“Since the dawn of time itself, Man has measured his life by the cycles of the planets – from sunrise to sunrise and from one new Moon to the next he has reckoned his existence by the heavens.”*

Cycles, within cycles, within cycles, the pulse of our beloved astrology, plumbing the life blood of our universe; circulating Earth, Moon, planets and asteroids, named and unnamed; transfusing human experience with a profane and sacred significance. The celestial cycles most familiar to us are the daily rising and setting of the Sun charting the axial rotation of the Earth gliding through the entire zodiac in one day, the changing faces of the Moon gathering and dispersing the light of the Sun enfolding the entire zodiac in one month, and the annual changing of season from spring to summer to fall to winter mirroring the faithful marriage of Earth and Sun dancing cheek-to-cheek round the zodiac in one year. Each of these cycles observable with our naked eye delivers a new birth in the processes of life on Earth and in particular within the individual.

Every known planetary body whether observable or not with the naked eye engages in a cyclical unfolding of time with every other planetary body lasting hours, days, weeks, months, or years depending upon the distance of the Sun. These interlacing cycles weave the diverse complexity of  human experience that unfolds within a universe infused with a living intelligence refusing to be reduced to a mechanistic and meaningless experience. Today, for the first time since 1843 Jupiter and Neptune conjoin in Aquarius heralding a new birth in humanitarian awareness accompanying a spiritual vision that includes the whole of humanity replacing individual privilege with individual participation and collective ostracism with collective co-habitation.

Jupiter journeys through every sign of the zodiac in twelve years while Neptune journeys through one sign of the zodiac in thirteen years with the two conjoining in a different sign every thirteen years and the same sign every 169 years. In other words, orbiting Jupiter and Neptune entwine two  distinct cycles simultaneously giving birth to a thirteen year cycle of individual awakening  and a 169 year cycle of collective awakening suggesting that one is dependent upon the other.

When we are under the influence of Aquarius the events in our life remind us that our individual self-expression is on behalf of the whole of humanity and that the evolution of human consciousness requires that each of us accept personal responsibility for contributing the best of our creative potential to the whole of life. With the birth of a new Jupiter-Neptune cycle in Aquarius we on Earth are given a golden opportunity to do just that. Is there any more altruistic sign of the zodiac than Aquarius, a more benevolent teacher than Jupiter, or a better spiritual guardian of the collective unconscious than Neptune, acting as celestial guides helping us navigate the stormy waters of our individual and collective evolving in consciousness?

I began this post speaking of cycles within cycles within cycles and the new Jupiter-Neptune cycle has some unexpected turns. The asteroid Chiron in Aquarius is at the exact degree as the two and embracing them both may offer healing insight into a wounding of the collective unconscious that every individual suffers, being a part of the collective whole, in recognizing, albeit unconsciously so, a lopsided evolving of human consciousness that resists envisioning the unity of Life.

The other significant cycles at this time are the retrograde station of all three planetary bodies within three weeks of today’s conjoining; Neptune stations retrograde May 28, Chiron June 2, and Jupiter June 15. Each Rx cycle is imprinting a highly personalized experiencing of the Jupiter-Neptune cycle, and if we consider the archetype resonating within our experience of Jupiter, Neptune, and Chiron then it seems possible that each of us may internalize external events and challenge the norm by expanding our conscious awareness beyond what we know and entering the unknown dissolve thought and feeling forms that are contributing to humanitarian discord. We are well advised to spend the coming months fine tuning our unique understanding and appreciation of our individual participation in the  evolution of humanity by re-examining, re-evaluating, re-considering our personal belief and vision for the future of humanity.

In the spirit of re-examining, re-evaluating, and re-considering I direct your attention to an astrology blog using a wide humanitarian aperture, Astrological Repair Manuel, and encourage you to read astrologer, Alexander Zoltai’s, evocative post A Positive Interpretation of Hitler’s Chart.

* Cycles of Becoming, Alexander Ruperti

And so………... it was two weeks ago that we set our intention for the next six months by deciding how we want to contribute our unique individuality to humanity. The influence of Aquarius is helping us understand that change comes from the effort of separate individuals working together on behalf of the greater whole. Today, two weeks after the Solar Eclipse, we glimpse the other face of the ecliptic cycle as we turn our gaze 180 degrees to face the Lunar Eclipse. A Lunar Eclipse is a Full Moon, a Sun and Moon opposition, illuminating a  unique time when the Moon gently moves into the Earth’s shadow and the Earth positioned between the Sun and Moon casts a shadow over the face of the Moon. When this happens we on Earth are made aware that an aspect of our individuality has eclipsed our unconscious and in order to grow in self-awareness we need to become consciously aware of that aspect of our self and whether it is a constructive or destructive force in our life.

The Moon in Leo emphasizes our emotional need for recognition from others reassuring us that who we are and what we are doing is making a valuable contribution to humanity. When we are under the influence of Leo we are hyper- sensitive to what others think about our individual uniqueness, and while we generously give our life vitality for others to enjoy, we tend to suffer self-doubts and insecurities concerning the true value of our self. When we experience a Lunar Eclipse in Leo the time has arrived for us to make an honest self- evaluation of how we express our self, and in turn, what we are contributing to the continuum of human consciousness.

One of the unabashed gifts of Leo is our learning to appreciation our process of  creative self-expression as the spiritual act of watching our self creating our self. It is all too easy to dismiss this process as self indulgent but  in so doing we deny the importance of affirming our unique individuality in tribute to the living intelligence of which we are apart. The Buddha taught that we are creating our self in each moment lived. Once we affirm our creative self-expression we can affirm the creative expression of all others and truly manifest the Aquarius aspect in each of us seeking to honor the diversity and differences of humanity.

This next six months may garner times when our ego flaring like a wild fire insists on unbridled freedom of expression.  At these times it is best not to take our self too seriously, instead, mindfully observe that we have set ablaze our self-doubts and insecurities. It might be helpful to consider this Lunar Eclipse as a tremendous healing for humanity. Chiron, the wounded healer, is in Aquarius and the Lunar Eclipse will make an exact conjunction and opposition with Chiron suggesting that our individual and collective healing has something to do with eliminating self-doubts and insecurities that are the source of defensive and brutish bulling of others. It is time to set aside our childish fears of doubt and inadequacy without sacrificing our child-like joy and pleasure in self-creating. The challenge facing each of us is gaining a true appreciation for the unique gift that we are contributing on behalf of the collective human experience of being alive in the world.

]]> http://laurenlesko.com/2009/02/08/cosmic-purifying/feed/ 1 laurenlesko Lunar Eclipse http://laurenlesko.com/2008/11/26/epimetheus-mercury/ http://laurenlesko.com/2008/11/26/epimetheus-mercury/#comments Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:13:43 +0000 Lauren Lesko http://laurenlesko.com/?p=453 ]]> click on the image to red about the art

This week garners unavoidable change in the air tempting us ever closer to a new awakening in consciousness. We were ushered into a new Epimetheus awareness with the Sagittarius Mercury-Sun superior conjunction along side a cycle of inevitable changes accompanying Pluto’s entrance into Capricorn and Uranus stationing direct in Pisces. All three celestial events guarantee that something in our life is changing direction and even if the change seems insignificant at the moment it will eventually be recognized in time as a meaningful shift in our conscious awareness. Rest assured that whatever is percolating within each of us at this moment is penetrating to the deepest depths of our humanity.

Humanity has inherited through the DNA of the collective unconscious a deeply intuitive understanding of the cycles of the universe and the cosmic rhythms of change which continually arise in our conscious awareness of “self and Self” as an intrinsic part of a greater whole. Of the many gifts offered astrology none seems more important than the guidance we are given to navigate the inevitability of change in our life and to decipher the meaning of that change when it happens. While there are many celestial cycles governing insight into the meaning of what we experience in life, the most familiar, and the one directly influencing our perception of the totality of what we experience, is the Mercury retrograde cycle. We experience this cycle three times a year making it the model upon which we experience all other cycles. Unfortunately, many of us anticipate a Mercury retrograde with dreaded apprehension because we fail to understand the purpose of the cycle which is to facilitate our fullest participation in realizing who we are and what we are experiencing in our life. Mercury’s orbit around the Sun determines the rhythmic patterns of the retrograde cycle giving us two distinctly different but related phases: the Prometheus phase of attention punctuated during the direct period and the Epimetheus phase of awareness punctuated during the retrograde period.

Ancient astrologers defined the Prometheus phase when Mercury was moving away from the Earth into the light of the Sun and rising as the morning star; likewise, they defined the Epimetheus phase when  Mercury was moving away from the light of the Sun toward the Earth and rising as the evening star.  In astrology the Sun is  the illuminating principal in human consciousness and the Prometheus phase heralds a time of our active participation and conscious attention to a separate but shared relationship with the events in our life, while the Epimetheus phase heralds a time of contemplative participation and unconscious awareness that we and the events in our  life are one. Another way of saying the same thing is that in order to appreciate the entirety of our human potential we need both a profane and a sacred experiencing of our life, which  fortunately for us is offered in every retrograde cycle.*

Yesterday, Mercury and the Sun shared a superior conjoining in Sagittarius which simultaneously announced the  ending of the Prometheus phase of our activity in conscious attention with our environment; and the beginning of the Epimetheus phase of our contemplative consideration and unconscious awareness of the significance of all that has just passed. This week, in the sign of Sagittarius, we begin a new cycle of Epimethean awareness suggesting the necessity to integrate the prosaic conditioning of tribal rituals with an expanded view of the world. If we add the change in direction of Uranus in Pisces we can expect upheaval and disassociation from certain events in our life which can be blessings in disguise helping us dissolve rigid  attitudes and a prescribed world view. Uranus is entering a phase of Promethean attention propelling us into a conscious relationship with our environment that when coupled with the Epimethean awareness of Mercury’s cycle, speaks in the voice of our creative change in consciousness.

Admittedly, whenever Uranus changes direction it can feel as if our world is turning upside down and inside out.  But what is more deserving of our attention  than a drastic changing of circumstance, and attention paid to our relationship with our environment is crucial if we want to successfully navigate an unpredictable sea of change. Uranus is that aspect in each of us that is wholly unpredictable and defiant of outside control preventing personal freedom. This Uranus cycle is prodding our conscious attention to accept our common humanity and admit that we need the help of one another to fulfill our life potential. Uranus in Pisces opposing Saturn in Virgo tells of our opposing attitudes; wanting to dissolve the boundaries that separate us from others but unwilling to let go of all the hard work and human effort that created the separation in the first place.  In the first week of December Mercury in Sagittarius will square this touchy Saturn -Uranus opposition possibly triggering moral indignation, self-righteous resistance, even fanaticism directed against social change. Whatever the external circumstances of our life as adults we have the freedom to choose how we respond to them. Especially now it is worth remembering that one treasure of Uranus is expressed in our collective concern for all of humanity .

* My thoughts on the significance of a retrograde cycle are inspired by astrologer, Erin Sullivan, and her insightful book, Retrograde Planets.

]]> http://laurenlesko.com/2008/11/26/epimetheus-mercury/feed/ 0 laurenlesko Mercury's Staff http://laurenlesko.com/2008/10/07/the-face-of-our-fear/ http://laurenlesko.com/2008/10/07/the-face-of-our-fear/#comments Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:00:00 +0000 Lauren Lesko http://laurenlesko.com/?p=377 ]]> click on the image to read about the art

The waxing phase of every lunar cycle, better known as the first quarter Moon, is visible to us on Earth as two equal half circles one of lightness and the other of darkness. The waxing phase always marks a period of equilibrium before we are urged to take action along with the advancing light of the Moon culminating in the glowing face of the Full Moon. The Libra new Moon has the waxing face of Capricorn challenging us to behave with emotional maturity in our relationships in order to give form to something that we value. Capricorn brings sobriety to our relationships highlighting self-discipline and personal responsibility. On the side of the light Capricorn garners stability leading to lasting commitment and on the  side of the dark it tends toward blind allegiance to a cold authority.  Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, has a propensity for introducing us to our shadow self by showing us the face we fear within reflected in the behavior of others, Sadly we then judge and severely punish the other without awareness that we are also punishing ourself. Our fear of facing our darker self is clearly the roots of racism, sexism, bigotry, and all other forms of social injustice. When we are under the influence of Capricorn we are sensitive to the cold hands of authority limiting, restricting, denying, and when the Moon is under the influence of Capricorn it is worth considering which of our emotions we may be denying expression. The Capricorn waxing Moon is a challenged calling for us to look at the face of our fear in hope that we can see the source of our emotional denial.

The waxing Capricorn Moon comes once each year, and this year it coincides with Mercury Rx in Libra, Chiron, the North Node, and Neptune all Rx in Aquarius, and Saturn and Uranus opposing for the first time since the 1960′s. In other words, an impressive line up of celestial stars offering us the potential for awakening higher consciousness and social justice. Each of these stars, in company with the Capricorn waxing Moon, are alerting us to the necessity, and I believe opportunity, to Rx-evaluate the face of our fear so that we can stop projecting it onto the face of others. It seems that the celestial spotlight is on our individuality, asking each of us to assume personal responsibility for our individual contribution in creating social balance in our society and in the world. The influence of Aquarius brings fresh breath to a scene ripe for a change in consciousness but that change cannot manifest if we preserve the pervasive guidelines of the status quo. Aquarius is that aspect in each of us valuing the efforts of every individual, not privileging the accomplishments of a few, and understanding that if a society is to prosper all peoples must be actively contributing.

The approaching Saturn and Uranus opposition is a green light signaling that social change is very much in the air but it will not be accomplished if individuals continue to expect change to come from others. The call of Saturn is accepting personal responsibility for the structures that govern our society, and the call of Uranus is demanding the participation of every individual guaranteeing that no one is left behind. A very wise individual, Krishnamurti, spent sixty years speaking about changing conscious awareness and he believed that people are misguided thinking that better individuals are made from better societies. Individuals, like you, me, and everyone else, create our societies and if we truly want a better society we need to first create a better individual which means  becoming more self-aware of our unconscious motives manifesting as our conscious realizations. The Capricorn waxing Moon square the Libra Sun is beckoning us to consider how our fear is limiting our self-awareness and preventing us from contributing to the necessary changes that can improve the quality of our life and the lives of everyone else.

]]> http://laurenlesko.com/2008/10/07/the-face-of-our-fear/feed/ 0 laurenlesko Medusa http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/29/go-beyond-the-familiar/ http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/29/go-beyond-the-familiar/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:48:57 +0000 Lauren Lesko http://laurenlesko.com/?p=297 ]]> click on the image to read about the art

Eclipses are major events in astrology, and no wonder, they are the intimate aligning, the celestial “ménage á trois”, of the three most significant players of the zodiac; the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. Our ancestors considered eclipses to be “harbingers of calamity” for the simple reason that human consciousness experiences change with fear and foreboding. But this is not the only reason. Our ancestors worshiped the Sun and the Moon as God and Goddess who created, nourished, and sustained life on Earth, and witnessing the bright face of either deity suddenly blacken or turn blood red must have seemed tantamount to witnessing the wrath of the Universe. Today, most western cultures pride themselves on a mechanistic ordering of life, the Sun and Moon benign within the physical comprehending of phenomenology, and yet, observing an eclipse can still fill the human heart with awe and wonder at the numinous power of the same Universe of our ancestors of which we are a living part.

Astrology is the charting of the eternal cycles of change, the same cycles that govern the ebb and flow of our individual lives, navigating three distinct cycles of time: the annual cycle of the Earth through the zodiac, the monthly cycle of the Moon through the zodiac, and the daily cycle of the Earth rotating upon it’s axis through the zodiac. If we consider the significance that interweaving all three cycles adds to the meaning of our life experiences then we can appreciate the cosmic forces of change presented to us with every Eclipse.

In astrology the Sun represents our life force, the core of our essence, our unique individuality; the Moon our instinctual need to survive, our intuitive sense of security, and our emotional seeking to belong; and the Ascendant our window onto the world through which we see our perceptions and expectations of life reflected back to us. When we experience a Solar Eclipse the Moon has moved between the Sun and the Earth and our life force is momentarily consumed by our instinctual need to survive and disrupting our view of the world we are offered the opportunity to set new agendas and patterns in our life. When we experience a Lunar Eclipse the Earth has moved between the Sun and the Moon and our perception and expectations in life are casting a long shadow on our emotional need to belong stimulating us to break old habits or eliminate past conditioning in ways that will enhance our self-awareness and unique individuality.

On August 1 we will experience a Solar Eclipse at 9 Leo 32 and on August 16 a Lunar Eclipse at 24 Aquarius 21. The theme of Leo and Aquarius eclipses is the conflict between the creative expression of the individual verses the ideology of the group. Two fruitful questions we can ask ourselves are: how can we integrate the creative expression of our unique individuality with the hopes, wishes, and aspirations of our community; and, are the communities that we have created successfully honoring and respecting the ideas and opinions of each individual? Astrologer Marielle Croft recently wrote that the greatest theme for this New Moon is global peace and I absolutely agree, in fact, the August Eclipses are harbingers of hope not calamity if we can truly open our hearts and minds, the realm of Leo and Aquarius, and enthusiastically embrace working together in global consciousness to improve the quality of life for our collective community, Earth.

A Solar Eclipse sweeps away the old offering the possibility for something new to rise in conscious light at the Full Moon Eclipse. The Leo- Aquarius Eclipse axis is directing our attention to the necessity for individuals to step up and challenge corporate decisions dictating global policies which foster the interests of a “royal few”. Now is the time for a social revolution which requires the full participation of every individual united together as world citizens regardless of gender, race, and religion. When we are under the influence of Leo the core of our essence, our radiant light, our unique individuality generously shines forth for the well being of all others. We can use the coming months observing when we act from insecurities and self-doubts which we have unconsciously projected onto the behavior of others. We can use this time to observe within ourself when we mentally scapegoat, bully or intimidate anyone who does not agree with our thoughts, wishes, or ideals.

When we are under the influence of Aquarius we are keenly aware of our individual participation within a group of our choosing preferring to focus on the interests of the group rather than the interests of the individual. However, it is worth remembering, as the deeper expressing of Aquarius understands, the interests of the group reflects the individual interests of the members, without which there would be no group. Aquarius is that aspect in our self which can be open minded and inclusive of all points of view if we are willing to let go of our intellectual attachments to what we believe. We cannot afford to continue as before overwhelmed by the complexities of contemporary life allowing a hand full of individuals to determine policies for the majority. Many of us have allowed ourselves to be lulled into complacency considering the material comforts of ourselves and our families more important than the quality of life on Earth, and in so doing, we have unwittingly undermined the very thing that we were seeking. Leo and Aquarius working hand in hand understands that the strength of any group is dependent upon the heart of the individuals within that group. The August Eclipses are offering us the courage to open our hearts and minds to the unknown and risk going beyond the familiar.

I highly recommend reading Julie Demboski’s insights into the August Eclipses especially if you are interested in knowing about the contribution of the asteroids.

Another insightful inquiry into the August Eclipses is found at Cafe Astrology which includes excellent information on the meaning of the Eclipse axis in each zodiac house.

]]> http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/29/go-beyond-the-familiar/feed/ 0 laurenlesko An Eclipse http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/21/our-numinous-mother-within/ http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/21/our-numinous-mother-within/#comments Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:25:00 +0000 Lauren Lesko http://laurenlesko.com/?p=279 ]]> click on the image to read about the art

What an intense weekend following the Capricorn full Moon my spirits and others spiraling downward into an emotional abyss as we struggled to adjust our early expectations of emotional nourishment. Those of us who felt deprived of maternal nourishment when we were young may have spent this time wrestling with our internal demons taunting us with the dark face of our unworthiness and self blame for not being given the emotional care we needed, and still need, to feel safe and secure in the world. The Capricorn full Moon reflects back to us on Earth the timelessness of our primal attachment to the original source of our nourishment and the numinous power of the all for-giving, Mother Goddess who lives within our collective unconscious.

I agonized this weekend adjusting my perspective of life, seeing my capacity for self nourishment askew, I realized how deeply I harbor the wanting of nourishment from others and how quickly the shadow of neglect darkens my view of the world. I read a tenderly written post from Moonkissed by Jessica, the Sun in Cancer illuminating our tenderness, which revealed to me a similar theme of feeling un-nourished in the world which literally left her feeling creatively starved. Another friend who was born with a Cancer full Moon, the Sun in Capricorn, experienced a feeling of liberation after a life time of being unable to say no to the needs of others, another friend, intensified her life struggle to separate her needs from the needs of her mother at a time when she was unable to nourish her creative self expression, and a male friend with a stellium in Libra said he felt enormous tension leading up to the full Moon and then a sudden releasing with the Aquarius waning Moon trine his Libra stelli.

It is definitely easier to appreciate the helping hand of our Universe when we experience our pleasure and good fortune, less so, when we feel the limitation and denial of our needs, and yet, the hand is the the same guiding us to a more fully realized self. I feel certain that this full Moon reflected our ability to creatively nourish ourselves when we are able to relinquish our expectations from our past and embrace our numinous mother within. It is not always easy but the Capricorn full Moon is helping us, teaching us, how to be more emotionally mature by learning to accept, often after heart wrenching experiences, personal responsibility for the nourishing that we need without leaving us emotionally isolated or resentful. This is our time for emotional wholeness.

The voluptuous face of the Moon shines brightly impregnated with the radiant light of the Sun, and on Earth we see reflected back to us the fullness of our conscious awareness. This celestial event happens each month with the lunar phase of the Full Moon and each month we have the opportunity to face with conscious awareness some aspect of our unconscious knowing. I say “our unconscious knowing” because our unconscious has an intelligence which expresses itself indirectly in the same way that the radiance of the Sun’s harsh light is filtered through the softened glow of the Moon. On July 18 the Moon reaches fullness in Capricorn, and while a Capricorn Moon is traditionally not an easily expressed Moon because our emotions often feel as if they are being held hostage and shackled in a cold dank dungeon, the grace of a Capricorn full Moon is that the Sun is in Cancer, the sign under ruler ship of the Moon, offering us conscious illumination of a long ago hidden fear.

Capricorn has the astrological reputation for being tough and insensitive focusing our attention on self-discipline and hard work leading us toward leadership in our community and material achievement. These are not the first concerns of the Moon, that aspect in ourself which is seeking emotional containment within the cloistered walls of a protective womb. From the perspective of our Moon the external world can be cold, harsh, and indifferent to our vulnerability and because Capricorn forces our attention toward the harsher realities of life we could experience resistance to the gift being offered us from this full Moon.

When under the influence of Capricorn we are acutely aware of our personal contribution to creating the life that we are living which can be a very painful realization if we have disowned the nasty bits of ourselves and projected them onto the behavior of others. When this happens we feel that we are at the mercy of the decisions and actions of others. The gift of a Capricorn full Moon is helping us nourish our nasty bits so that we can integrate what we cut off long ago into a self- realized wholeness capable of accepting personal responsibility for our emotional needs without feeling abandoned. The feeling of emotional abandonment that many of us feel is the original abandoning of the nasty bits of ourselves that we felt for one reason or another were not lovable or worthy of care and today manifest as our fears of rejection, isolation, loneliness.

An insightful astrologer from Real Astrology pointed out this week that being a cardinal earth sign Capricorn is a receptive feminine energy sharing a common interest with the Moon; both giving form and substance to our lives. The only resistance we may have to walking arm and arm with this Capricorn Moon is our resistance to accepting responsibility for our emotional well being, which is not the same thing as rejecting our emotional well being, which is a familiar expression of a Capricorn Moon. What I am proposing is that if we work together with this Full Moon, and Capricorn loves work, then this month can bring us our much sought after emotional security and maturity knowing that we are responsible for our emotional well being and not our beloved. This Full Moon offers us a cycle of completion, both the Sun and Moon are void of course in the late degrees of Cancer and Capricorn, and it may feel that nothing is being accomplished on the outside purposefully forcing us to look at the inside.

]]> http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/15/unconscious-knowing/feed/ 0 laurenlesko The Celtic Bestiary http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/02/lunar-nourishing/ http://laurenlesko.com/2008/07/02/lunar-nourishing/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:00:13 +0000 Lauren Lesko http://laurenlesko.com/?p=252 ]]> click on the image to read about the art

The Moon, our celestial mother, has turned her dark face to earth, a momentary abandoning, preparing to embrace the Sun in their monthly cosmic marriage; uniting light and dark, father and mother, masculine and feminine, conscious and unconscious, self and other. Every month we have the opportunity to renew our primordial experiencing of union with our source of origin and for a brief moment release our hold on our conscious awareness of the world of duality and separation. This new Moon, the conjunction of the Sun and Moon, is in the sign ruled by the Moon, Cancer, offering us a double dose of motherly care and directing our attention to those areas in our lives that bring us emotional security, well being, and a sense of belonging. The question we are asking our selves this month, Mercury in Gemini trine Chiron in Aquarius, is where in our life do we need emotional nourishing in order to grow in self- awareness.

I dreamt last night that a woman offered me a gift of jewelry. She showed me some very beautiful rings but I was hesitant to accept any and she suggested that I wait until someone else arrived who could help me decide. I was holding a silver ring in my hand, silver is the metal of the Moon, which I unconsciously put into my mouth and began chewing it, something I was not aware of until I began to swallow pieces of the ring and consciously awakened to what I was doing. I felt that I had done something quite unexpected, and out of the ordinary and that I had to tell the woman that I had already received my gift and eaten it. I did have a moment of anxiety thinking about how my body would digest silver but I felt that everything was well cared for.

Each of us has our own unique way of ingesting the nourishing of our unconscious and feeling well cared for what is important this month is that we accept the nourishment. Not surprising, there are a couple of cosmic signatures suggesting that we may withhold nourishment if we wait for someone other than our self to nourish our self. This month we are encouraged to grow in emotional independence without succumbing to feeling emotionally isolated. Our celestial benefactors, Jupiter and Venus, are opposed in Capricorn and Cancer suggesting that if we are expecting emotional nourishing from others we may find our selves either responding to life as if we are waking through a winter storm, our bodies bent forward protecting our hearts, or our feet feel slow and heavy on the earth barely able to hold the weight of the world on our backs. Jupiter is encouraging us to expand our individual authority and take charge of our emotional responding to life, and Venus is asking us to value our capacity to emotionally nourish our selves and others.

Mars in Virgo is approaching a conjunction to Saturn adding restriction to our desires to act life head on. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing if we understand that Saturn and Virgo are adding weight, grounding, to that aspect in our self that expresses through Mars so that we can have more fortitude in accomplishing our intended goals. Mars is that aspect of our self that impatiently acts, and reacts, without much planning but with the aid of the discriminating skills of Virgo we have the opportunity this month to put our energies toward improving some aspect of our self that we have emotionally neglected, shades of our rejecting lunar nourishing.

This is the month to take our clues from the Egyptian Earth Goddess, Nutt, and bring nourishment and sustenance to a vital aspect of our self that is demanding to be born. The Moon is that aspect in our self that can indiscriminately preserve our past, and the trine between Mercury and Chiron is offering us a portal to heal a wounding that requires expanding our perception of our past. Chiron in Aquarius is giving us the gift of an elevated world view and Mercury brings us the gift of conscious understanding. Together with the Cancer new Moon it feels certain that we can give the necessary care and consideration to the dark face of our self and become more fully conscious of who we are.

It is Summer Solstice the first day of summer the hot air pregnant with possibilities is beckoning us to enjoy the light of our day! In the northern hemisphere this is the day longest in the year when humanities pantheon of solar deities parade across the southern skies their golden rays fertilizing Earth with solar vitality. Schools are closed adding hours for playing punctuated with the laughter of children echoing the setting sun. People who can afford to are planning holidays away from home looking forward to a leisurely enjoying of time with family. And for others even the innocence of sun bathing is offered in worship to the Sun.

Sun worshiping is as old as consciousness itself manifesting in the names of Inti, Garuda, Helios, Ra, Huitzilopochtil, and any number of others. Every known culture worshiped the Sun and many honored the Summer Solstice as evidenced at Stonehenge, the Temple of Karnak, and the Caracol Tower at Chichenitzá. It seems self evident in the myths which we have inherited from our ancestors that we continue to share with them the awe and wonderment of our discovery of the Universe. For those of us walking arm in arm with the mythological wisdom of our ancestors we understand that these myths provide a revealing blueprint of the unfolding process of our consciousness. The mythic themes shared by all cultures; the deluge, virgin birth, resurrected hero, have always been our mirror and irrefutable witnesses speaking about what we experience outside our self as a reflection of what we experience inside our self.

Astrology is an ancient practice providing a map of the unconscious that is mirrored in the events of daily life. If we ponder the unfathomable depths of our unconscious we come face to face with astrology’s ancient axiom “as above, so below”, recognizing that the smallest thing in the universe is subject to the same process as the largest thing in the universe. We savor the ocean in a drop and experience the events of our day reflected in the events of the universe. In the Hindu creation myth, The King and the Corpse, the demiurge creating the world is in yogic meditation when quite unexpectedly the forms of his inner vision break forth from within him and surround him as a pantheon of brilliant gods. I cannot imagine a more poetic expressing of the manifestation of our unconscious nor a better companion to the astrological understanding of our unconscious seeking to be seen, heard, tasted, touched, and smelled.

In astrology the Sun is the very heart of our consciousness; the radiant light of our spirit, the essential core of our individuality speaking the words “ It is I”. When we are under the influence of the Sun we shower the world with our radiant light. We feel the power of the living intelligence of life in the beating of our heart and the flowing of our blood. At Summer Solstice the Sun crosses the ecliptic at 00 Cancer which in astrological parlance signifies the revitalizing of our conscious awareness and the annual re birthing of our life potential. When the Sun is in Cancer the themes of pregnancy, birth, and nourishment surface from the depths of our unconscious. We need only consider the metaphorical impregnating of the Earth at Summer Solstice; turning her face to the Sun and suggestively tilting her body beckoning maximum penetration, to appreciate the celestial significance of our annual re birthing in conscious awareness of the vitality of our life.

When the Sun is in Cancer our conscious light, our individuality, descends into the primordial world of our unconscious dreaming. 00 Cancer, the Summer Solstice point on the ecliptic, marks the astrological charting of the midnight path of the Sun, the lowest point of the zodiac, and the deepest contact our conscious light has with the nourishing womb of Mother Earth. The sign Cancer is ruled by the celestial light of the Moon, the ancient symbol of the Mother Goddess expressed in the mysteriously changing faces of the feminine. When our solar light is under the influence of Cancer we are like a baby cradled in the arms of the mother needing her nourishment and sustenance for our continued surviving. When the Sun is in Cancer our consciousness is being feed from the depths of our unconscious knowing, from our primordial past, nourished from the wisdom of our ancestors. Our birth is never easy, either in mind or body, our struggle to “be” unfolding through our pain triumphant in the awakening of our conscious awareness.

“Your pain is but the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” Kahlil Gibran

Hurray! Mercury stations direct today and all our mishaps magically disappear, well not entirely, nothing is ever as it seems when we are under the influence of Mercury. The last 21 days of life on Earth have been a series of obstacle courses testing our reflexes under stress, challenging our attachment to obsolete ideals, and demanding that we look into the eyes of our emotional denying which is often the culprit for things “breaking down” during a Mercury Rx.* If any one reading this post thought Mercury’s Rx was tough, take a deep breath and exhale slowly, because our real work is just beginning if we are serious about creating the life we want. Mercury is our celestial messenger traveling between our dreaming and our waking translating our every sensation into image and form, which is one reason why Mercury retrogrades three times each year encouraging us to re-consider what we have created in our life.

Mercury is the androgynous personification of our conscious and unconscious perceptions of our self and our life. As princely ruler of Gemini, Mercury is operating full force giving us the mental strength to change our perceptions of what life has to be. Our mind is our most powerful ally determining the quality of our life, and yet, we understand so little of what it actually means, primarily because science has traditionally focused on “what something is” rather than “what something means”. Understanding our mind requires experiencing our mind and that is a mysterious and uniquely individual journey requiring that we join hands with Mercury, our teacher, our navigator, our liberator.

What is significant about Mercury’s directed motion, besides facilitating our ability to actualize whatever lessons we recently learned during the retrograde period, are the celestial conversations exchanged with the outer planets which are indicating long term change and lasting transformation. In early July Mercury will make a second trine with Chiron, the North Node, and Neptune indicating that our mind is once again receptive to new ideas and information. When under the influence of Aquarius we are learning how to receive from others, usually in the form of ideas, on the deepest level love, and our toughest lesson under the tutelage of Aquarius is our accepting what we are given as an act of genuine acknowledgment and appreciation for the contribution of another.

Mercury will quincunx Jupiter in Capricorn and square Uranus in Pisces softening our rigid attachment to the images and forms of our reality, and challenging us to be more inclusive of the thoughts and feelings of others without sacrificing what we think and feel. When under the influence of Pisces we feel the long shadow of our longing for union tempting us to sacrifice our individuality so it is important to create clearly defined boundaries between our ideas and the ideas of others. Are you hearing the voice of independent thinking? The last aspect Mercury makes before leaving Gemini is an opposition to Pluto Rx in Sagittarius promising us mental freedom if we open our mind and encourage our wild child spirit creative expressing rather than the destructive expressing of frustration, fear, and fanaticism.

*Terry Lamb offered this sensitive understanding of Mercury Rx in her June Forecast.