Today is Tuesday, July 19, 2011. The Moon is in Pisces all day, and the Sun is in the last few days of Cancer. We’ve been enjoying a fairly watery sky, but the astrological dew point average is about to drop a bit when the Sun moves into Leo July 23. You can see the shift beginning to manifest in the mood of the country, even if your interior landscape still vibrates with the wetter energy.
Outside, we have: a heat wave stretching across the U.S. and killing crops (Dallas, TX has reached 100+ degrees for 18 days); the stalemate over the debt ceiling (aka “big battle over nothing” according to Eric); religious zealotry clamping down across the country; the ongoing glare of a media scandal. In other words, the Sun’s heat and Leo’s impending sense of ego are beginning to take center stage, reflecting the spotlight off the water back at us, blinding many of us. It’s disorienting, which makes sense: The Sun is entering a rather long void of course phase before it changes signs. A Sun VOC imparts the sense of a lack of direction, but it can also feel like a door opening up to something unusual.
You may be starting to feel this shift in ways you might not have noticed were connected, since that Pisces Moon is about forming a direct relationship with the intangible spirit world. Listen to your instincts, even if it doesn’t seem logical to do so. Unless it’s downright crazy, try it out and see how it feels. Getting some beauty into your life today is also really important, whether this is through social principles of loving-kindness or through direct contact with nature, like a vase of fresh flowers.
Adding to the quiet receptive energy of Pisces — in contrast to the external chaos — is the fact that Mercury is now making its maximum elongation from the Sun in the evening sky. This means that today Mercury is at its highest visible appearance after the Sun sets. Prior to this it was stretching the distance between the Sun and itself and getting higher in the sky each evening. After this it will be pulled back as if on a rubber band, getting lower in the sky each evening and closer to the Sun in each day’s charts. This also means it will be slowing down.