Insights for the Month of Cancer
June 21st
Sun enters Cancer 01:04 AM EDT Summer Solstice
It’s the longest day here in the northern hemisphere. In fact, if you go far enough north, it’s just one long day that lasts for a few months. And then, if you go down under it is the shortest day. This world is full of puzzles and miracles. When you think of the sign of Cancer, think of a busy bee hive. At the center is the queen; not pulling rank but rather offering herself to her people, the bees, and then to us in the wonderful honey they produce. Nourishment naturally results from a well run hive.
June 23rd
Full Moon: 2 degrees Capricorn 07:33 AM EDT
The light of the moon shines throughout the night – short though it may be – reminding us that every light casts a shadow when it connects with something substantial. From this we might consider that abundance (light) constellates the need for responsibility (shadow). Whatever you have a lot of now will be scarce one day. How can you care for and manage abundance in such a way it might nourish you and the people who will inherit this earth through whatever the winter brings?
June 25th
Jupiter enters Cancer
Good bye to Jupiter in Gemini. Hello to Jupiter in Cancer. Jupiter has been in Gemini since June 11, 2012. Gemini is not such a good sign for Jupiter. It brings out some of its worst qualities which have to do with manipulation of information which is we might just call lying. Jupiter is said to be in its detriment in Gemini because it rules the sign opposite Gemini which is Sagittarius. It’s like being too far away from home. Ancient astrologers considered Jupiter to be exalted in Cancer. Some astrologers still use this classification. In Cancer Jupiter has the potential to spread its big, generous arms and nourish as many people as possible. But there is also the possibility that Jupiter (our beliefs) in Cancer (our home and native land) can aggravate patriotism and nationalism The last time it was there began July 12, 2001 and lasted for a year. It was the 9/11 year. As with all astrological influences it has more than one possibility and it is up to us, the people who enact these planetary energies to decide what we do with it.
June 26th
Mercury stationery retrograde
Sun trine Saturn
Sun trine Neptune
Mercury goes retrograde in Cancer even though Jupiter has just arrived suggesting we need to be thoughtful and possibly a bit introspective about how we are handling our needs and the needs of our fellow citizens. Click for more about Mercury retrograde…
Truly there is an underground river connecting us all. Its current is strong and we are carried along by our feelings and our longing to connect with something beyond the boundaries of what we think of as our self. The danger is only in not realizing that we must reach outside the longing, into the reality of life to achieve this and it may not be what exactly what we think we want.
June 27th
Venus enters Leo
What do you adore? Originally this word derived from the notion of worship.Nowadays we adore some of the strangest things. We are more obsessed than adoring. We just have to have it. This particular period of Venus in Leo is a great time to shift obsession toward devotion to those things that have great value to you.
July 1st
Venus square Saturn
Sun opposite Pluto
There are people you trust and there are people you hope you can trust and people you wouldn’t trust under any circumstance. But the real question is of course, can and do you trust yourself? That’s the real issue. Always.
July 4th
Sun square Uranus
You may say you want a revolution but today is a time to consider all the losses that change can bring. Not because change should be avoided but because change always brings risk and we might as well know this. Change for the sake of change is pointless. Stagnation for the sake of security is just as useless. Knowing the difference is a real challenge sometimes.
July 7th
Saturn stationery direct
Venus trine Uranus
There is an almost irresistible impulse to leap into the creative gap and see what lives there. All kinds of visions are enhanced today; most importantly the artistic and the revolutionary ones. For those who over-protect themselves from the possibility of feeling bad there is a subtle but unmistakable shift. Most of what we feel is only that; how we feel. If we lock ourselves up in the tower of safety we begin to fester. Someone or something needs to be let in to oxygenate the system.
July 8th
New Moon 16 degrees Cancer. 03:15 AM EDT
Open to the great big sea of feeling. Get out of your own way. It is simply human to have needs. But that is not the same as gobbling up everything in sight. Feelings are best cared for when we listen to them without judgment and with loving kindness: So simple yet so challenging. What is it about our world that makes feeling things so scary? Possibly it’s thousands of years of manipulation and brutality at the hands of people who can’t feel anything either – a vicious cycle of bad behavior repeating endlessly inside each individual.
As we step further and further into the planetary picture of water we might remember something Jung said: ‘Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality.’
True feeling has nothing to do with sentiment. It is a gut-level knowing through which some of us see the world. We just happen to live at a time which is at best confused about feeling and at worst diabolically unwilling to feel.
July 9th
Mercury retrograde conjunct Sun (19 Cancer)
A day, an hour, even a moment of reflection goes a long way today. A long way toward knowing the deep truth of your needs. Possibly the needs of others as well.
July 13th
Mars enters Cancer
It has been said that Mars falls in Cancer. The warrior cannot fight if he has needs. If we force aggression upon Mars in Cancer we create bullies. Maybe it is up to us to teach Mars – within us and in our children and each other – how it is possible to step up and assert yourself without losing the capacity to care. So much would change if we didn’t pump ourselves full of violent images and obsessive re-tellings of every awful thing that happens. It’s a shame we do it to ourselves but it’s a crime to do it to children.
July 17th
Jupiter trine Saturn
Jupiter trine Neptune
Uranus stationery retrograde
We, hopefully, believe in the need to care for our planet, for the children and the animals; in the nourishing value of planting seeds of hope supported by our natural ability as humans to care and grow things up for the good of all.
Let the revolution simmer for a while and focus on right living. How is it you contain within yourself all the knowledge you need with which to nourish and sustain life in your world. the one you actually live in, not the one upon which you continuously wait.
July 19th
Saturn trine Neptune
Sometimes worlds collide. Other times they merge.
Fear can merge with projection and we misinterpret who the enemy really is. We point and blame and only later do we come to understand.
Responsibility can merge with longing and call us to make the commitment, strong in the knowledge that we can go all the way with our truth, come what may.
For some of us it is a choice; for others more like getting pulled into the whirlpool.
July 20th
Mercury stationery, direct
Mars trine Neptune, Saturn
Act from the deep place. Let your humanity motivate you to care. If you have been swimming upstream now is time to turn around and go with the flow.