Today is Friday, July 22, 2011. The big news is the Sun entering Leo overnight at 12:12 am EDT. During its last hours in Cancer, it’s void of course. Use a little caution. Let the Sun get into Leo before launching anything too ambitious, but relax enough to let interesting things happen to you. Perfect for a Friday, right? Just don’t let that be an excuse to blow your paycheck out on the town — Mercury is slowing down to station retrograde soon, so it’s a good idea to slow down your spending too.
In lunar news, the Moon is in Aries all day today and is entering a trine to Mercury in Leo. This offers some serious initiative and some flowing hands-on energy to get all the chores done. This will help create some space within which to relax and reflect over the weekend.
The Moon then moves into Taurus tomorrow just before 1:00 am EDT, where it will stay for the rest of the weekend. Once there, it squares the Sun (fixed sign to fixed sign), makes a conjunction to Jupiter and an earth trine to Pluto in Capricorn. The Moon conjunct Jupiter could equal some exaggeration, so keep an eye on your emotional reactions to any tension or sense of change. Since the conjunction is in Taurus, we have another reminder that spending cash is not the answer to everything. If you do shop this weekend, focus on quality and consider whether a prospective purchase is truly in line with your values somehow.
The move into Taurus also puts the Moon in the same sign as the fourth brightest object in the sky, Jupiter. If you are out past midnight this weekend, look for the Moon and Jupiter rising in the East. If you are up before dawn, look for them high and in the South.
As Moonrise disappears from our evenings and moonlight becomes more an early morning affair, the last quarter Moon represents a kind of crossroads. You have spent a good deal of psychic energy at the Full Moon and now you may find yourself tired of talking about it and moving into a quiet reflective phase, looking back on your Full Moon adventures and trying to figure out what they really mean. This search for meaning is not just in terms of a better understanding of what actually happened, and the deeper undercurrents within that action, but also a search for the encapsulated wisdom, the moral of the story, which represents more of a seed of the future.
The last quarter Moon correlates to autumn in the solar cycle. Dane Rudhyar saw this phase as a time of separating the wheat from the chaff. “People are forced to face a crucial symbolic choice: to disintegrate with the leaves, or to participate in the formation of seeds, foundations of a future cycle of vegetation — a cycle that will begin with their ritual death, and germination.”
This is actually something very similar to what Jesus says to his disciples in John 12:24, just before he went on the cross. “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
The Greeks saw this wisdom, which is at the heart of the Agricultural Revolution, as coming from the Goddess Demeter (aka Ceres), who gave humankind the gift of agriculture and the knowledge of death-rebirth via the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Roman name Ceres, is also the name of the dwarf planet/asteroid goddess hovering near the Aries point, where the political becomes personal and vice versa.
In modern terms, we can think of this simply as an investment strategy. You have to sacrifice some grain to have more crops, likewise you have to spend money to make money. You have to be willing to take chances and invest in yourself if you want to keep growing.
Where has life been showing you that you need to take a risk and invest in yourself? That’s the question to ponder. Being as it is summertime, and the weekend, I can think of no better way to do this than lying on my back or sitting someplace high to do some stargazing.
Gary Caton with Amanda Painter and Eric Francis
Notice and choose: in fresh horoscopes weekly and twice monthly, the current sky speaks through your Sun and rising signs. Eric unfolds the themes in Planet Waves subscriber edition and Planet Waves Light so you can notice your patterns and choose consciously.
being the lunation closest to Lammas or Lughnasadh, and thus near a cross-quarter point, I’d say this New Moon is indeed potent for ritual, yes.
Lughnasadh, and the other cross quarter days, are part of the old Gaelic fire festivals. many people continue to celebrate the holiday with bonfires and dancing.
Lugh instituted a harvest fair and festival as a celebration of his triumph over the spirits of the Other World who had tried to keep the harvest for themselves.
So basically all these cross-quarter points are seen as portals between this world and the spirit world.
i do not know whether being the second new moon in a calendar month lends any special significance, beyond what i’ve described above
btw zerosity (and all) – i should probably give a nod to the creator of that deck of cards i quoted yesterday.
they’re called “do one thing” cards, created by chris trout:
http://strengthsinfocus.com/
Recognize the form. Focus:
“You have to be willing to take chances and invest in yourself if you want to keep growing. Where has life been showing you that you need to take a risk and invest in yourself?”
Now…notice and choose.
Notice and choose. Shed some stuff to the “disintegration” (ie, compost) pile.
Notice and choose. Where am I to invest in my life? Where is the intersection between political and personal? Where can I serve?
With transiting Ceres conjunct my natal Jupiter (and Uranus and Eris – all hovering near the Aries point), and transiting Jupiter square my natal Leo Moo, I’m guessing it will be an interesting weekend of stargazing and “starpondering.”
Thanks for smoothing the fuzziness for some good weekend inner work. I have been hovering at the edge of leaving my professional career of thirty-five years, and transitioning into interfaith/multi-faith spiritual direction. I have the training for spiritual direction, I have been studying other related areas (especially astrology and esoteric forms of healing) but keep sitting in the compost pile of a law practice because it is the familiar way to make money.
Transition? Yes, let the Sol get into Leo, but for the next few days looking for the encapsulated wisdom from the Capricorn Full Moon to seed the transition to the future. Thanks, and thanks again.
JannKinz
PS: With clear skies in Michigan last night, I saw the almost quarter moon clearly in the sky. It brought to mind a recent niggling question: By one definition, the upcoming Leo New Moon is a “Black Moon”, the second new moon in a calendar month. (Another definition is the third new moon in a season, which will next occur May 20, 2012.) I’m pondering the threads of the Balsamic Moon on July 27 (the beginning of the quietude of the Dark Moon days) and a “Black Moon” on July 30. Wiccan tradition is that this will be a potent new moon for ritual. Anyone know of any astrological significance for this New Moon in Leo as a “Black Moon”?
what a wonderful piece… You guys are the best
I am back from vacation and, uncharacteristically, I have nothing to say.