By Len Wallick | Edits by Eric Francis
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It’s Monday, Flag Day in the United States. A little-observed holiday, it commemorates a resolution made by the Second Continental Congress to adopt a symbol for the nation which declared its independence nearly a year before. As such, it’s a good day to consider some moments coming up in astrology. Moments which will continue to be symbolic of our period a long time hence.
We stand on the threshold of the Cancer solstice. One week from today, just after 11:28 UTC, the Sun will be directly above the Tropic of Cancer. The Sun enters the sign Cancer at this time, and is the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It will be the first day of winter for our sisters and brothers south of the equator, though our idea of winter and theirs are two different things. There are not a lot of snow plows in Australia or South Africa, and they are closer to the Antarctic Circle than they are to the tropics.
We also stand on the threshold of a pair of eclipses on the axis of the opposing signs Cancer and Capricorn, which correspond to the ones at the time of the holiday season about five months ago. The first will be a partial lunar eclipse during the Capricorn Full Moon on June 26. The second event will be a total solar eclipse with the New Moon in Cancer on July 11. Eclipses generally come in pairs and arrive with an acceleration of events, a concentration of energies and a feeling of fate being at work. Eclipses feel like crossing from distinct one compartment of time to another; moving through a threshold or divide.
In the case of both the solstice and the lunar eclipse the Sun will be in meaningful aspect to the planets of history gathered near the cardinal points: the cardinal T-square that is our current piece of the 2012 alignment. Uranus and Jupiter (still in a conjunction) in very early Aries will still be square Pluto retrograde in the early Capricorn — this lasts for a while. Saturn will be direct in very late Virgo, about to ingress Libra and ramp up the energy — currently close enough for nearly the full effect.
With the lunar eclipse, the Moon, the lunar nodes and Mercury will join in.
Thus the cardinal t-square will become a cardinal grand cross, spanning a period of nearly a week. This brings the energy in from all four cardinal points — Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn; plus an eclipse. Here we have one of those zones of time when world events leap off the computer screen and newspaper pages.
This sequence of events includes with it a change of season and moves quickly into the start of a powerful eclipse cycle, directly involving five major planets and both luminaries. It would do us well to prepare to be aware lest the events of that auspicious time render us unconscious in our reactions. Better to be fully present and respond in a manner that will make the most of the opportunity for progress. Eclipses are great if you want your life to move, to change and to evolve. For those who like to resist, they can be painful.