I promised to write about the Solstice on June 21st in my last newsletter, but I simply didn’t have enough time. So we’ll look at it now within the context of our Cancer month and the approaching birthday of our nation.
Cancer Solstice
Months ago I was told that our spiritual evolution accelerates at the Solstice in June, and that everything we think, feel, say or do will have an impact on the future we co-create. While this sounds ominous on the one hand, it is also glorious on another, because the power lies within our own psyches to choose the direction of our evolution and determine the world we want to live in.
So let’s examine the messages from the Solstice chart as it relates to our nation’s birth chart. The most obvious message comes from the Grand Trine between Sedna at 00 Cancer, Ceres at 00 Libra and Pluto which has left 00 Aquarius and is dipping back into Capricorn until next January.
Pluto has been the driving force behind the crumbling of our reality as we know it. This has produced much fear, denial, resistance and even violence bred out of uncertainty and anxiety. We know, however, that Pluto is clearing the path for transformation, revealing to us the corruption of our businesses and government, the dysfunction of our systems such as healthcare, justice, law enforcement, environmental protection, insurance, and our top-heavy economy. What isn’t working for the welfare of all is headed for annihilation or reform. And all of that is occurring as Pluto makes a return to its natal position, when we declared our independence.
Pluto resides in our Second House, associated with the sign of Taurus, ruled by Venus and focused on Values – what we value, what we own, how we value ourselves and others. On the material level it refers to our wealth; on a moral level it encompasses our ethics and the values by which we live. On the psychological level it suggests the status of our self-worth.
It’s pretty clear that as a nation we value wealth and power over ethics. It is no coincidence that Pluto entered our Second House in January of 2016, shortly after candidate Trump descended a golden escalator, with all the pomp of a Roman Emperor. His four years in office turned our nation upside down, opened the gates of Hell and released the Krakens of our repressed subconscious.
The trine of Pluto to Sedna suggests that Pluto is serving our evolutionary flow by showing us the dark underbelly of our American Dream and the simmering discontent which birthed an insurrection.
Sedna, as I have suggested before, is the beacon toward which we are evolving. At the furthest edge of our solar system, out past the Kuiper Belt in the mysterious Ort Cloud, she represents our evolved spiritual consciousness. Her Siren song has lured so many of us to long for a world of peace and to respond by doing our Pluto work, delving into our own inner darkness, healing our wounds, making peace with our past and taking responsibility for our impact on the world.
This awakening appears overshadowed by the insanity that makes the news, but this movement has spread around the world. Millions of our soul brothers and sisters have answered Sedna’s call and they are coming together to support one another in the cause of Oneness. The glitter of gold has temporarily blinded us, but we are seeing a brighter light on the horizon.
Sedna is transiting our 6th House of daily life, health, habits, work etc. She is telling us that the answers lie in the moment, in our awareness, openness, attention to detail: the content of our personal lives, the attitudes we hold, the love we share, the pleasure we take in the moment, the habits of awakened consciousness we develop, the intention we hold to release our judgments and focus on our sameness rather than our differences, our Oneness rather than our apparent separation.
So where does Ceres fit in? Ceres brings deep love and nurturing into the mix. When Pluto was demoted from planet to dwarf, Ceres was elevated from asteroid to dwarf. She is the only dwarf planet that addresses our personal lives, because she resides in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a transition zone from our personal planets to our social interaction.
Ceres was the sister of the ruling pantheon of gods and goddesses that dwelled on Mount Olympus. This was no happy family. Ceres was raped by her brother Zeus/Jupiter, much in the same way that Chiron was conceived when Zeus, in the same form as a mighty horse, ravaged Phylira. This aligns her with the centaurs who are part horse – our animal nature – part human and part divine. The Romans merely changed the names when they absorbed the Olympian deities and their myths from the Greeks. Ceres in Greece became Demeter in Rome.
Ceres conceived a daughter Persephone, or Proserpina. Despite the violence of Persephone’s conception, Ceres adored her daughter and while the two of them were together, the Earth was abundant and bountiful. But when another one of Ceres’ brothers, Pluto, abducted her daughter to the Underworld, Ceres fell into a deep grief, and the land turned fallow. After a long period of grieving and searching, Ceres was able to negotiate a shared custody agreement with Pluto, and Persephone was granted the right to live most of the year above ground with her mother. Only in the winter would she return to Hades when the growing season ended. Ceres’ myth explained the changing seasons, but there is so much more to the story. She is also a symbol for the cyclical nature of our spiritual evolution, periods of strife and darkness followed by the celebration of rebirth and a return of the Light.
Ceres was very much involved in the daily life of humans. She taught us agriculture assuring that our crops flourished. Thus she is associated with nurturance, generosity and deep love for humanity. She is also linked to the Eleusinian Mysteries, the famous secret Greek religious rites performed annually around the September Equinox, involving purification, symbolic death and rebirth.
Essentially Ceres is the nurturing mother goddess, and through the symbolism of our agriculture, has become synonymous with the bounty of our planet Earth. Much like Persephone, we children of Earth have been abducted by the darkness of patriarchal power. Our soil is toxic with chemicals, our water polluted by petroleum products, our air filled with noxious gases, our Oceans choked with islands of plastic debris. We have abandoned our Mother Ceres and this Grand Trine is telling us it’s time for renewal.
Ceres is the higher octave of the Moon, which is associated with motherhood. Now as the Sun enters Cancer, ruled by the Moon, we are swimming in a context of mother love.
Two Yods
Yods are formed when two planets are sextile each other – 60 degrees apart – and each one is quincunx, or 150 degrees away from the same planet. The Solstice chart contains two of them.
Jupiter and Saturn are now sextile – Jupiter at 7+ degrees of Taurus and Saturn at 7+ degrees of Pisces. This is the first significant aspect these two social planets have made since their reunion at 0 degrees of Aquarius on the December Solstice of 2020, when they kicked off a new 20-year cycle, as well as a 200 year cycle of conjunctions in Air signs.
Jupiter and Saturn work together in a kind of peristaltic fashion, expanding and contracting our consciousness, promoting growth and integration in our evolutionary flow. Saturn’s passage through Pisces holds much potential, but I see it as bringing old structures of separation to completion and laying the foundation for a new spirituality based on our Oneness. Saturn brings facts to confront our illusions, popping bubbles of misleading propaganda.
These two planets are each quincunx Makemake, the dwarf planet that helps us see the bigger picture. This is so significant. Makemake at 7+ Libra is only 4 degrees away from Ceres, so one of the areas where we can expand our awareness concerns our Earth and our nurturing relationships. Quincunx aspects are indirect and work in our subconscious. We won’t be aware of their function until we get a sudden insight and see a broader perspective.
The other Yod involves the transiting Moon in Leo, sextile Makemake in Libra pointing to Saturn in Pisces. Granted the Moon moves out of this configuration quickly, but seeds have been planted and the Moon brings in our emotional body. While Makemake influences our perception on a mental level, the Moon brings in our intuition and gut instinct, making our realization not just conceptual, but embodied and visceral.
Saturn turned retrograde on June 17th, so he is retracing his steps through the first 7 degrees of Pisces, the territory he covered between March and June. We may not be aware of the growth and change that has happened in four months, but Saturn helps us ground it for the rest of the year. While it will station direct on November 5th, it won’t move beyond 7 Pisces until next year.
Meditation could be very helpful at this time, nothing effortful, just sitting in silence, eyes closed, tuning into our depths. It is in the stillness that we hear that inner voice. This is a time of increasing self-awareness, best accomplished without judgment; instead exercising discernment as we fine-tune our psyche to higher frequencies.
The Full Moon in Leo
The Cancer Solstice sets the tone for the next six months. That’s why I spent so much time on it. The Full Moon takes place the day before our Independence holiday, July 3rd at 4:38 a.m. PDT. The Sun is two degrees from returning to it natal position while the Moon is in our First House at 11+ Capricorn. This is the first of four consecutive Super Moons which take place when the Moon is closest to the Earth and appears largest in the sky. Super Moons have more of an impact on our emotional bodies.
Sun and Moon square Selena at 11 Aries, illuminating our path forward. The lunar axis makes a wider square to our natal Saturn in Libra. Can we find deeper inner peace and ground that in our emotional bodies?
Transiting Chiron is within 21 minutes of arc – less than one degree – from its natal position in the USA chart. It won’t quite make it to an exact conjunction this year, but comes within 10 minutes of exact, before Chiron turns retrograde and retraces his steps through Aries. At this point our wounds are surfacing. Chiron makes an exact return three times next year beginning on April 20th. The healing process has already begun in our collective unconscious. We are a wounded nation of wounded souls. Chiron is showing us that we are in a healing crisis, a great opportunity for transcendence.
Venus is within three degrees of Mars giving us a chance to balance and integrate our masculine and feminine energies. Venus won’t catch up to Mars, however, because she turns retrograde on June 23, the same day as Chiron’s station. Venus is trine Chiron during this retrograde, helping us move out of our heads and into our hearts where true healing takes place. During this period she will make a transition from an evening star to a morning star, disappearing from our night sky to reunite with the Sun on August 13th when she begins a new cycle and forms a new Star Point at 20+ Leo. Remember that Leo is all about the heart.
We are entering an accelerated time of growth and change. We cannot make evolution happen. Yes we can cooperate with our healing, we can be available to whatever comes up from within, or without, but we cannot control this process. We have to let go and let it happen. The key is to relax and trust.
I think this is enough information for you to absorb. I’ll be back at the New Moon in Cancer on July 17th when the Nodes leave Taurus and Scorpio behind and enter Aries and Libra, yet another big energetic shift.
Happy 4th of July to you all.
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