Grandfather Saturn from the trine: ready to champion all auxiliary tasks or projects that will carry him toward the completion of the hero’s journey his lifeblood is so heavily invested in. But remember, Mars is still young in this cycle (less than a month into his 26-month cycle after renewing on July 26) so be careful that he does not become subservient to an out-of-balance Saturn. Saturn is currently retrograde, so we are more aware of his perversions that uphold patriarchal disease. We are not here to live in the classics, we are here to rewrite them in our own lifetimes. So do that methodically. The Sun in Virgo gives you the extra compulsion.

Venus in Cancer trine Chiron in Pisces: Finding the Mutual Coordinates with Past Life Love
Wednesday August 23
27 degrees
This Venusian chat we have with Chiron today begins the conversation we’re having with intimacy over the course of this entire lunation cycle. Basically, this aspect lets us know that we’ll be healing karmic relational patterns this month, downloading information from past lives or from the store of collectively held archetypes that need healing. Receive the messages, and embrace the responsibilities they entail.

Venus in Cancer square Uranus in Aries: Tectonic Plates of the Heart
Thursday August 24
28 degrees
As we download Venus’s Chirotic duties of the month, we are promptly directed to break the rules of relationship. When Uranus and Venus square, it is actually quite an important time to do so. Tectonic plates of the heart are shifting and we are less concerned with finding mutual ground to stand on with friends, family, and lovers, than with asserting our individuality within relations. It’s crucial that we do not bend to others’ will around this time. Individuality is the adamantine treasure to recover. Resist coagulation of empathy as you orient yourself around your own authenticity. Others need this space as much as you do.

Venus ingress into Leo: Punk Lover
Friday August 25
11:30pm
While our solar energy has just moved into the pure and noble fields of Virgo, Venus now sidles into the theatrical arena of Leo, and just after her rebellious square with Uranus. She’s likely to play the teenage punk here after such an aspect, irreverent and sometimes reckless. She is, in both her shadow and brilliance, a performative lover and artist when she transits Leo. Her gestures are grand, and she is happy in the spotlight. Let her be there, but remind her to check herself, for she is in unfamiliar terrain when in Leo. What are her motivations for seeking visibility? What does the flare of her actions accomplish? If she is lucky she will remember that compassionate self-love is the greatest and most radical foundation of all relationship and creative self-expression.

Mercury Cazimi at 3’ Virgo: Harmonizing the Mind at 7.83 Hz
Saturday August 26
3:28pm
Welcome the clarity of Mercury Cazimi in the midst of paramount disorder. The reigning chaos of Mercury’s retrograde stands still for some hours. In the provident fields of Virgo’s first decan, Mercury and the Sun strike a harmonious chord, one bringing peculiar information from an underworld sojourn through Mystery, the other simply bearing witness, in possession of the foresight and faith these strange tales require if they’re to be applied in evolving the agricultural wealth of the inner landscape. We must be wary of naivete about the weight of these tales. Mercury Cazimi at this degree of Virgo suddenly sees the sky light up and the spirit of the journey reveal itself, but if unchecked, Mercury ends up with logorrhea, desperate to tell any listening ear about the revelations and endless implications of his insights. Choose your confidants wisely, calm the prattle, and meditate on the deep frequency the Earth emits.

Jupiter in Libra sextile Saturn in Sagittarius: Second Wind
Saturday August 26
21 degrees
This is an extremely favorable aspect for achieving sophisticated balance and applying it to longstanding projects. This is a waning sextile, so the energetic quality is catching the second (or third or fourth) wind during a marathon. You’ve trained, you’ve been through your ups and downs, and by now you know how to pace yourself to deliver a smooth-sailing finish, though that may be some time in the future. Use this aspect to ground yourself into patience for the bigger projects.

Mars in Leo conjunct North Node: Stronger and Wiser
Saturday August 26
24 degrees
The North Node, or Rahu, head of the primordial dragon, swallowed the Sun just several days ago. He is still hot, and very excited to remind us what we need more of in order to evolve. When Mars is with the head of the dragon, we need more fire, movement, and more strength. We should be cautious of compulsive violence or lording-over, and very much on the look-out for those who are domineering towards ourselves. Exercise is a highly recommended activity for the day. Less easy aerobics and more choreographed movement or strength-building. Cultivate a mindful relationship with the physical realm.

Retrograde Mercury enters Leo: Hot Words
Thursday August 31
10:28am
While Mercury’s Virgo retrograde has wrought havoc on ‘order,’ the fleet-footed comes back to the still-charged late degrees of Leo, where he is slowing down to station direct at the exact degree that Sol and Luna converged on Aug 21, and disappeared into that evolutionary Eclipse. Mercury is piping here and feels compelled to speak up. Careful how you language yourself as Mercury is still in retrograde and not entirely clear on what he means to say.

Retrograde Mercury conjunct Mars in Leo, both trine Uranus in Aries: Evolving the Rebellion
Saturday September 2
28 degrees
Mercury has arrived at the ‘hot’ degree of the Eclipse, where he will stay for several days, and here he encounters Mars. When Mercury and Mars meet, you get the strategic warrior, and there is without question a shocking and potentially rebellious vibe in the meeting of these two today as they talk congenially to the thunder-and-lightning planet, Uranus. Allow yourself to be surprised on and around this day: where incongruous opportunities to break out of the norm arise, take them, especially if you can quickly conjure up a mental scan of the provisional course of action. Because this happens at the degree of the Eclipse, expect it to be thematically related to what you personally have been opening up to throughout Eclipse season, and expect it to be a highly evolutionary event as well. Open up to the unusual and magical underpinnings of reality. This Saturday’s aspect is an opportunity to sortie smartly into the field of manifestation.

Midmorning, the Moon in Capricorn also squares Uranus, and quincunxes Mercury and Mars. This creates some pressure to evolve emotionally to meet this aspect, and to seek out the less obvious tasks we need to accomplish.

Lions from Chauvet Cave | Replica of painting from Brno Museum Antrhropos | Public Domain

Sun in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces: The Super-Organism
Monday September 4
12 degrees
A beehive is a super-organism. All the basic physiological functions that support life are shared. Individual units of the beehive lack all the resources or information needed to survive, and yet within the group, all information to sustain life is accessible. To what degree then does each individual bee have significance? The nuances of the answer to this question are the crux of Sun in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces. How does the individual best organize itself to serve the teeming whole? How does one dissolve egoic boundaries enough to draw on the treasures of the collective consciousness, without dissipating one’s sense of self beyond where one remains productive?

Be very aware on this day of where you resist release, and where you hold yourself unnecessarily. Where is fastidiousness keeping you from finding a greater purpose? At the same time, be aware of how you crave dissolution or resist building form within the world. These two inclinations –toward form and formlessness- are at odds today. Of course hard aspects are always opportunities to meet challenges, but oppositions are the challenge to strike a balance rather than to revolutionize one’s patterns. So plant seeds today to more fully access the bliss of universal consciousness while moving about the world with actions self-contained enough to contribute on a literal level.

Mars enters Virgo (4:35am)
Venus in Leo quincunx Neptune in Pisces (12 degrees)
Mercury stations direct at 28’ Leo (6:29am): Roadmaps to Ambition’s Grail
Tuesday September 5
Mars enters Virgo and Mercury stations direct today. We can climb aboard the HMS Get-It-Done today. Work ethic escalates exponentially, and the roadmap to success in one’s projects suddenly reveals itself, as if a wand had revealed hidden ink. There is a distinct atmospheric shift from fighting the good fight to learning new skills and committing to new levels of excellence. Careful that these ambitions do not eclipse current projects in intimacy, which we may be tempted to scratch for the sake of industry if things aren’t flowing easily there. If we can continue to give matters of love some attention even when the energy flows less easily in that direction, we will find ourselves fascinated, discovering generously proportioned pieces of the puzzle that might never have made themselves obvious unless we had gone looking down obscure passageways.

Full Moon in Pisces at 13’53 Pisces: Pearl Diving
Wednesday September 6
2:03pm
After such fiery summer, what a Moon. The intuitive Moon, psychically rich and united with every body of water on Earth. In the boundless seas of Pisces, defended in these primordial waters by Neptune, the Moon is free to slip into the dreamspace that yields untold wisdom. The esoteric speaks. Nereids, Tritons, mermaids, monsters of the deep, selkies, whalesongs. All of these begin to reveal their meaning. Whether we can verbalize or not is of no concern to this Moon, with Mercury still in childlike Leo. With the proper temperament however, the Sun in Virgo and Jupiter sextiling Saturn will fully support instinctual assimilation of this Delphic wisdom. We have access to structural intelligence that creates some order by which to understand the spiritual downloads.

Essentially, obstacles in the soul’s path to wholeness seem to fall away today. The work of Harvest Season looks promising, drawing us toward the radiant pearls of redemption that lie within.

Detail from "Nine Dragons" | Chen Rong 1244 | Museum of Fine Arts Boston | Public Domain

Sun in Virgo trine, and Venus in Leo quincunx, Pluto in Capricorn:
Friday September 8
28 degrees
Pluto in Capricorn receives aspects today, reminding us that all rewarding evolutionary work is not deep-sea diving for psychic dragon pearls. It is also facing the demon. In fact it is going looking for the demon because we know he’s out there and needs redeeming. Do not go to slay him. Go to know him.

Mercury ingress into Virgo: Out of the Brambles
Saturday September 9
9:52pm
Keep sowing the fields of personal projects. Mercury’s travels through Virgo will see him meet Mars again in a new iteration, so this does have to do with getting smart about how we cultivate the type of energy that moves us, be that light/fluffy or serious/dour. It is remarkably refreshing, however, to have our heads on straight and in the light of the season’s attractively angled sunlight, rather than traversing the underworld and shoring up the carcasses that have crucial information on them. Mercury is ready to straighten up, and, simple as that, get to his damn work!

Venus in Leo trine Saturn in Sagittarius: Charismatic Real-Talk
Tuesday September 12
21 degrees
Excellent day to take care of challenging conversations with intimates and family members. Venus in Leo is loyal and pure-hearted, yet charismatic and, when in a trine with responsible Saturn, sensible enough not to hurt feelings.

Sun in Virgo square Saturn in Sagittarius: To Love and Let Go
Wednesday September 13
21 degrees
Virgo is the last Earth sign in the cycle of the Zodiac: it’s wise. From these grounds we gain Virgo’s matured and mutable disposition regarding material reality. We have grown enough in spirit to lovingly cultivate what we are growing in the material realm, but we have also learned enough to know that we must also be willing to surrender whatever we are cultivating, for all we have control over is our response to what circumstances the world deals us. When the Sun in late Virgo squares the Saturn, ruler of Time, we are heavily reminded that we must be as prepared to lose all as we are to give our all. No light aspect, yet this is certainly an opportunity to evolve into higher acceptance.

Venus conjunct North Node in Leo and sextile Jupiter in Libra: Coming Out
Thursday September 14
23 degrees
We are more prepared, today, to be bold about expressing our needs in intimacy, and to give ourselves the space to explore our needs if we do not already know them. There is no recipe for happiness in intimacy: every individual’s needs are unique. Because there is no “real” norm and yet we live in a society that prescribes and proscribes roles and rules in relationships, many people have forgotten how to listen to the voice within that reveals where we’re out of balance in relations. On the level of mundane astrology, Venus transiting the North Node in Leo and sextiling Jupiter in Libra means we have the right amount of luck on our side to express our needs to one another. Use this day to have productive conversation or to say to the world what you’ve wanted to say. Perhaps this means coming out publicly as the new and lesser-known Self that’s been in development for some time. Perhaps it means expressing your needs in relationship. Perhaps it means intentionally making space for your loved ones to express their needs. Whatever locating and expressing what works for you in relationship (with intimates, the public, and beyond) looks like to you, use this day to get on it.

Mercury conjunct Mars in Virgo
7 degrees
Venus in Leo quincunx Chiron in Pisces: Dexterity
26 degrees
Saturday September 16
Again, work and intimacy don’t necessarily see eye to eye. We are strong in our stride putting the pieces together in our creative work, and relationship is just on a different page. Neither page is necessarily more nor less evolutionary, but we are juggling different projects that have not synced up. We are beginning to let the light in around karmically healing ourselves in relationship, and that project is revealing to us the many intriguing pathways it offers, glimmering with small bits of visual stimulation that hint at the depths you may discover within yourself if you will only continue giving effort here. However on the other path, Mercury meets Mars in Virgo and shows a straight and narrow path, which still feels like respite after the rabbit holes of Mercury’s recent retrograde over these very degrees of Virgo. Remember that life does not always seem totally congruent, and that this is one of its magics. Maintaining multiple important projects and retaining full focus and determination where each one is concerned is one of those dexterity tests that satisfies like no solo project could alone.

Sun in Virgo opposite Chiron in Pisces: The Wounded Healer
Monday September 18
26 degrees
We now begin to see how our recent Venus quincunx Chiron fits into the big Life Picture. Healing the capacity to love and surrender to it hits us right in the solar plexus today. Can you be within your self-contained sense of power and still nurture a limitless commitment to healing? Healing within is healing the collective: nothing like Chiron in Pisces reminds us of that, and Chiron in Pisces is having a very direct, potentially stern conversation with our life force. You can’t hide from your woundedness, nor can you hide from the woundedness of your fellow creatures. Be sensitive today rather than rigid. Agony and ecstasy hold hands here. We do not have the rewarding work of healing to do when we have not obtained wounds, and we cannot ignore the wounds and still expect to heal.

Mercury in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces: You Are the Super-Organism
Tuesday September 19
12 degrees
Healing requires a checked mind. Chatter and undirected mental exercises divert us from access to the deeper intelligence that effectively grows us. The mind is a tool ­–an evolutionary one­– to help us survive. When we glorify the mind and identify the Mind as I, we lose sight of the fact that “I” must necessarily be identified with something much greater than this little body. The mind can’t understand that on its own, but when he talks to Neptune from across the zodiac, he has the opportunity to hear that lesson and begin to integrate it.

This isn’t a new lesson, however. Mercury was opposing Neptune on the day he stationed retrograde a little over one month ago. We learned much about this lesson during retrograde, but perhaps it wasn’t so clear what we were learning. Here we have a chance to see it straight once again, and walk forward with a mind and memory clear enough to retain this experience. We are so much more than what passes through the machinations of our minds. If we quiet the mind, we can taste what lies beyond. Humbling ourselves to the enormity of our own power is the trick. We must go beyond the limited, dual understanding of ourselves. Hard, patriarchal lines cannot be drawn. There is no lasting delineation between Self and Other. Like the bee, it isn’t clear where “I” ends and the super-organism begins: we are deeply involved in the vast and complex web of biological, physical life. Neptune is granting us this one of many gracious opportunities to find the faith that, if we operate as though our actions impact every other Being, our own experience of life may be more gratifying and readily nurtured, than we might have yet imagined.

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The Lion Free of Ego: Lunation Cycle July 23 - August 21

New Moon in Leo to New Moon in Leo: The Lion Free of Ego

New Moon Greetings:

While the beginning of a lunation cycle is the Dark Moon and often signifies a time of releasing and unraveling into the unknown, this cycle will flounce in through Leo, asking for attention and activity. This trip of the Moon around the Earth heralds Eclipse Season, our biannual occasion to rebirth and renew ourselves at a rapid rate. Rebirth is in fact fourfold this season, with two New Moons (and one Solar Eclipse) in Leo, a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius, and Mars beginning a new 2-year trip around the zodiac when it enters cazimi and shows itself on the other side of the Sun on July 26, at 4 degrees of Leo.

Besides the ever-expressive Sun and Moon, Mars is in fact our main player during this cycle of the Moon. His roughly 2-year (26-month) journey around the Sun carries us through the ever-evolving rhythms of the noble Warrior within. He is the god of the inner, archetypal fires. God of The Fight, for whatever cause that would compel us into combat. He entered Leo this Thursday on July 20, where he is more the gladiator than the analytical orator he was when in, for example, Gemini, where his last 2-year cycle began in 2015. However in Leo we see him donning the skins of lions he has battled in the past, absolutely visible, and of course illustrious. He might cut a comical figure if it weren’t for his capacity to tap into into the raw power of his vitality, well beyond preoccupation with his stout musculature.

When Mars passes through the redemptive fires of the Sun on July 26, he is scoured clean of any extraneous ego-detritus he picked up in his last 2-year cycle. This is an excavation, and we have been feeling it for some time already, as Mars has been combust since mid-July, meaning he has been overpowered by the rays of the sun, not visible to us on Earth. We’ve likely detected his thrashing within ourselves, in the throes of ego-death, either unaccustomed to selfless battle or veritably averse to it.

But a major theme of this lunation cycle is absolutely dropping the ego, and fighting for that which is beyond the thin skin that contains our organs. The pressure will be on to ask ourselves how our personal battles relate to something larger. With the New Moon in Leo today on July 23, we can relax a bit into personal projects, intuiting our ways through the esoteric process of breathing new life into that which makes us feel individuated, uniquely animated. However by the Full Moon partial Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius on August 7, we’ll be looking at our relationship with the collective: collective fears and compulsions, and how we contribute to or heal them from within ourselves.

Shortly after the Lunar Eclipse, Mercury will station Retrograde at 11 degrees of Virgo on August 12, and remain in its retrogradation phase until September 5, so, for the rest of this lunar cycle and then some. When Mercury goes retrograde, he punctures the realms and enters the Underworld. He now becomes Hermes, the psychopomp who ferries lost souls across the river Styx. This is a time of review, of recovering subterranean information that was not readily available in Mercury’s first transit over these degrees. Mercury will enter its pre-retrograde shadow (the degrees it will cross back over during its retrograde) tomorrow on Monday, July 24, so whatever energies you are engaging by then will be turned inside out and exposed for what the really are.

The exposure of Mercury Retrograde is more of a mental process than a heart-centered one, but the heart will have a heavy dose of lessons to extract during this retrograde as well, when Venus takes a series of hard hits from Pluto and Jupiter. We’ll be called again to come outside of ourselves in order to look long and hard at our intimate spheres, and how we work for or against balanced relationships and the embodiment of grace in the world.

When the “Great American” Total Solar Eclipse rolls in on August 21, visible across the United States, we will truly be tested. There are abundant doomsday prophecies floating around about the collapse of the West and America’s crumbling political system. While astrology is more useful as a tool for energetic preparation than auguring the future, it is hard to overlook the fact that this first Solar Eclipse visible in the United States in over a century does hit Trump’s chart where it hurts: it is literally exact on his Ascendant.

But let’s stick with metaphysics for now: this Eclipse is the Sun (solid sense of self or ego) in Leo (the loyal, royal lion) eclipsed by the Moon (intuition, or emotionality). Mars is involved, just 8 degrees away from the Eclipse, so what we have is an opportune moment to collectively attune our yang warriors to the yin. To allow ourselves to stalk the halls of our inner palaces and turn our ears to the uncanny messages the ghosts have to share with us, unafraid of the what hides in the shadows as the light flickers in and out. We cannot know every step of the way, but we can trust that wherever our steps lead us, the lessons provided will be providential and rich in lightening the ego. Perhaps we will shed our lion skins and open our hearts a bit, ready to devote our energies to some subtler realm of service.

New Moon in Leo: Empowerment Against the Odds
July 23
0’44 degrees Leo
2:45 am PST
This New Moon in Leo goes unaspected by any other planets, meaning it is has a heavy emphasis on Leonine energy. There are two mythological lions associated with Leo: one is the lion that Hercules killed as the first of his 12 labors, skinned, and whose pelt he wore as a protective cloak. The second is the lion from Ovid’s tale of Pyramus and Thisbe. This young couple is an older iteration of Romeo & Juliet, star-crossed lovers who met in secret against their parents’ will. One night they agreed to meet beneath a mulberry tree, and when Thisbe arrived, a lion sprang out of the thicket. She ran away in fright, but her veil fluttered to the ground behind her. When Pyramus arrived, he saw only the lion and Thisbe’s veil, and thinking his love had been killed, he threw himself onto his sword. When Thisbe returned, she saw her love dying, took his sword, and killed herself.

For this New Moon, let’s focus on the second lion. While rather sinister, we can draw out some useful lessons here, emphasized by other aspects in the sky, on the stark potentialities of the desire to expand into greater connectivity. It is risky business.

Venus at 20 degrees Gemini loosely opposes Saturn at 22 degrees Sagittarius, and Jupiter in Libra is very close to its final square with Pluto. During this Dark Moon, we are getting a taste of why it might be frightening to expand beyond the borders of our little bodies to connect with others. Death, shame, the fear of falling. There is no security in loving, only leaps into the unknown.

But with Mars conjunct this Sun and Moon at 1 degree of Leo, we have some verve today. Mars in Leo is the Hercules archetype, and so we have some courage to step into the unknown and risk our precious necks. This is not a bad day to launch into visibility the creative project you’ve been harboring behind the veil, to establish contact with some shadowy figure you've been infatuated with, or to travel to new places. Essentially, chances are good that you’ll have the energy to learn the art of flying (or swimming) when you step off that craggy precipice.

Mars Cazimi and Reborn: The Noble Warrior In The Hedge
Wednesday July 26
4 degrees Leo
10:12am PST
Mars has been traveling through its own underworld for some weeks now, engaging a liminal space where the unconscious has overwhelmed his ego and he’s been subject to the eddying flow of dreamspace. When Mars in combust, or blocked out by the rays of the Sun, he loses much of his sense of glory but also, importantly, vainglory. On July 26 when he goes cazimi, traveling literally “in the heart of” the Sun, he passes through the harshest of the fires and he is reborn. And yet he is not yet out of the hedge. He is absolutely still engaging the necessary tests of endurance this psychologically murky space thrusts upon him.

Luckily, however, he has made it through the biggest trial in this underworld journey: he has shed his ego, and is born into his authenticity, bleary-eyed and so radically transformed he cannot help but feel the freshness. Do not reject this sensation. Because this rebirth occurs in Leo, we will certainly be faced with the fear of losing popularity, friendships, and self-flattering impressions as punishment for brashly charging into our authenticity. But this is precisely the fear we must face. Allow yourself to engage Beginner’s Mind, free of perceptions or pre-conceived notions that crowd out reality. If you have planets in the first 10 degrees of Leo, make an event of this day. Say something you’re scared to say or make an action you’ve denied yourself, even it seems like complete foolishness. Mars is now open-minded and optimistic regarding the second half of his underworld combustion, and the inner warrior is ready to face the 26 months of a new evolutionary cycle around the zodiac.

Jupiter in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn: Expanding into Karmic Arrival
Monday July 31
Both at 17 degrees
Due to retrogrades, Jupiter and Pluto have been in this grueling dance for over a year and a half now, and today is the final exact expression of this aspect. When Jupiter and Pluto square, we get tension between the personal agenda of elegant expansion, and the trans-personal, trans-historical reality of karmic limitations, of our inherent woundedness.

We’re liable to have trouble keeping the faith that we are moving in the right direction or capable of fully expanding into our perceived destinies. The most useful thing to remember is that we are always at every moment fully within our karmic arrival. Every step in your journey is where you’re meant to be. Every moment, travail, and triumph offers unique lessons that are tailored to the growth of your authentic self.
 

Venus enters Cancer: Holding the Heart In A Flat Open Palm
Monday July 31
7:54am PST
Venus, our Aphrodite born from the sea, has been transiting Gemini since July 4, where she’s been exploratory, experimental, perhaps a bit incautious, but analytical. Cancer is a place where Venus returns to the sea, but if we’re not careful this may come as more a swing of the pendulum than the gentle transition we can have if we're astute. Suddenly this goddess of love and beauty may clam up, scramble behind the hardy shell of Cancer’s crab, and ponder how she could have ever been so brash as to associate with the diverse bunch of folks and facts that populated her Gemini season.

The trick is to remain vulnerable and expressive until someone bears a weapon. Only then does the shell go up. Until then, if Venus remains serene within her mindfulness, she will recognize that while she is no longer interested in roving curiosity where friends, lovers, or art are concerned, she ought not indiscriminately close the heart to new territory. She may stay at home more, but her task is to remain open to what energies visit her home, and to be forthright enough to continue forming genuine bonds with people or materials she feels genuinely drawn towards.

Uranus stations Retrograde: The Subtle Art of Getting Free
28 degrees Aries
Wednesday August 2
10:31pm PST
Uranus is an ostentatiously rebellious planet, obsessed with freedom and the future. Usually it’s transits signal breaking free at all costs, tearing down walls and busting up stodgy monuments. However when Uranus stations retrograde, it tends to see these things as slightly more menacing, and is more likely to find blinders on its eyes. Instead of responding to fearfulness or intimidation, we can use this retrograde as an opportunity to check ourselves. Are we strategizing properly about subverting the powers-that-be? Are we calling on our worldly wisdom rather than brash idealism? Remember that retrogradation is about review, so be willing to learn from past mistakes.

Full Moon Partial Lunar Eclipse in Aquarius: End of the Drought
15’25 Aries
Monday August 7
11:10am PST
This Full Moon is, again an opportunity to accelerate rapidly in growth. In this case, Full Moon in Aquarius, it is trans-personal growth. We are aware of the unconventionality of justice for all. How true justice means the space for enormous variety. Aquarius is the water-bearer. The Babylonians associated Aquarius with the rainy month: it represented a flowing urn. This is when the rains fall to nourish the diversity of life on earth. This is not the act of swimming around in water we see with Pisces, it is the act of bestowing and receiving the powerful gift of water, which engenders life. Though Aquarius can feel cool and distant, it is radical in its ethics, prepared to contend for life in all its forms.

As far as aspects go, this Moon receives a waning semi-sextile from Pluto in Capricorn, a waxing semi-sextile from Neptune in Pisces, as well as a trine from Jupiter in Libra. This is quite a benevolent set of interactions, blessing us with a strong work ethic we can use to develop a constructive relationship with death by applying spiritual optimism, and the sense that it is well within our means to be gracefully in harmony with all beings, alive or passed.

Stay sober on this day (though this can be challenging on a Full Moon), as you will want to retain the cool-headed clarity of Aquarius. The polarity we are working with is the impulse to be rowdy, hot-headed, and visible (Sun and Mars are in Leo just 4 degrees apart), and the inner emotional pull towards quietly doing our work, visible to the public or not. Dedicate your energy to exploring where there is drought in your inner landscape. Open the once-dammed channels so that water flows and the perennials waiting to spring back into life can blossom again.

Venus in Cancer sextile Mercury in Virgo: The Mind Learns How To Love Too
Wednesday August 9
11 degrees
7:17pm PST
Mercury and Venus have been nearing this flirtatious aspect for some time. Because Mercury’s retrograde will involve quite a few deep lessons for the heart, take this day to find some congruity between your heart and mind. Mercury is exalted in Virgo and finds himself highly capable of service-oriented practicality. In this aspect he is learning how to serve the tenderness of Venus’s soft underbelly in Cancer. Be wary of Mercury’s tendency to over-analyze the occult workings of this Goddess of Love. She is not to be objectified, and so we must look within and see what a mysterious process of release and acceptance it is to simply love ourselves.

Venus in Cancer trine Neptune in Pisces: Easy Love
Friday August 11
13 degrees
This is a sweet moment of feeling like one can breathe underwater before getting hit by the more arid aspects Venus will see in the following week, but it is not without its tricks. While we enjoy Neptune's nutritive perfume of deep spirituality, we should be careful of falling in love with our gurus, and gullibility in the realm of love in general.

Mercury Retrograde at 11’38 degrees Virgo: Mothers of the Underworld
August 12
6:01pm PST
The Sabian symbol for 11 degrees of Virgo, where Mercury stations retrograde, reads: “a boy molded in his mother’s aspiration for him.”

Mercury opposes Neptune, the great dissolver of boundaries, as he stations retrograde. The tone for this Mercury retrograde then begins with the questions of what in the microcosm we want to dissolve into the macrocosm, and under the watchful gaze of what “mother” we want to mold ourselves. This is going to be a tough Mercury Retrograde for individuals with any mother complex. If we have reason to be averse to manipulative mothering, then we may resist losing our boundaries to a wider sphere of nurturing. To be nurtured can be eerie. We must be open to receiving care from the underworld. The key here is not to overthink it: Mercury is not clear-headed as he traverses the underworld. He is going by the perplexing lantern of memory, and the divining rod of intuition.

While the Neptune-Mercury Rx opposition makes us perhaps susceptible to delusion, we should be careful not to reject Mystery or darkness out-of-hand. This retrograde phase offers much alchemy to learn from the peculiar realms of those motivating mysteries: passion and compassion. Luckily, Mercury and Venus are still within the field of their friendly sextile, and the God of Reason and Goddess of Love are still exchanging convivial whispers.
 

Sun in Leo trine Saturn in Sagittarius: Optimism for the Wisdom of Limitation
Sunday August 13
21 degrees
This is a useful day for cheerfully understanding why we can’t do certain things at this time. Sun in Leo trine Saturn in Sagittarius is a bit like the moment Daniel of Karate Kid begins to see the reason behind Miyagi’s discipline. Life is full of trials, and though we want to get out there beyond practice and show our stuff, without a measured pace and balanced practice, the youthful vitality of the trainee is useless. Use this day to make friendly with a regular, disciplined practice. If you already have one, breathe some new life into it if you’re ready by sharing the skills you’ve developed with the world, be that your personal community or the world wide web. Gravity and grace will keep you on the ground today if you have a tendency to float away into insecurity. 

Venus in Cancer opposes Pluto in Capricorn: The Gaping Maw of Love
Monday August 14
17 degrees
All sorts of psychoses, compulsive behaviors, and fears may fester throughout this day, and our task is to face them stoically. When Venus opposes Pluto, karmic wounds and the desire for love tend to work against one another. If you are an avoidant personality, take a look at why you flee intimacy. If you sidle easily into unhealthy relationships, look at what you’re turning away from by doing so. Whatever the case, stay open to learning what the underbelly of intimate relationships (both platonic and romantic) has to show you.

Remember that Pluto is the chthonic god who rules the dark underground, so the seeds of new life and new harvest are created within his realm. Glean these seeds as you face the darkness. If Persephone spent one sacrificial half of the year in Hades’ realm for the bounty of the earth, you can spend some days staring down his gaping maw for the bounty of unconditional love.

Venus in Cancer squares Jupiter in Libra: The Cautious Lover
Wednesday August 16
19 degrees
Venus catches another hard aspect when she finds herself at odds with the Jovial King in Libra. In this hard aspect, we may find ourselves asked to perform the most attractive sides of ourselves and resist, feeling as though the exposure cheapens our internal beauty. This self-protective side of Venus in Cancer is all well and good, but don’t sell yourself short. You can show yourself and still cultivate inner grace.

There may also be some romantic shut-downs around this day. If a partner, friend, or subject of infatuation refuses to give you what you desire or even ask for, don’t take it personally. The best thing to remember at this time is that nothing is personal and that being motivated in relationship by the idea of a specific outcome is a detrimental disposition. Authentic connection only comes when you can allow yourself and the other individual to grow into whatever alien thing each of you may become. As individuals grow, relationships have to change shape. This may be such a time. Don’t rush into condemnations or brash commitments around now. Allow the tension in the air to clear. This is not a day to propose to your loved one.

Mars in Leo sextile Jupiter in Libra: Airing it Out
Friday August 18
19 degrees
Following Venus’s harsh wake-up calls, there is a bit of excitation this Friday, creative and seductive energies wheeling through the air as we open to the possibilities held by the weekend and prepare ourselves for the upcoming Solar Eclipse. Mars is rather frolicking at this 19th degree of Leo: its Sabian symbol is “A houseboat party” and in this waxing sextile with Libra, Mars feels as though it could become anything and everything it desires at this party. If we are reckless, this energy could throw off the balance we need to cultivate for the ego-ravaging Eclipse of Monday. Careful of inflating the ego or being seduced by hollow glamour. However, allow the energy to wisp around you, kindling optimism around your own hero’s journey.

New Moon Total Solar Eclipse in Leo 28’52: The Lion Free of Ego
Monday August 21
11:28am PST
With this New Moon Solar Eclipse, we get personal and collective transformation of epic proportions. It occurs at 28 degrees of Leo. The last few degrees of any sign are pivotal and feel tense as the Sun prepares to switch codes and enter a new frame of reference. Power lies in the capacity to be transmute tension into release and renewal. As though we haven’t received enough lessons in this throughout this lunar cycle, this is just one more beginning to deepening our integrity.

Fixed Star Regulus is the brightest star in the lion’s constellation and lies, appropriately, at the lion’s heart, at 29 degrees of Leo on the cusp of Virgo. This Eclipse takes place on Regulus, which happens to be the closest star to the ecliptic, the royal road of the Sun’s apparent path around the earth. It is certainly the most noble and regal of Leo’s stars, and because it lies on the cusp of Virgo in the last degrees of Leo, this is where we take the developed sense of our unique inner fires and how to perform them, and open them up to selfless service. This is where the lion sheds its ego and dons the cloak of the noble king, highly responsive to the needs of his people.

Let’s get something straight about the ego: while the ego is useless, sense of Self is not. Without the sense of who one is as a unique expression of the mysterious whole, people tend towards narcissm and excessive hunting for affirmation. This Total Solar Eclipse affords us the opportunity to tap into the reality that simply by being ourselves and fulfilling our distinct life paths while supporting others in fulfilling theirs, we are being of service.

Mars is involved here, very close to the North Node or Rahu, head of the dragon, snarling away from the past and bent toward the future. There is no looking back here. Our Warrior (Mars), our sense of Self (Sun), and our Soul (Moon) are all here at the present as it becomes the future. The future, of course, is unknown.

Retrograde Uranus is the other planet heavily involved, trining the Eclipse from 28 degrees of Aries. Though fluid, this is not a cute aspect. We can use it to our advantage: Uranian energy knows how to get free, but retrograde, it has undercurrents of obsession and psychosis. These shadow expressions of Uranus’s energy will certainly be seen in many across the States, but as long as you remain aware of these pitfalls and guard against them, you should make it through this Eclipse with battle scars you’ll be proud to bear in a decade’s time.

Finally, with Mercury retrograde as well, we are called to continue trusting our intuition. This is literally a dark day, full of chthonic energies that surpass the rational mind’s capacities. But the dark is your friend. Trust that what it has to show you is of value, and this Eclipse will purge you of the ego’s limiting dross, and provide you with a sense of exhilarating wonder that will reverberate through your consciousness for many months to come.

Many blessings in this Eclipse Seasons,
Amalia

If you'd like more insight from Amalia on how these transits affect your personal blueprint, book a Birth Chart reading with her by clicking the link below.