The Sun, photographed in all it's prominence glory by NASA (September 2006)
With our having just weathered two stations (those of Eris and Saturn) the Sun enters its ‘home’ sign of Leo on July 22nd (the date of this post) at 9:42 in the evening, UT/+0 time - about twenty hours after Uranus goes into retrograde motion.
This may be a surprising day...an enlightening day...an inspiring day...or even a surprising, shocking, destructive or rewarding day.
Moreover, along with the Sun entering Leo is the fact that the Perseid meteor shower will begin one day later on July 23rd. In lasting until August 20th, the Perseids cover pretty much the Sun’s entire transit of Leo - which is metaphorical right to the sword hilt seeing as meteor showers are said to be ‘sparks’ of creative thought which cut through some darkness with which our world is covered.
And considering how dark things have been, maybe that’s a good thing.
As a phenomenon, the Perseids are a meteor shower which comes to us courtesy of Swift-Tuttle. And Swift-Tuttle is on one hand a comet which by orbital range metaphysically could be thought of as tying Pluto and Venus together...and which (on top of that) has a known magnetic resonance (read: metaphysical synched quality) with Jupiter - all of which leads to a stew of desirously transformative [Pluto], attraction laden (or by attraction attracted) [Venus] qualities which are all about needing to [Jupiter] know more about [Leo] life.
The comet itself reached its perihelion (its closest point to the Sun - or in this case, Venus) back in December of 1992 and isn’t due to reach it’s aphelion (its furthest point from the Sun, which is a bit of a leap beyond Pluto) until 2126 - a thought which when we think of it astrologically suggests a current crop of ‘insightful sparks’ which expand us or which push our vision beyond some former limit.
A Perseid meteor streak and the Milky Way
(David DeHetre, August 2012)
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The same day that the Perseids begin (July 23rd) is also the beginning of TNO Deucalion going on station at 12 Scorpio to go direct on July 25th. What would we think this influence might be?Deucalion is - more or less - a Greek version of the Noah story...which you can read about here:
Deucalion: Freeing Our Will
Deucalion represents the need or ability or the inspiration to act and/or think independently when challenged by emotional situations or feelings - your own or those of others. Given that it is going direct at 12 Scorpio, we know right away that the emotionality is ours and that we are being tested (emotionally) as to whether we can handle our own emotions in dealing with others in terms of the facts - not what we want them to think, know or believe. As a second decan degree (one of the second ten degrees of this sign) the medium and goal of the situation or interactions involved will be intense, with most of our more testing issues coming from questions of whether we can ‘detoxify’ something on “our side” before we bring that to interactions with others.
Where we rise above our own emotionality (call it our tendency to be manipulated by our own emotions or mindset) then Deucalion on station and going direct becomes the opportunity - or a ‘change of winds’ which allows us to find a better way forward. Where we don’t ‘find our way to finding a way out of our own emotional corner’ Deucalion points to losses of a type which seems ‘separate from all else.’ Such losses are likely to carry some sort of moral or ethical taint which, given that this station is occurring at 12 Scorpio suggests choices or actions made without a complete understanding of parameters or possible consequences, all of which will like as not prompt emotional defensiveness until a more thought-driven form of compassion rises to the fore.
Wherever we find 12 Scorpio being emphasized (as it is here) there is also a chance that we may become so close to something or so involved that our very preoccupation may attract manipulation by others who attempt to twist or distort some truth. Given that Deucalion is turning to direct in this degree, it’s more likely that this will be a moment when such illusions will be discovered, recognized and dealt with consciously rather than this as a moment of falling under under someone’s influence, but such things can happen - if perhaps only to teach us how important it is to not be blindly swayed by others...or even by our Self.
All of that ‘takes a turn’ on Friday the 25th - and because the 26th hosts both a New Moon at 3 Leo (at 10:43 in the evening UT/+0) and Mars entering Scorpio at 2:26 in the morning (UT/+0), there are likely to be plenty of options in play.
However...! Let us not forget that if Mars is entering Scorpio at just after midnight (UT/+0) on Saturday, that means Mars has been sitting at 29 degrees of Libra coming into Deucalion’s station. Normally we would simply note that 29 degrees of any sign is considered ‘critical’ to any outcome in keeping with that sign - which in this case being Libra refers to relationships or how (even if) we relate to others or are willing to be in relationship to them... and if so, why, under what conditions and so on. But in this case, Mars has been in Libra - infusing our world with drives which were either innately weak (or taken as that) or which stirred up some sort of ‘weak’ response, whether ‘weak’ in this instance means a lack of resistance, less response that we had hoped for or greater resistance to our efforts which (in essence) put us in a ‘weak’ position...at least for the moment. Some people will indeed be caught in a ‘weak moment’ coming into Deucalion’s station and that station will be used to figure out what to do.
And then Mars will enter Scorpio...the second of Mars’ ‘home’ signs of rulership and that realm of experience where ‘the why’ behind what we do and all those ‘why’s’ which go with why we want to achieve - where all we want to get get done or claim as ours takes on something of a passionate or fascinating quality. The shift of energy is likely to be obvious: people will become more focused and energized. Conversations will spark new thoughts and opportunities.
All of this is about making a choice: what will I choose to invest myself in? Scorpio choices tend to be as much about avoiding our vulnerabilities (you know, those 'weak' points?) as emphasizing our strengths. We think we're manipulating others when what we're trying to do is to line things up so that we can achieve our aims without exposing ourselves to risk.
In particular, emotional risk - which is to say to anything which could make us feel badly about our Self.
Ah yes...the joy of Scorpio: the promise of riches with only a mild side order of poisonous paranoia. I can't think about this going wrong because I can't imagine knowing I choose this and it went wrong.
The famous Scorpio dynamic is the emotional projection: we imagine something or someone is 'all that' because we're hoping it scratches our itch (however you care to define 'itch' is up to you).
But then we find out that thing, that person isn't perfect. (And mind you, Scorpio perfection is highly individualized so there's a million ways something can go wrong.) The natural (read: human) thing to do is to get mad - to blame it or them or whatnot. But the reality is that we know - way deep down inside - that we chose this thing, this person because we thought they were going to keep us safe...most of all from our vulnerabilities.
Unfortunately that's just not how it works.
Under Mars in Scorpio, we will seek out situations which will test our inner glitches like nobody's business. On one hand this may sound like trouble - and yes, it can be! Yet on the other this can be all about an intense period of growth which allows us to detach that 'blame game' from others and take it on with ourselves, owning our glitches, our vulnerabilities, our yucky bits...and in that, coming to see that everyone else goes through exactly the same thing.
It is from that knowledge that we then choose again: will we take advantage of them - or will we treat them as equals? Situations and dynamics from now (which is to say, July 26th) until mid-September are going to come at us from every possible evocative angle on this subject - and let's not forget...everyone else is under Mars in Scorpio as well.
Things can be wonderful or terrible under Mars in Scorpio. The instinct to go, do and make more vies during this time with the urge to control and eliminate.
And that's just all quite very much different than Mars in Libra, a mode of going about being ourselves which began back in early December 2013. Where Mars in Libra creates a theoretical distance and tends to bring out inabilities which pit the Mars/Self aspect of life (or self) against the need to be 'part of the greater group' in possibly most unpleasant tones, Mars in Scorpio mixes it up. Under Mars in Libra, the stand-off attitude is a position. Under Mars in Scorpio, it's a stance - the fighter gathering themselves to make the lunge.
Mars normally spends about two months in a sign - as it will in Scorpio. But we've just lived through seven months of Mars in Libra (complete with retrograde, no less).
We're used to it.
So Mars in Scorpio is going to be a bit of a wake-up call.
Moreover, since Mars is entering Scorpio in square to Jupiter, the Moon and the Sun, big things are afoot. Big moves, big problems, big gaffs, successes, achievements and undertakings - some of which will be highly (Jupiter/Moon) extravagant either for the very good or terrible. With this trio in a square, it’s easy to opt for either the work or the pleasure...and not as easy to put both those things together.
But that is the challenge - and since this ingress happens just hours in advance of the New Moon, what comes up now may be the end of what we have been doing (allowing us to embrace the ‘new’)...or something may be coming together which becomes the heart and heat source for the next lunar cycle.
All year long we’ve been counting down New Moon degrees...January gave us two New Moons, both at 10 degrees, February didn’t have a New Moon (January took care of that), March’s New Moon was at 9 Aries, April gave us that thrilling New Moon we call a solar eclipse at 8 Taurus, May’s New Moon was at 7 Gemini, Junes was at 5 Cancer and now July’s New Moon will occur at 3 Leo - all of which on a metaphysical level represents ‘steps’ in a process which will by this October 23rd have us arriving at zero highly base line degrees of that most well-known (and sometimes least respected) fixed zodiacal water sign, Scorpio.
You know...Scorpio, sign of karma. Sign of wars fought - first and last with our Self. Scorpio, sign of desire... Scorpio, sign of domination... Scorpio, sign of taxes and anything which can simultaneously tax, excite and leave us helpless to the experience of our own sense of mortality - a moment which may be terrible or wonderful (or both), depending.
Doesn’t that just make your toes curl and a certain sense of warm trepidation tingle through your neural circuits?
But not to worry...first comes the New Moon at 3 Leo, a seeming declaration that the next month will test us (internally, at least) as to whether we are courageous or merely willful...even while our actions are being adjudged as either egotistical or creative. Imaged as ‘A FORMALLY DRESSED ELDERLY MAN STANDS NEAR TROPHIES HE BROUGHT BACK FROM A HUNTING EXPEDITION’ by the Sabian symbols, our ‘trophies’ may be of any type, just as the ‘man’ may represent an actual male or merely the more assertive or pro-active (courageous vs. willful) part of anyone’s character. In an 150-degree aspect to royal star Fomalhaut’s position at 4 Pisces, the position 3 Leo is automatically ‘subject’ to the ‘adjustment’ power of the inconjunct aspect between these two zodiacal points... (at least currently, which is to say until Fomalhaut moves to 5 Pisces in the year 2080)... which given Fomalhaut’s reputation for rewarding only that which is or hasn’t been corrupted (or is corruptive) may well explain how (or why, if you prefer) 3 Leo is written about as an internal/external experience of one’s own relationship to society and social accomplishment (you know, success - tangible or otherwise).
For some of us, this year has been like some very long exercise in wading through much which was far harder than we thought it would be. Where some have felt truly fortunate, others have spent each successive lunar month feeling like they’re just dodging some bullet.
Then there are those who have ‘worked’ each lunar cycle reflecting the world around them without ever having done what lunar cycles are really all about: reflecting on our Self. On life. On how we’re living our life and living in this life.
As for that societal experience of social accomplishment (real or fanciful...past, present or future),the essence here is astrologically fiery - which is to say, about the essence behind the idea, the choice, the act...that thing we mostly think of as motivation. This degree is known for ‘showing off,’ whether that means ‘showcasing’ something, demonstrating (showing) what we are capable of or (or even willing to do) or displays of human drama. It is also known for strange combinations of brilliant insight, utter oblivion (or obliviousness to others) and inventiveness which may be inordinately helpful...or which may display a marked lack of understanding, including (in some cases) the simple inability to understand, whether that’s due to something simple like a difference in language or something truly incomprehensible.
Being an early degree in a sign which refers to not just physical children but the innocence of perspective which fosters imagination and the creative instinct, 3 Leo (and thus this New Moon period plus - to some degree - the whole of this next lunar month) seems to be about bringing us closer (or back to) some less ‘defined’ way of thinking - the ‘unhardened’ phase of personal experience wherein we are (or were) willing to befriend others without judging them because we feel less judged ourselves.
And since this is Leo...? Well...we are talking about a sign which while brilliant in essence can also be a bit blinded by that brilliance - which makes that ‘less judged ourselves’ quite possibly a statement on how we judge our Self, regardless of what anyone else says. There will surely be those this month who are unwilling - or even incapable of seeing that Self for what it is.
As the Sun enters Leo it will 'set off' a lot of Leo/Jupiter energy which as yet hasn't been accessed. Between that, the Leo New Moon and Mars' entering the sign of Scorpio we are bound to be aiming at something we want.
It consistent with who we need to be...or who we want to be? Therein lies our current quandary, one we won't all be successful with, but through which we will surely learn.
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