A 5 Cancer New Moon...and Mercury Direct

With all the (well deserved) attention astrology pays to “major” (outer) planets...which is a whole conversation in itself, as the farther from the Sun (life, metaphysical consciousness) you get, the more vast and often stunning or inexorable effects on that consciousness or life is.

Call the onset of these effects being...say, beyond Saturn, Saturn being the planet farthest from Earth which is visible with our own naked eye and therefore astrologically associated with the extent of our grasp or the greatest of our goals and achievements reached through diligence, long-term effort and all that we associate with slow, sometimes terribly challenging growth.

All of which is about what we do...or try. It’s beyond all that (beyond Saturn, that is) where the precepts of astrological evolution really reside.

Which means (you don’t have to like this, but it well may be considered true), one might thus say that evolution in the greatest sense starts where and only when our ability or sense that we can control things - or even get a grip on them - as humans simply ends.

And where said control probably never existed.

But oh...how we all gawk, gasp and gnash our desirous teeth wanting that control.

So maybe because of that...and maybe in spite of that, as much as we all tend to regard stations of Neptune, Pluto, Eris, Sedna and TNOs like Typhon Deucalion et al with something akin to instinctual alarm, there is a level at which we all know that our life is really made up of our everyday deeds, decisions and doings. And all of that is symbolized by planets inside our system’s main asteroid belt.

You know...Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars.

And yes, the Moon is a satellite of Earth, I know. It’s referred to as a planet because astrology dates all the way back to yon very much olden times (think: 4,500-3,000 BCE) when all people could do is stare at the night sky and by doing so establish the difference between ‘wandering stars’ (objects which move in the short/observable term like the planets and our Moon) and those many, many stars which appeared to be ‘fixed’ against the night sky.

(Yes, those ‘fixed’ stars - the astrological fixed stars.)

Of those ‘inner’ and more personal points (we’re back to Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Venus), two never go retrograde - the Sun and Moon. But the other three do go retrograde, a fact we’ve all gotten a bit punched-drunken on this year, to be sure.

But this year’s ultra-pressure cooker aside, on an everyday basis there is nothing people into astrology like hearing more than Mercury retrograde is finally over...and when it comes to ‘getting past’ life’s awkward moments and lingering dragnets on our psyche, the monthly New Moon event has always seemed to function as a wiping down of the board and a resetting of all to approximate/current moment zero.

And here...just ahead...we get both. This month’s New Moon will be in Cancer (at 5 Cancer) and occur on June 27th at 8:10 in the morning, UT/+0 time, after which we count to three (days), then Mercury goes direct on July 1st at 12:51 p.m., also UT/+0.

Do these events overlap? Technically no, since we generally give planetary stations a two-days-prior/two-days-after ‘station allowance,’ which would only take us back to June 28th...although if you have a chart with four or five planets in Gemini (or Virgo) that may well (depending on your individual chart) indicate a heightened sensitivity to stations involving Mercury, since it rules (read: tends to excite, promote, provoke or challenge) the attributes of both Gemini and Virgo.

As the Moon comes to its New phase however, that would also be when Jupiter squaring the Nodes comes to perfection, bringing notions associated with 25 Cancer (Jupiter’s position) and those of 25 Aries and 25 Libra (the respective positions of the South and North lunar nodes).

Sappho by Theodore Chassériau (1849, oil on panel)

It’s also when asteroid Sappho goes retrograde at 17 Aquarius in opposition to Black Moon Lilith (calculated Lilith) and in an (8th-derivation) inconjunct to Pallas which suggests threads, notions and developments within this next New Moon cycle which ask of us to think things through and to use logic no matter how loud the ‘roar’ gets, no matter how tough the pressure becomes... with the understanding that 17 Aquarius is a degree which causes difficulties when ignored, whether we’re ignoring something within our own Self or life or whether we’re being ignored by others. There is a need for communication which given this degree’s tendency to ‘go off’ or act in an arrogant, obnoxious or out-of-order manner when denied can create near-cyclic difficulties where the acting out engenders restraints which then result in more eruptions.

Another note here: this is a degree known for physical manifestations, some of which cripple what are otherwise worthy or worthwhile talents, abilities or potentials.

Against these notes we have the Sabian Symbol for this degree: A man’s secret motives are being publicly unmasked - an image astrologer Marc Edmund Jones typified as ‘the difficulty for the modern individual to keep secret his private past or his deeper motives’...(a comment Jones made back in the 1970s and which would seem to apply ever more as time flows by).

For some of us, that Sappho is going retrograde will carry this point’s ‘universal and/or universalist’ within, helping them recognize the greater or ‘universal’ level of some question - and that in turn will help unite their thinking or serve as a means by which they will enter into connection and conversations with others. For some, Sappho’s often nostalgic and ‘poetic’ nature may rise to the fore, softening former ‘hard lines,’ helping foster greater willingness of some kind.

Into all of this come the degree of the June New Moon: 5 Cancer. Known for difficulties stemming from a ‘meanness’ of character which often surfaces in greed and/or miserly attitudes (or refusing to care or extend some feeling benefit) 5 Cancer is known to focus on a refusal to accept or work with/deal with various forms of human weakness - which is at some level a weakness in and of itself. There is a strong sense of ‘having to do what must be done’ which goes along with this degree as well, which since it’s poised in Cancer’s first ten degrees (degrees 0-9) refers to what we do or - again - our certainly very human individual physicality. The Sabian symbol here being ‘Game birds feathering their nests’ can reinforce the ‘borders’ and ‘boundaries’ placed between those being cared for/about and those who are remaining unrecognized at some vital, human level. Referred to as a degree which philosopher-astrologer Dane Rudhyar keynotes as ‘rationalization,’ this would appear to be Cancer at it’s a basic and instinctual level some might typify as individual (or close-held) survival and which some will internalize and transmute into ‘the survival of the group which insures my opportunities for future growth.

As for the chart...

New Moon at 5 Cancer (glyph chart)

(Aries Wheel - Location Not Specific)

New Moon at 5 Cancer (text chart)

(Aries Wheel - Location Not Specific)

The degrees of this chart fall into two rather separate ‘circuits’ - one being in the first decanate of various signs (degrees 0 through 9)...and one being in the third decanate of various signs (degrees 20 through 29). Moreover, taking just the the first decan points for the moment, these are also all in signs which occupy the left or pro-active (learning, experimental) side of the natural zodiac wheel.

What does that say? That tells us that this next month is about what we do or are doing, about what we are willing to try, learn about, say your peace on -or realize the reality of. Or to put it another way, this isn’t a month about building in the sanctity and security of our nests - whether through deed or presence, contribution of thought or concerted willingness to just be there for others...this month speaks to our all being part of this life and this world.

And how those two ideas differ.

Beyond the balancing of all that as a wash of color across the wide screen of life’s backdrop, then we add in a few configurations...

Remember Neptune sitting at 7 Pisces? It’s still there, so if you missed the first chat on same, since this now-you-get-it, now-you-don’t coming from that twitchy place inside where we all want so much to feel what we want and so don’t want to feel anything which will unsettle our secret (and secreted) sense of vulnerability...there’s still time.

- Link to -

Mercury in Taurus/Neptune at 7 Pisces

In any case...Neptune trine a New Moon which is itself conjunct Niobe speaks to pride as a self-delusional detriment - and one which has every possibility of refusing to feel and surrender to some reality now only to pay a far larger price down the line, all of which like as not has to do with some issue with emotional cost to ‘pride of standing.’

With Neptune squaring Phaethon, there’s a headstrong ‘I can do this and get away with it’ quality to many a choice now...but if you remember Phaethon’s story, that may not turn out well. After all, Phaethon was the world-be-heroic teen who insisted to Apollo that he was strong (mature) enough to control the horses which drew the chariot of the Sun across the sky...which most of us (providing you’re not still in the ‘it can’t get me’ stage of life) know is a recipe for trouble.

And when you add fuzziness of emotional standing (with Self most of all) to the need/desire to get out there and prove you can do something simply because you think you ought to be able to (never mind those pesky realities)...we shouldn’t be surprised if Phaethon in Gemini’s tendency towards hasty thinking, shooting off of one’s mouth (aka the tendency to make declarations) and other ‘immature’ ways of working through challenges drive some of this month’s questions and quandaries.

As for Venus in Gemini squaring that Pisces Neptune, this is a combination which promotes friendliness of expression - if not always genuine friendliness. This isn’t likely to be much of a problem unless we are either promising or choosing to believe something out of our personal and basic desire not to have to ‘go through experiencing’ some other choice.

In other words, it isn’t about what ‘they’ do - it’s about why we’re doing what we’re doing. If we’re doing it to evade or avoid something in us we’re likely to unconsciously create ripples in our own pond through others.

This really does give us control, though most of us are (despite what we all like to think) not all that big on controlling ourselves. Others? Yes, indeed. But control our Self? That’s a harder, if more respect-worthy thing.

To finish up here, Juno-Sisyphus is a particularly quirky combination as Juno speaks to self-discipline or the management/conservatorship of one’s resources, possessions, talents...or since this is Gemini, our minds, mentalities, choices and chosen ways of getting things done. Against this we have Sisyphus, an indicator of the ability to do what you want with a warning that if you go that direction, no matter what you think...it just isn’t going to turn out well.

Sisyphus always speaks to something we know we have the capacity to do but shouldn’t...which in combination with headstrong Phaethon is purely an argument with Self. Will we adhere to the standards of treatment, specifically those which deal with how we treat other people (a Sisyphus issue) or simply amuse, assuage or enrich ourselves at the expense of others?

Circuit number two in this New Moon horoscope concerns a series of three semi-sextiles which connect the first four signs of the zodiac (Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer) in a jostling energetic speaking to how easy it is to merely be disrupted or disruptive [Eris/South Node] based on some ‘image’ we have implanted in our brain about how life ‘should be’ but isn’t.

All of that filters (uncomfortably...maybe even annoyingly) through our [Mercury] mental faculties, with all of this coming together as something we [Jupiter in Cancer] need to [25 Cancer] establish or take on, whether in our personal life or in the world around us.

Plus let’s not forget, we do have the Jupiter-Node t-square just now coming into high focus.

Balancing the need to be who we are in our own mind and in this world (so much has to do with proving something to ourselves, have you noticed?) the North Node being in trine to Mercury (which should be marked as retrograde, sorry)...this is the ‘should do’ of the North Node (which automatically comes with a side order of ‘do I have to?’) in trine to Mercury as Mercury nears but is not yet at it’s degree of station.

That will be 24 Gemini, not 25 Gemini.

Meanwhile, there’s a ‘squaring’ of our own need to grow in our own ability to comprehend and handle things with others - all of which plays into personal and public success through our [Eris] ability to deal with things we never imagined in a thousand-million years.

Will we react? Or will we, despite hesitations, misgivings, other things we’d rather be doing and a clutter of misunderstandings old and new which seem to be haunting our waking dreams...in spite of all that, will we persevere?

25 Libra is a degree which acknowledges difficulties and yet which retains a clear, indefinable yet eternal sense of hope. This is not the hope of any miraculous salvation but rather that which holds out that what we earn, we shall in time be rewarded with.

Are we impatient? Are we just tired and looking for a break?

Maybe one...maybe all. We are all just human, you know. Disappointments, trials, defeats, exhaustion and losses...they do happen. Sometimes they’re outside of us and tangible, sometimes they’re to some cherished notion we’ve been toting around despite life’s evidence to the contrary.

As for Mercury...

Le Traité d'Angoulême by Peter Paul Rubens

...Mercury will be going direct on July 1st at 24 (not 25) Gemini, a degree for which the Sabian symbol reads as follows: ‘A gardener trimming large palm trees,’ an image which can be well thought of not only through Marc Edmund Jones’ concept of ‘bringing under control nature’s power of expansion’ but through the more naturalistic idea of the palm tree itself, the palm being a fairly ubiquitous species (something we all know or have in ‘common’) which uses its own dead leaves to shield itself and its fruit (‘the fruit of its labors’) from the intensity of exposure to dry (unemotional) heat (friction, change, conflict).

Mind you, as Mercury goes direct we’re not out of the weeds just yet...

...that which is on our plates and on our minds, they have a bit of time to get worked through - until mid-July when Mercury exits its shadow (which is just prior to Mars exiting its shadow and Saturn going direct).

As Mercury goes through and emerges from its station, attitudes, opinions, conversations open up. Information we have been waiting for finally arrives. People finally look at their phone messages and that which has been back-ordered seemingly forever comes back into stock. So yes, we begin to move forward as Mercury goes direct - but we’re still tying up, settling out and dealing with that which we’ve been focused on for weeks... maybe even months now. Known for its own qualities of generosity and willingness to share (as opposed to those signaled by the Venus/Neptune square, which may amount to too much friendliness or putting those who deserve little but ‘look good’) 24 Gemini benefits us all by being an energetic which encourages open minds and a willingness to listen, hear and discuss - though to be honest, not all such discussions are in earnest. There is some ‘showiness’ which goes along with this degree, so to have Gemini’s ruler (Mercury) going station-direct at 24 Gemini speaks of this entire June 29th through July 3rd period as a good one for parties and hijinks, if also one when we may quite literally hear about grandstanding or someone ‘taking the stage’ so as to have their say.

But the bottom line here for most of us is just this: as Mercury goes direct again, at very long last we are at the end of the seemingly endless slog which began last December when Venus went retrograde. The whole of the time since then has been marked (some would say marred) by one or another of the personal planets being in retrograde...or about to go retrograde.

That’s over. We have a few weeks or sorting out the mental paperwork to do yet while Mercury and Mars both work back and out of their retrograde shadows, but there is cause for optimism in knowing we have now experienced facets of our beings we would never have dreamed of walking ourselves through - and that having done that, we are now better prepared to face our future...directly.
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Insights: A Cancer New Moon

Morning Fantasy by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1904)

July’s New Moon comes into focus at 7:15 in the UT/+0 morning on July 8. And for those of us who don’t live in the +0 time zone, the clock may be different, what we’re doing in that moment will certainly be different, but the global moment will be striking the same note.

It says a lot about how billions of people on one not-giant blue-ish planet can take things differently. And how many ways there are to see and act in life – and this world.

By being a mid-Cancer degree, 16 Cancer is by definition an emotional degree of an emotional sign. An this isn’t Scorpio, so this isn’t about interactions with others. This isn’t Pisces, so this isn’t something which just ‘is’ despite any good effort. This is Cancer. This is about our sense of self – those basic emotions which ask ‘who am I’ and ‘do they like me?’ and ‘will I get in trouble for that?’ or ‘does anyone care?’ or ‘I feel lonely.’

Cancer is where we learn about our emotional self. Cancer is the sign all about our basic feelings about life, and having to do XYZ in life. Cancer confronts us with some seriously unenviable questions like ‘Okay, so I’m not happy about my life. What am I going to do about it? Why did this happen to me? Can’t things just be easy?’

The Sun having entered Cancer back on June 21st (again, UT/+0 time) set the stage for life to move us into this mode of being sensitive and sensitized to the quality of life – ours and life in general. But up until now (or more precisely, until the moment of the Cancer New Moon) we were all living through a series of days which was part of a previous lunar cycle, that being the Gemini New Moon which took place back on June 8.

The Sun represents ‘life itself,’ and our consciousness. Or consciousness of life going on around us. 
Reflecting the idea that our Sun (the actual star) isn’t going anywhere or expected to do much other than what its doing for another more-than-several billion years (yes, billion with a ‘b’) the Sun represents the fullness or entirety of life. Or at least the idea of same, which allegedly gets us to thinking about what we want to do with – and in – our lifetime.

(Allegedly.)

Against this, the lunar cycles represent our day-to-day daily concerns. Because the cycles of the Moon are actually about a relationship between the Moon and Sun, every month is another piece, another step, another ‘phase’ in the totality of our process – which is to say, the process of living our life. As the Moon’s light is light reflected from the Sun, so it is said that lunar cycles are ‘reflective’ of where we are in our life. Or – maybe more productively – where we are in the process of building that life we want to have.

Lore suggests that 16 Cancer is a degree about our facing up to what we need to deal with. At one level it’s about getting rid of excuses…and at another, it’s about dealing with all those ‘little things’ which come up which may become “The Excuse” for not doing what we really need to get done. There is something of a pliable quality said to be part of this degree – which may be something to keep in mind for the whole of this month, a month which will in time have the Sun pushing on into Leo just after the Full Moon.

This is what I meant to get to in mentioning how the Sun entered Cancer long before this Cancer New Moon, and how all those days were part of the lunation prior. Every cycle of the Moon has a way of saying ‘move on!’ in terms of life’s doings. And okay, for those who are more preoccupied or rooted in some status quo, maybe life has to pry your death grip on personal preference loose in order to move you along.

A lot of us took the Gemini New Moon as an opportunity to make new choices and to take on new tasks. Or to learn new things. Or maybe you got swept up in sweeping up the confetti of things which have fallen all around you while you were busy doing something else.

A small boy trying to catch confetti at a folk festival in Namur, Belgium

(photo credit: Ben Aveling, April 2006)

 
Life can be a ticker tape parade sometimes, yes. Great to look at, fun to play in, but boy – what a mess to clean up!

But once the Sun moved into Cancer (on June 21), the simple ‘idea of the moment’ changed. Life became more feeling, more about the important things which make life work and which make living life more worthwhile.

The zodiac’s three water signs are about ‘wealth.’ And while yes, that may be ‘money wealth,’ that can also point to our wealth of experience. Or the circumstances – emotional, situational or concrete – which, in allowing us to feel more comfortable, give us a ‘platform’ on which to build that greater (solar) totality of our life.

During the Gemini lunation, the Sun shifting into Cancer retained a bit of that Gemini ‘the idea of the thing’ quality. And its that which will shift as of the moment of the Cancer New Moon. During the next two weeks (i.e., while the Sun is still in Cancer) we are all likely to feel more or less ‘centered’ in our emotional self. So obviously those who don’t do as well with their emotional Self (or emotional life) are likely to feel a bit touchy…which is maybe really their feeling touchy about feeling touchy.

Another group will feel centered in their need to get on with things. For these people, the Cancer Sun phase of the Cancer lunation will manifest as feeling at home with themselves – and thus with the world which is immediately around them. That doesn’t mean everything is perfect…such folks may be all about rearranging the furniture or getting around to paining the living room wall. But (using painting as the way to ‘see’ this)(yes, that was a bad pun) gone will be the Gemini lunation ‘what effect am I trying to create?’ as emotions and life congregate into the ‘I know what I’m going to go for. And if I don’t like that, I’ll change it later’ sort of feeling.

Cancer is a cardinal sign. It’s willing to learn from results. Gemini is a mutable signs. All mutable signs have an issue with making choices just because life’s possibilities seem endless. The Sun moving into Cancer under the Gemini lunation got us into the ‘yes, there’s a lot of choices – narrow it down, already!’ mode…and now, during the first half of the Cancer lunation, we will be digging in and doing what needs doing to structure what we plan to move ahead with.

Once the Sun moves into Leo (on July 22nd) this ‘structuring’ phase will give way to seeing what will actually result. And where we want to go from where we’ve gotten to at that point. At it’s best, this Leo effect will open us to new possibilities.

Of course, it could also show up our personal shortcomings. Or where our wanting to be ‘in our comfort zone’ has actually undermined our ability to ‘structure’ our life by failing to take others (or life’s greater, mainstream ‘flow’) into account.

Sirius A & B as seen in an x-ray photograph taken by the Chandra Space Telescope

(photo credit: NASA-SAO-CXC, September 2000)

With the brilliance of dog-star Sirius and ‘story teller’ Scheherazade at 14 Cancer just behind the position of this New Moon, Atropos (endings) and Echo just ahead of the New Moon at 18 Cancer and Atlantis exactly conjunct this lunation, this would seem to be an ‘Atlantis moment’ of facing that which we think of as being “exactly what we want” (or how we think we want life to be) in favor of being brave enough to literally accept walking into another element, tackling the seemingly impossible and – amazingly – being rewarded for that.

Atlantis is a funny point. (And no, I don’t mean ‘ha,ha’ funny.) Atlantis is all about ‘the times’ we live in and how accumulated experiences show us how it doesn’t matter how much we think we want to fit in with ‘that’ or to have ‘that’ be true. Sometimes we just aren’t going to fit in with ‘that’ no matter how hard we try. Sometimes we have to let go. We have to stop trying to tell others (and more importantly, ourselves) that that’s what we want to do. Or how we want life to work.

Sometimes we just have to let go. Atlantis is all about that very thing – the letting go. And about how sometimes, despite all, we need to walk into what may seem like a totally foreign element, something we think would be ‘deadly’ (not literally) in order to be enveloped by a new and different environment in which we will find our bliss.

Or at least the path to that bliss.

Sirius/Scheherazade being just behind the lunation speaks to our leaving some ‘story’ behind. Maybe it’s a phase of life you’re moving out of. Maybe it’s a home you’re moving out of. Around the world lot of students will be leaving behind their comfort zone of the ‘known’ as they move ahead to the next form or even out of their studies into life’s Big World.

That Sirius is a binary star tells us there is a 'fusion' process which goes into creating anything. One of the brightest stars in the sky, Sirius is known as a point of ‘brilliance,’ or qualities which we think of as brilliance or some idea or example which to us is  just ‘brilliant.’

Or maybe daunting or blinding or dazzling.

So with Sirius being conjunct Scheherazade and the New Moon being conjunct Atlantis, maybe you’re letting go of…or moving away from some ‘story’ you’ve told yourself. Or something which is itself brilliance, but which now you need to incorporate into your life and build upon. Part of this – considering we’re moving out of a Gemini lunation into a lunar month which is founded in the Cancer principle may be about acknowledging how someone else may know more than you do about something, but that that’s not any reason why you shouldn’t excel in your own right. So maybe you’re ready to take on reaching some inner dream by making it real in the here-and-now. Or maybe you’re done listening to the idea of what life ‘should be’ as defined by others and ready to create that better, more solid, more secure and stable life which works for you.

In leaving that ‘thing’ behind, this New Moon may be a moment of emotional darkness during which you let go of that you used to believe about others or even about yourself. In that darkness we can’t ‘see’ ahead, but we feel like we’re ‘hearing’ the Echo of endings (Atropos) to…to what?

Is that the end of something bad? Or something good? Maybe it’s just the end of our kidding ourselves about something – even some ‘blindness’ to our own abilities which we may have long negated.

The mythic Echo is a servant of chief honcho Olympians Hera and Zeus. Or Juno and Jupiter, if you prefer. The difference here, which comes from the difference between Greek and Roman culture seems to reflect the Greek love of logic and intellectual insight as opposed to the human passions and more emotional approach of the Romans. Either way, whether we talk Hera/Zeus or Juno/Jupiter, we’re making an astro-metaphysical reference to ‘governing principles’ in our lives.

But it’s not like mom and pop Olympians get along. Much as how in life we have ‘different parts’ of our life and interest which don’t seem compatible with each other, hubby king and wife queen of Olympus didn’t get along 100% either.

Far from it. Zeus/Jupiter (knowing knowledge) was a well-known philanderer. In our lives, this tendency to ‘go out on the wife’ reflects in the fact that we may sometimes do things which are counter to our status quo. Or maybe not in sync with what we’ve been taught. Or whatever it is we’ve constructed in our life.

 Obviously in a moment when they're on more or less friendly basis, Olympians Juno and

husband Jupiter are perhaps working on reaching some mutual agreement on how life should

be...which is a lot of what we go through in our own lives with ourselves.

Jupiter and Juno by Frans Christoph Janneck (1703-1761)

 

The important thing to remember is that this isn’t about anyone else. This is about us. The constant and wholly human thing which says we need to grow even while we need to remain ‘married’ to the job of taking care of ourselves and our lives.   

So there’s Echo…a servant (another part of our psyche) which is working for both honchos. And when Zeus/Jupiter decides to go off and chase his latest interest (a new possibility, perhaps) Jupiter instructs Echo not to tell the wife.

That amounts to our not ‘telling’ or admitting to ourselves that we want to try something new. Something else.

In marriage counseling, you’ll hear psychologists tell their clients that ‘you never solve the problem inside the marriage by going outside the marriage’ which is true whether someone is having an affair or simply building a professional or social life which doesn’t just exclude their Significant Other, but which they don’t involve their Significant Other in – at least at the level of being open about what they’re up to. Let’s face it, there are plenty of great marriages where each partner has personal interests which doesn’t involve the other party.

The problem would seem to be in the not telling. The not being honest. And that’s the Echo thing. Echo applies where we’re not honest with ourselves about our needs. Where we don’t admit to ourselves that there’s some sort of problem which isn’t getting solve ‘inside the marriage’ of our Self.

Just to cut to the chase on the myth, in case you haven’t heard this one before, rather predictably it doesn’t go well for Echo. Wife Hera/Juno (representing the protection of our psychic ‘home’ and inner stability) not only catches up with Zeus/Jupiter’s doings, but realizes Echo has been placating her with half-truths – sort of like we tend to do from time to time in our own lives.

And yes, that would be the point. Through the moment of this New Moon’s evocative darkness now comes the ‘Echo’ of Atropos, the ‘end’ of something.

Is that our ignorance? Our struggles to hide something important from our Self?

What (Gemini lunation cycle) idea are we on the verge of letting go of? What (Atlantis) are we realizing is not going to work for us? How will this moment and the next lunar month reveal how in (Cancer lunation cycle) being more united in our Self and (Cancer) more emotionally (Echo) knowing and honest with our Self can we (Atropos) end the internal spin and thus the spinning of our wheels?

It’s going to be an interesting month to be sure. That it’s happening with a water grand trine in progress speaks to a lot of values changing and the world being awash in provocations.

And yet, that is our future.
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Eris Stations at a New Moon

 Moonlit Seascape with Shipwreck by Ivan Aivasovsky (1817-1900)

Astrologically, Thursday July 19th may be many things…but boring is not likely to be one on the list. At the very least it’ll be interesting. Maybe even thought provoking. Or exciting.

Then again, it could be cataclysmic. Or problematic. Even shocking.

Whatever it is, it won’t be that ‘same ol’, same ol’’ thing.

The particulars here are as follows:

- Dwarf planet Eris will go retrograde at 11:22 p.m., UT/+0 time.

- A New Moon at 26 Cancer occurs at 4:25 in the morning, UT/+0 time.

Obviously this means that for some (notably those who live a time zone or more east of Greenwich) Eris will go retrograde on July 20th…with the New Moon occurring on the 19th. And for others (those living more than 4 time zone hours west of Greenwich) the New Moon will occur late on the 18th with Eris going retrograde on the 19th.

Usually I simply giving you the time and let you sort it out from there. I’m pointing this out today simply because we’re talking about two separate astrological issues which, because of their proximity in time may combine to create a pot-sticker of a time in your life.

Then again, they may apply to two very different things.

That now dutifully disclaimed, on to the meat of the subject…as we has now been noted many a time, all celestial stations, be they into retrograde or retrograde-direct, are given at least a two-day ‘station allowance. (I’m beginning to be inclined to think that perhaps should be three days going into the station and two days coming out of it, but that’s just a theory I’m playing with as yet…though input is welcome!)

What this amounts to is the idea that Eris’ turn to retrograde occurs late on July 19th, but the effects of same begin on the 17th. (Maybe even the latter part of the 16th, yes.) Coming into this station, Eris is in direct motion. That tells us that the ‘Eris Effect’ – that of provoking or evoking emotionalism or emotional reactions – comes from outside of us and affects our sense of being.

That ‘being’ part comes from Eris’ current transit ‘being’ in Aries, sign of Self. Will this effect be physical or merely psychological?

Yes.

 Eris and Eris' moon, Dysnomia, as photographed

by the Hubble Telescope (photo credit: NASA-JPL)

I know, I know…that’s a snotty way to answer. But it’s true – and I may as well cut to the chase as anything else. Eris’ station may be physical, psychological, environmental, experiential, emotional, or any combination of the above. To be noted as well, this ‘Eris Effect’ may not be directly about your emotionality or your physicality. In other words, it may be something which happens to someone else or which merely ‘happens’ which ends up affecting you. Maybe someone else gets their ‘dream job.’ Might that cause you to think about whether you’re trying hard in your own life or not? Or maybe someone you have long respected and trusted is shown up to be a lying crumb. How would that affect you – not just your relationship with them, but your overall sense of trust, your willingness to invest your faith in others?

What does all that mean?

Maybe a law will get passed somewhere which changes what you can buy? Or whether you can buy it at all? What if that law changed the standard of education for your children – or your pension fund structure? Or your health care?

Those things which have the power to challenge our sense of survival and trust in life, our sense of world order or ‘our world’s order…those are Eris.

But there’s another side of Eris, too. Eris is the energy of going to to make a better world. Eris is about changing the world and fighting for that which is right, which has integrity.

The trick with Eris, however, lies in the purpose. Let’s remember – Eris is a dwarf planet, yet. But where it orbits is way, way, way out there in the Kuiper Belt.

 The Kuiper Belt involves a vast area of space beyond Neptune

 and inside that area currently thought of as the very edge of our

solar system - the Oort Cloud.

All those things represented by objects in the Kuiper Belt – defined pretty much as ‘beyond Neptune’ have to do with transpersonal dynamics pertaining to more than just me-myself-I. By definition, these are not individual issues. Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) evoke reactions to life. They are life’s processes and surprises good and ugly coming upon us. Undoubtedly the best-known of the KBOs is Pluto. And though surely we’d like to think we have control over life, we don’t – which is why Pluto is connected to the symbolism of death as the experience of life being transformed. Pluto is actually the symbol of conception and death and connected to all which brings us into this world (sex) and those processes which take us out of it (war, murder, death through old age) as well as our efforts to control that (surgery, for instance).

The ‘obsession’ quality we note with Pluto is our wanting to control all these things. That in itself should tell us that we aren’t in actual control.

So it is with Eris. We are not in control of that which Eris represents. Much as we might try to ‘guard’ ourselves from experiences which provoke or startle the living daylights out of us, Eris is that life dynamic which cuts through all our naiveté, all our protection, all our denials, forcing the truth not of the world, but of our own consciousness upon us.

With Eris, wherever we find Eris in the chart, it’s easy to feel self-protective. And since Eris has been in Aries since the latter part of 1921, most people alive today experience Eris very personally.

Yet Eris’ has a positive side. Eris functions to the positive when we work at using what we do or who and what we are for the benefit of others. Some of us – notably those with Eris strongly placed in their chart – say ‘but what about me? when do I get to make me my own priority?’

The answer to that is ‘probably never’...but I'll have to scout around for a chart or two which show how Eris works when sincerely focal. In the interim, though it’s easy enough to want to do, a focus on the Self in the chart of someone with Eris prominently placed will probably wear their ‘connective batteries’ (connective to the world) down, quickly rendering them irrelevant.

Someone who has made it big, who has hit the limelight and gone as far as they want to go? Turing their Eris ‘evocation’ energies to personal uses or pleasures may be a good way to get out of the public eye. But energies never actually go away, and with Eris, just thinking through the myth it seems likely that those energies neglected will in time backfire and cause trouble in our lives.

LINK...Eris Discordant: Mastering Our Own Weakest Moments

Currently transiting the latter part of Aries, Eris very distinctly portrays the changing of life and how we can either all be contributing to this world or being changed and molded by that world. Those who think there is any ‘escape’ from the march of modernism are particularly wrong at this particular time. I know a number of people who are still trying to ‘hide’ from the digital age and technology in general. Good luck to them – I think their cause a foolish one, for it will in time corner and suppress them. They are, in essence, volunteering to be marginalized. And few know what marginalization means until it is beyond capacity to get back aboard that ship which has already sailed…in this case without you because you simply refused to get on board.

That said, I understand the challenges of technology. Aquarian in nature and astrologically governed by a headache pair of planets (first Saturn, then Uranus) modern technology has a unique ability to frustrate and upset us. Years ago I was working with a company on the development of accounting systems for motion pictures. When not trying to convey the realities of production to the programmers (I probably should have provided them with popcorn) I spent a lot of time doing tech support and teaching people how to us the software of that time.

My classic statement on such: until you get so frustrated that you want to scream and pitch the computer out the window, you’re probably not quite there.

I recalled this lesson for my own purposes not but about a month ago now while I was learning to format my first eBook. Trust me…my verbal capacity with invectives got quite a workout during those couple of weeks.

But I prevailed. And once I conquered that first issuing-of-a-book, a whole world of self-publishing opened up to me as something I could do. Not that might be possible, but which I CAN now do.

Yes, this will include the famous epic high fantasy you all have heard me talk about. That will go out via Print on Demand (POD) and somewhere in the next couple of months I’ll bite that formatting apple.

All of this is to say that while there is – unquestionably – some sort of genius-intellectual salvation mechanism which only goes off in our brains when we reach the point of personal cataclysm…that’s not Eris. That’s Uranus.

Uranus – a planet which orbits inside the line of Neptune – represents those things which we can master, but which require letting go of our pre-set boundaries, our limits. They may be behavioral, experiential, regarding what we know or have been willing to perceive. They may pertain to our attitudes about social acceptance and our willingness to be a true individual.

With Uranus, we generally have some choice, even though sometimes we say ‘no’ or refuse to make a choice and life thrusts a choice upon us.

 This is a detail from a painting called 'The Mutilation of Uranus by

Saturn' by Giorgio Vasari which in following the Greek creation

myth about the primordial sky god (Ouranus, from whence comes

the planetary name Uranus) being 'deposed" by Saturn...that concept

we call time, reality, consequence, pragmatism, responsibility. 

But that’s not Eris. Eris begins as life thrusting something – some experience, some moment, some realization - upon us. Zak Bagans became a parapsychologist because he encountered a ghost and from there went on to learn about them.

Someday I’ll tell you all (and the rest of the world) how I came to be who I am too. I just have to be able to pay the legal bills to process the manuscript – which is the ‘down’ side of growing up with famous people as family friends.(Never thought about that part of famous families, did ya? Mmm...it's not all parties and good times, trust me!)

To the point here….when Eris touches our lives - and it happens to us all at some point - taking the disruption and making something useful or positive from it is key. And the more that ‘something’ you make touches others – maybe more gently than you were touched, but touches them nonetheless…the more you turn Eris’ energy to the positive.

That’s why Eris as (for instance) a social reformer holds such potential for good. Anywhere where you fix things for others, where you take the evocative or emotionally unsettling and use it to help others understand or to fix something which is harming others at any level – that’s Eris to the good.

And when Eris functions to the positive, like fellow KBO Huya, it evokes a positive response which empowers, enriches or supports you.

With Eris going retrograde at 22 Aries, where we are weak, where we have been unwilling to carry through on our tasks – all our irresponsibility gets uncovered, exposed and pretty much shoved in our face. With Saturn still very much in opposition to Eris (at 23 Libra) there will be a tendency to project blame on others, on circumstances, on whatever.

It probably won’t wash. And because it won’t wash, we will all of us be confronted (to whatever degree) with where we have been humoring ourselves thinking ‘oh, they’ll go along with it’ when in the end, they won’t. And in the end, we will pay the price not for ‘their’ intolerance, but for our lack of willingness to work (Saturn) at the thing which we find emotionally difficult to swallow (Eris). That may simply amount to not liking to be told what to do. Or maybe it’s that you don’t want to change how you go about doing something or the ‘charge’ you levy for doing it.

There are a million-zillion ways this Eris (opposition Saturn) station can manifest. The important thing to remember is that whatever happens now, the core of the emotional reaction is pointing at you. Specifically, at some vulnerability in your character. Maybe you don’t like being or working alone. (Maybe you need to learn how to do that?) Maybe you don’t like having to change the way you ‘always’ have done something (Maybe you need to recognize the times are changing and/or have changed?) Maybe…

….maybe, maybe, maybe.

So many maybes. One life to get them straight in.

The other half of this moment is – as mentioned – a New Moon. And that makes this the PERFECT time to learn better. As this post goes up (July 15th) Mercury has just gone retrograde (see previous post), meaning that the next couple of weeks are a really good time for cleaning house – mental or otherwise.

And yes, it is likely that for those who are dilly-dallying around about things, others will do some of the housecleaning for you. Or to you, depending.

Again, don’t blame them. Take responsibility for how you are perceived. We can coax, con, soothe, explain some of the time. In the end, actions speak the bottom line. Both Saturn and Eris are in cardinal, action/demonstrative signs. If you want others to think differently of you, change you and prove that you’re different.

With this New Moon occurring at 26 Cancer, we know there is some sort of ‘basis for proceeding’ in the mix now.

.

 Positioned at the bottom of the wheel of the 'natural' zodiac (the

 zodiac as placed around the horoscope wheel starting with

 Aries and ending with Pisces), Cancer reveals itself as the sign

at the very base of the chart - thus its associations with our

foundations as individuals (our childhood, home, nationality, culture)

as well as any plans we have in life. If you think of the chart wheel

as a building the meaning here becomes clear: without sound

foundations, all which is built ON those foundations does not

stand firm. This idea supports exploration of childhood and

child-mentality through psychology as surely as it supports our

need for 'down time' (moments in which to be childlike, even

child-ish!) in life...and the need to have a sense that you 'belong' 

somewhere...in a family, in a people, as part of a national identity

...and why astrologers do well to examine where Cancer falls in any

chart, PLUS the nature and stutus of the 4th house in order to

understand challenges and positives of functionality.

Cancer is the first of the water signs. Known in virtually every spiritual and metaphysical tradition as an emblem of emotionality, water is also the basic ‘giver of life,’ accounting for Cancer as the sign of family, our nationality and culture, our childhood and our basic ‘life plan.’

With this New Moon occurring at 26 Cancer, we are given to know – from the fact that this is a 3rd decan degree (between 20 and 29 degrees) – that we are getting ‘feedback’ now. We are learning what it means to have our background. Or to be of our nationality. Or whether our ‘life plan’ is functional or not.

For those who are having difficulties, the Mercury retrograde weeks between July 15 and August 8 (when Mercury goes direct) will be an excellent time to make plans, develop methods and ways of reaching your goals and finding our everything from who can help you to how things can work. Business or personal, this New Moon adds to things by asking that you recognize what your values are against what the world may think of those values.

Just understand one thing: considering that Eris’ turnabout is happening in virtual tandem with this New Moon, you may be tempted to blame difficulties on others. And no, life isn’t fair. But how you respond to life and what your plans become given that life is at this point what it is…? That’s what will now evolve over this next lunation.

Specific to the lore on the degree of this New Moon, it deals with artists and artistry as well as questions of luxury. The term ‘artistry’ is not confined to the arts here. Rather, it’s a reference to the way you go about doing whatever you do. Likewise, while ‘luxury’ may be about material goods, it may also be a reference to the ‘luxury’ of not trying or not living up to standards (which would be very Eris-Saturn), “resting on one’s laurels” (thinking you don’t have to try any more and/or can do what you want now, which plays right into the Saturn/Eris scenario) and the ‘luxury’ of abdicating responsibility to others.

Again, I refer you back to our conversation about Eris…or Saturn/Eris as a particular.

The Sabian Symbol for this degree is ‘A VIOLENT STORM IN A CANYON FILLED WITH EXPENSIVE HOMES’ which astrologer Dane Rudhyar considers to be a ‘confrontation with social upheaval, demanding the reconsideration of static values.’

Whether or not you deal with things which are literally ‘expensive’ there are items and issues in life which we consider precious – and to lose them would be very ‘expensive’ to our lives. As much as the literal translation of this degree, the emotional concept will now be in play. Health, love, respect, trust, regard, proximity…everybody is facing some sort of change. Those of us least used to change will find it harder to face than others and where resources would seem protective, life now cuts through all protections.

That would be the Eris part of things.

Especially if your natal chart has a position between…say,…20 and 27 of any sign, you’re in the celestial shaker box.

And then there are those of you who have already noticed how Eris at 22 Aries is in aspect to this New Moon at 26 Cancer…

 

Yes, this is a total configuration. And that, my friends, would be why no matter what time zone you’re in…why these two events would seem to be tied together.

There are many interesting points in this diagram with one we haven’t touched on yet being Kalypso and Photographica opposing the New Moon. This would tend to be something of the ‘but how will it look?’ sort of thing.

But it bears recalling that there are not only structural rules for using astrological solar systemics to sort out what’s personal from what’s experiential, there’s a size thing too.

Yes, in astrology, size matters. I’m not sure it matters in other places as much as some think it does, but when it comes to celestial objects, yes – size matters. Not only does greater physical size generally translate into the symbolism having ‘greater mass’ and ‘more weight’ in our lives, but there is that physics thing that once a celestial object reaches a given size, it will tend to ‘spin itself’ into becoming a planetoid or for the lucky few, a planet.

(Yes, I’m using the term ‘lucky’ here rather abstractly.)

In those terms, the ‘gravity’ (gravitas?) of the situation plainly goes to the New Moon. Earth’s satellite – our Luna Moon – is pretty dinky in planetary terms. Yet it is close! But more to the point, there isn’t anything about our solar system which comes close to being as big as the Sun.

 Solar System: Size (only) to Scale

To make this even plainer, here’s a link to another web page which does a really good job of visually demonstrating how big solar system objects are with respect to each other...

LINK: 'All (known) Bodies in the Solar System Larger than 200 Miles in Diameter' (Kokogiak.com) 

Essentially, the structure of this moment is a t-square with the possibility of it being a Grand Cross in particular for those who have something positioned in the 20-27 degrees of Capricorn.

(Yes…that’s me raising my hand. I have a date with my Chiron.)(...shudder...)

What’s the difference? A t-square is incredibly annoying. It’s like throwing yourself against a wall which impassively resists your every assault.

But t-squares do have ‘solutions.’ And that ‘solution’ is to get over your big bad self! The ‘t’ in the t-square (in this case the New Moon) is the thing which is standing in your way. You want it. Your ego is wrapped up in the ‘you’ of it and not focused (sufficiently) on the quality or ‘end purpose’ of what you’re talking about.

Life, in other words, is not rejecting YOU…it’s rejecting your approach. Your insistence that life listen to you or that what you’re up to is about you. Or dependent on you. Something.

For those who do have a planet, axis point, nodal point or even a prominent asteroid, TNO or such (if you have one you know about it) in this 20-27 Capricorn department, your issue is a bit different. You’re in the Grand Cross quandary, the simplest version of which is ‘too much to do and not enough time to do it in.’

Answer: prioritize. No, that doesn’t fix the totality of what you need to do, but prioritizing by actual need and not emotional want (or pressure) will go a long way towards helping you think things through and work through whatever long laundry list you now have before you.

That all this happens under Mercury retrograde is actually in favor of the ‘laundry list’ folks. Mercury retrograde is the perfect time for catching up, for paring down, for editing out, for getting things assembled – with all the details duly checked out – in order to move ahead once Mercury goes direct (on August 8).

For those with no planets being affected, you may well be bystanders to others who are dealing with ‘image issues’ of whatever kind. Whether this is focal in your life or not, there are positive lessons to be learned about awareness of Self in connection to, and with regards to others.

And that…is just about all I have to say about all that.

Well, maybe. But I do have to go check my laundry – and the list, which may have just gotten washed.

So happy Eris Lunation all…may we all become wiser for our experiences!