ASTROLOGY FOR JULY 2017 – THE CARDINAL GRAND CROSS

Hello again, lovely and deep bright Star readers!

There is much going on this month and I want to largely focus on one major cosmological dynamic happening: a Grand Cardinal Cross. I will move through some other points for the month, but that configuration, particularly the opposition between the Full Moon/Pluto in Capricorn and Sun/Mars in Cancer will get the most attention, as it is psychologically juicy. Before I launch in, I wish to reshare with you all the proviso I gave in my second astrology article on Levekunst:

It is very important that anyone reading this knows that what I am writing here is just my, more flexible than it may appear to be, provisional take on certain astrological factors that I have picked out, among many other factors and chosen to share a certain perspective on. 
It is just that, a way of looking. One color of a stained glass lamp. It may be interesting or relevant to you and it may not be. It may spark you to inquire within and see for yourself what you are experiencing and what feels best for you. My main intention is to use astrological concepts, yes, it is just concepts and ideas and symbology, to spark your own intuition and common sense and maybe a wish to look into the choices you are making and how you are functioning.
Above all else, I want you to realise the Jewel Within You, and trust your common sense and if this is a jumping off point for you or can help stimulate an insight or assist you in any way I’m glad, but I am handing out grains of salt for you to take as needed as you read. The last thing I want is for you to blindly believe any of this, or anything at all really, or to take any of these concepts as ‘true’ and get fixated on it. It is just a possibility, hold everything with an open palm and see what happens. This proviso goes for anything I say here or in any other post or in a personal reading session with you by Skype. The onus is always, and must always be with you, and only you, to take responsibility for your mind, your words and your actions, this true responsibility and illumination are not held by the planets. Nonetheless, it can be helpful to be open to everything and see what arises. And I pray wholeheartedly that this is of benefit! 

This month of July 2017, is set up for us to recognize, feel and reveal us, and either simultaneously or soon after, bring healing and revelation and action. There will be some key dynamic shifts from the 17th forward and even more gusto and positivity from around the 23rd and 24th in particular when we will all be strongly cosmically enabled to fully put into action decisive and dynamic fresh starts, around the time of the new moon in Leo, 23rd. As far as the entire month goes, I see that whatever we have needed to press the accelerator on or press that confirm button on or seal the deal on, is best done at the New Moon time or when there is a lovely angle between Jupiter and Venus from the 16th to 19th July. Indeed from the 17th, get ready to see a quickening of steps that must be taken to fulfill certain responsibilities, loyalties, and agreements that are leading you and others brightly. This is because it is a rather warm and vigorous fire influence as the Sun moves into Leo and roars with a Leonine New Moon all purring with the North Node, our point of destiny and best direction, also in Leo, Mercury Leo until it moves into very detail oriented and reliable Virgo on the 26th, which also will help fine-tune what we need to but it will be in a retrograde shadow.

From the 24th we will see Mercury enters the shadow of it’s retrograde season, which will be stationing retrograde on August 14th, the time we typically say Mercury is retrograde but really we begin to feel it’s slowing down from its shadow, and will not leave shadow until the 18th September. So I recommend making important purchases and commitments before Mercury goes into shadow, wherever it is practical. Once Mercury enters shadow, and then goes fully retrograde, it is the best time to review and reflect and many of the activities that begin with a re. Not all re words though, such as it is not the best time to completely relocate now if one can help it, unless one is returning. Activities that relate to a time of retrospection, getting ready, repairing, re-doing or restoration all fit the bill well.
Mercury will move into the mutable Earth sign of Virgo on the 26th and during its sojourn in Virgo all of August, within a retrograde cycle, this may be a great time to go over administrative, service oriented and mental matters with a fine toothed comb; just watch out for becoming overly critical or puritanical or perfectionistic! Direct your examination towards making things better and clearer and more dependable and stable not pulling things apart so much that they cannot be put back together ever, unless of course, you want such an outcome. I will try to remind us about this in our August update.

VENUS, JUPITER, NEW MOON AND LOTS OF SWEET FIRE

Venus moves into Gemini on the 6th of July, bringing communication to the forefront, and great thinking, possibly hyper busy mentation. There will be a wonderful conjunction of Venus in Gemini with Jupiter in Libra on July 19th, an optimistic and graceful conjunction which we will start to feel from the 15th and all the way into the eve of the loving New Moon in Leo. The only thing to be slightly alert for at the New Moon, 23rd, will be the possibility of some exaggerated pride that may put others down instead of keeping us on equal level or humble with others; so be gracious, Leo can be excellent at that also, instead of grossly grandiose and all will be splendid on the 23rd and the days following. Around this New Moon we will be ignited by the radiant, passionate and energized harmony between Mars, newly from the 21st, in Leo, Mercury in Leo, Uranus in Aries and the North Node in Leo. Saturn moving retrograde through Sagittarius will conjunct this New Moon energy in Leo around the 25th of July bringing a very lovely solemn, substantial, wise, and grounded ability to make very genuine moves in the happy fire field we will all feel. Saturn, which can often be maligned as a heavy task Master will be so well appreciated as he shows his capacity to sign on the dotted line and make inspirations and joys reality, with his prudence and seal of what will feel like approval.

THE GRAND CARDINAL CROSS

From the last two days of June and most fervent around the 3rd of July and continuing a degree of intensity up to the full moon conjuncting retrograde Pluto in Capricorn on the 8th/9th July, depending on your place in the world, there is a Cardinal Grand Cross. The Grand Cardinal Cross also forms an uncomfortable angle with Saturn, which can make things seem more serious than they are actually are in this case, but will also feel like a small biting critter reminding us to keep true to what we know must be done, which actually isn’t always a bad thing, it just might feel like we are slightly eaten.

Mercury in Cancer Squaring Uranus in Aries is also part of this Cardinal Cross configuration. Are we feeling frazzled when it comes to communication? Uranus squaring Mercury can bring a feeling of being either thwarted or misstepping in our communication, sometimes in very unexpected and/or strange ways. We will feel it starting from the 3rd of July and increasing it’s electrically dislocating vibe until the exact square on Wednesday 5th but it will still be with us up to the 6th after which Mercury makes a very different gear shift into Leo on Friday the 7th when Mercury, our Lord of Mind and Mouth, becomes a baby Lion at 1 degree of Leo. A baby Lion is not a dangerous lion. It is a furry cub and it wants love. Love and to be heard.
When Mercury moves into Leo he will then be making a harmonious angle to the Moon in Sagittarius on that same day, July 7th, so emotions, thoughts, and words will all be feeling more aligned (thank goodness) on that day and it behooves us all to take that opportunity to cross bridges and make up for where things have been quite shaken on that Friday before we have our emotionally intense Full Moon on the 9th with Cancer Sun and Cancer Mars opposing the Capricorn Full Moon and Pluto Retrograde. Walk, run, prostrate, dance, or all of the above or whatever makes you bring up a sweat, this frisson out, whatever you do, stay in your body and do what helps you feel your blood and fluids move, otherwise you may feel dull, retentive and stir crazy. Try not to make any huge sweeping decisions from the 3rd to the 6th, or believe any crazy notions or proposals, yours or others, with that square between Mercury and Uranus, you may want to, but you would be best to just encourage the energy to move through and not let it accrue.

THE WAY CANCER AND CAPRICORN RELATE TO FEELINGS AND THE DYNAMITE OF FULL MOON AND PLUTO

Moon conjunct Pluto automatically brings intensity, at any stage of the moon cycle, and the moon in its fullness automatically adds magnitude and ripeness and the sense of a concluding point of a personal cycle, you will know what that is in your own life, or at least if you pay attention you can see or choose to know what that completion is. However, this full moon, coupled with Pluto, both in Capricorn, has a curious emotional complexity. Capricorn strongly wishes to control emotions and maintain a dignified mature and statesmanlike aura. Capricorn’s archetypal energy feels a need to be respectable and feeling respected brings out Capricornian best qualities such as humor and commitment and tremendous endurance as well sagacity. Feeling disrespected or vulnerable tends to be very uncomfortable and brings up strong defenses and coolness in the Capricorn archetype. Yet, to add even more of a twist, a twist I would like to one day have the opportunity to go into more, note how the Earth sign Capricorn, see the astrological image of  the Goat here, has a fish tail? Capricorn is a goat but in ancient times was depicted with a fish tail, this is to represent that Capricorn is not all pragmatism and materialism, Capricorn has an almost esoteric connection to the feeling and unseen realm too but it is often not known or seen by others, sometimes it is blocked to itself also in preference for the sturdy goat display.

But this is an emotionally uncovering opposition. Capricorn, for the most part, wants to be the one others turn to for guidance and to be a noble and steadfast example and pillar, not the one crumbling in a mess and needing guidance, help, comfort or an intimate witness/es; this is probably something that terrifies the Capricorn aspect within us all, we all have Capricorn somewhere in our natal chart and that is where we will feel it, even though Capricorn is the authority figure, Capricorn, like any other figure in the psychic pantheon, still needs reassurance and security, usually Capricorn is very selective who they would let be that person so trusted, but needs it none the less, and not in a sentimental way, just in a pristinely trustworthy way.
The risk of this Capricorn Full Moon conjunct Pluto not receiving the complex kind of security it needs (but doesn’t want to risk being vulnerable enough to be seen to need) is that it makes life stark and isolated and a colder than cold place if the cool wall isn’t cracked a little bit so love can indeed come through. Moon conjunct Pluto heightens the energy and complexity of this mood, bringing issues of repressed feelings and controlling to light, particularly how we may have habitually done so in the past, retrograde, and how that may be biting us in the backside now and giving us a healthy urge to purify and release long held frozen states.

This Full Moon with Pluto, in the seemingly hard-nosed Capricorn, opposes Mars and Mercury in the very sensitive, soft-hearted Cancer. The Cancerian archetype knows feelings so well, swims in them, they are its territory. But Cancer also, like Capricorn but for a different reason, wants to hide its great tenderness, that is why the crab sign has a shell. Cancer wishes to private away these feeling terrains it dwells in not in the way Capricorn fears losing control, respect and a guiding position but because it may then be open to harm without any shell and may merge co-dependently in a big sea of chaotic feeling if there is not some kind of armor. Cancer fears being totally defenseless. So both signs, Cancer as Cardinal Water and Capricorn as Cardinal Earth, both wanting to take charge in their own way, have a difficulty with letting feelings be shared. Capricorn fears feeling their feelings to start with and can only dare risk sharing them with those who will not judge them, Cancer wishes to feel their feelings privately or only with the most gentle and harmless of others so they won’t be hurt by the others! So this is a uniquely vulnerable confrontation of energies, because it demands feeling and demands sharing and it has these specific apprehensions! Because Mercury is also in the mix, with Mercury in Cancer until the 6th of July, the communication will be reflecting these kinds of weathers.

This showdown is as if on loud speaker because this is all squared, challenged, by Libran Jupiter in the lower end of the cross which is renowned for over-reaching and exaggerating and may make a molehill seem like a mountain. And also squared by Aries in Uranus, bringing a jagged and unpredictable and suddenly changeable electrical component. Feeling into this energy on July 2nd, I wrote publicly: Be direct. Be honest. Hear the truth. Listen. Deal with the fact that people may be blessing you in a way you don’t like or recognize. It was interesting to see how many people responded with words to the effect of Yes, indeed.

The opposition between Mars and Pluto in Cancer and Capricorn in Pluto, with the Full Moon for a part of it, is actually the main driving energy of the cross and the other beam is an opposition between Jupiter in Libra and Uranus in Aries. Mercury in Cancer was also part of this oppositional energy to Pluto in Capricorn between June 30 to July 2nd, strongest on July 1st. This was likely to bring an added intensity to our communication, possibly felt as aggression, but it may or may not have been so. Was it that we were starting to feel the nails of our vulnerability? This opposition may possibly be projected onto convenient external objects in our present. But this is a Pluto Retrograde involved which means the emotional confrontation happening now connects with unresolved matters from the past.

This Cardinal Cross relates to a segmentation we have created between our personal and private needs for security, safety and nurture, cancer, and our public reputation/authority, authority figures/our sense of control, command and power, especially in a public sense or in a professional kind of setting or where our status comes into play. We are forced now to have it out. We simply can’t unsee something. An opposition is usually like the proverbial showdown. But, it is in no way malevolent, it is simply decidedly challenging. We are not being hard done by, even if we imagine so. Oppositions are a great support for breakthrough and cutting through self-deception, self-defeat, and two facedness.

An opposition is meant to expose us, meant to expose us to something and meant to make us be starkly honest. Where have we sought security at the expense of stepping into responsibility and/or where have we taken responsibility or wanted prestige, power or position, where we have wanted to be seen as in command, in charge, or valuable because of our role or title, Capricorn, when actually that is not all we are by a long shot, perhaps not at all what we are in truth, and we are hiding in a shell of defense and safer the devil, we know we will be shown something now.

Basically, where are we wearing a mask or staying stuck because of one? And more to the healing point, what is behind the mask and how can we hold it like a parent until we are not so scared of it and not so scared that others may know of it? Ideally at the beginning of the month, we need to allow for a watershed or many watershed moments at this time, to honour the water element of the heart and the body, Cancer, so our energy and initiative and courage, Mars, can be unblocked and so the potency of Plutonic transformation can reveal itself in our public face and our worldly aspect. To say it better, we need to get real with ourselves on a deeply personal level and this cannot be separated from our public presence, the transformation that must take place now must integrate our deep personal healing and our external structures and how we are seen by the world. The division between private and public must become thinner, so authenticity can strengthen. The inner child and the embracing adult parent must be together, the Yin must be with Yang, the most vulnerable within ourselves must no longer be shunned and locked behind closed doors at home but somehow carried inseparably with our adult self, not denied. We don’t have to be either entirely inviolable, upstanding and beyond reproach nor are we a helpless and deeply wounded creature, we need to be able to be at once wise and mature and prudent and very honest with ourselves about feelings and about our personal needs and our wish to feel safe. Feeling safe and needing to feel safe, in many different kinds of ways needs to come into our conscious awareness, and how it governs our choices, known or unknown to us needs to be witnessed and accepted and also compassionately questioned.

Have we compromised our progress in the world by staying stuck in some kind of emotional blind spot hiding place? And have we let our wish to be respected compromise being or revealing our deeper humanity? How are are we going to bridge a chasm of misunderstanding that we may have created, even within ourselves, about ourselves and a pretense we have upheld to others that prevent them from supporting our deeper needs and maybe even their own? We may seem to be in frightened stalemate now, but the way out is through water and flow which has been too long held captive by earth so hardened it is hard as bone, the water and flow is the Cancer Mars and the Pisces Neptune and our current Chiron, Healer asteroid in Pisces, and the impacted earth upon ourselves is the Capricorn Pluto retrograde that will, because Pluto digs down deep for that which must be revealed and transformed, blow apart in some way to reveal our hidden inner powers of life-giving water. Those waters have long been in us and may feel fetid at first, but they will flow and pour and in some way the inner and outer shall be no more, they shall be at last united, or seen as never having needed the walls we have made, that is the highest potential of this opposition, at least it is a perfect opportunity to start to see and experience stepping into such integrity and alignment and true health. What are our true needs? Our personal most private needs? And how might we be fooling ourselves and others that we have it all together when really we don’t? Why can’t we be more honest? What really stops us? As the wonderful poet Nayyirah Waheed wrote in her poem called Split from her precious book called Salt:

The body holds our feelings like the basin of the ocean holds the ocean, and like the shore marks the boundary between water and land we must meet ourselves and let others meet us on that shore, without a wall. Or else we leave some part of ourselves marooned on some other shore and are also estranged from the wisdom and life of our bodies and its needs. How will others know us, including our teachers and the rest of the universe, Capricorn, if we cannot even know our own feelings? T.S Eliot wrote: “So I find words I never thought to speak 

In streets I never thought I should revisit. When I left my body on a distant shore.”

That distant shore is our needless estrangement from ourselves and from others that this opposition is trying to break through, yes for our benefit, not to humiliate us or make us feel doomed or crucified, but to break us out of our falsity and a greater doom. Cancer is ruled by the moon. Think about the moon. So in this opportunity for massive and life changing transformation at the most profound emotional and energetic level, (Moon-Mars), rocking our very foundations, and every structure we have ever built ( Capricorn is all about this), skillfully perhaps, and they will stand, or out of fear and they may crumble, we are afforded a glimpse of or a full blown healing experience way beyond logic or rational control. Pluto has and will challenge Capricornian rational control and structure at every step of his long transit through Capricorn, and where it is purely motivated it will endure and where it is redundant and toxic, our over-control and imbalances may be exposed and we will be somewhat forced to let go.

This opposition also asks us to look at where our strong guards and suspicions isolate us from dwelling in the natural union of sea and shore, which may well be where our humanity rests and meets all. Can we dwell in that interface and not choose one over the other, even with our so-called superiors? Can we be both the ocean and the Earth? Can we let our feelings be seen without moving for the tissue to wipe them away before they can be known to us and others? Can we stand or sit in that? Osho reminds us that perhaps even opposition is a great delusion.

“This is my fundamental teaching: that there is no division between this and that. That is contained in this, the other shore is contained in this shore. You need not go anywhere. If you can be joyous, flowing, alive, sensitive, orgasmic, this very shore immediately is transformed into the other shore, this very world the paradise, this very body the Buddha.”

Which brings me to the other beam of this Cardinal Cross, Jupiter in Libra opposing Uranus in Aries. Cardinal means: initiative, wanting to change, wanting to act, starting things and these four sign involved in the cross are all excellent at doing this in their differing elemental ways. This is called a Cardinal Grand Cross because all of the main players on the four ends of the cross are in Cardinal star signs of all four elements, namely: Cancer for Water, Capricorn for Earth, Libra for Air and Aries for Fire.

 This beautiful trine in water between the Sun and Neptune can bring enough sensitivity to balance the more confrontational energy of the first week July. Once Venus has moved into Gemini on the 6th it makes a lovely connection with a sign that is friendly with Gemini – Leo, as Leo moves into Mercury on the 7th. This will be felt most strongly on the 8th but be very sweet – helping whatever may feel greatly intense around the full moon, feel more playful and warm and generous and communicative that extra support, bringing some cheer to matters of love, thought, values and expressing ourselves, particularly through words written or spoken will bolster us from the 7th until the 12th July. Chiron in Pisces also makes a very supportive trine to Cancer Sun and Cancer Mars and Chiron has many attributes, and is retrograde until December 6th, but in a nutshell, Chiron is famously the Wounded Healer and heals others despite  its own wounds and blind spots. The journey of Chiron in all our natal charts and by Transit through the signs is to very gradually unpack our own baggage and make our wounds conscious and heal ourselves, as well as others.

In closing, I would like to encourage you all to see the profound stabilizing and catalysing and strengthening significance of Crosses, Crossroads, Crossbones and how there is a real changing of elements from water to fire this month in an alchemy that will take us out of any marsh we may have been mired in and heat us up in a way that we must be heated if we are to move into genuine bliss. We must go through these motions, and we have all the ballast and skill within ourselves and space and guidance around us to come through to the end of this month with a vigor and momentum and positivity we could not have imagined last month. We are all more capable than we think we are and than we think others are, and sometimes having to face certain truths shows us and others what we most needed to see. So I hope we can all make the very most of this cosmic energy to bear our cross and then put it down and keep moving towards what really brings ourselves and others liberation.

IMPORTANT AFTERNOTE ON SUPPOSED OPPOSITIONS AND CROSSES- ASTROLOGICALLY OR OTHERWISE!

Dear Readers,

After publishing this article I had a kind of turmoil process relating to the ‘opposition’. I was feeling it out within the context of my own current experience of life and within the space of my own body.

It was quite uncomfortable- but that is how I do process (through my body, indeed that is how I understand the stars). And through this intensive exploration this evening, as I write this, I came to a visceral sense, which I got up out of bed, it is night here as I type this, to paint and to write. In case it may be helpful to you, in case you are feeling daunted by the concept or experience of some kind of unbridgeable distance or never-the-two-shall-meet kind of feeling (related to parts of yourself or your life or both) I am adding this afternote.  So here it is below and I share it with the painting that came through, which is actually a green background for space and white ‘lines’ for light. But I have made it black and white for simplicity. Love for all.

On supposed lines and crosses:

An opposition is just a line. It is a polarising.
It is a polarity.
Loosen the tightness on one end and it becomes a dangling loose string, not a tightrope. And certainly no longer a wooden beam or a pole or a showdown.
Loosen your hold on what you are trying so hard to uphold or cling to and the whole opposition gives way.
From a seemingly straight line whose ends will never meet it can easily bend and drape and become a U instead of an I.
And from there it is easy to become an O.
To not only become but to remember that you always were O.
Always united. Always union. Always whole.
Do you see how that constantly radiates?
Do you see how there doesn’t have to be duality or opposition?
There might sometimes seem to be but you can easily let go and remember that I is O.
In the centre of the O is an infinite point of light. That is your centre. That is our centre.

Photos provided by the author.