Astrology Note to Readers: Capricorn Group Square the Nodes
Dear Friend and Reader:
Today I have your July monthly extended reading. I’ve included a new STARCAST describing the primary feature in the chart — the early Capricorn constellation that is now at a right angle to the lunar nodes. I covered this in depth two weeks ago.
The nodes in Aries-Libra describe a situation were intimate personal relationships are teetering on the effects of large forces of society. Those, in turn, are fed by unresolved family matters.
We know about this from various sources, whether therapy or the work of psychological theorists such as Wilhelm Reich (and many others). In our times, we take for granted that public policy is going to be directed at the most intimate affairs of our private lives.
We take for granted that personal problems are really the fault of society, and that the way to resolve them is with laws, rules, the acts of various government agencies, and so on. We are accustomed to projecting our most intimate experiences into the “news” and into the streets.
That means we face the challenge of keeping the personal personal. And with this structure standing as it is, there will be many opportunities to confront or engage with this.
Also in STARCAST, I describe a similar situation with a potential food crisis, and the crisis of not being able to tell what is real and what is not, leading to the condition of not feeling real ourselves. Real begins with you — remember.
— efc
Aries (March 20-April 19) — Who holds authority in your life, and why? This would include direct control or any oddly persuasive influence, and the more subtle forms as well. If you start to make a list of names, you may discover that it’s rather long, and that you keep adding to it. When you start to account for where that authority comes from, you may need to reckon with the fact that you’ve handed it to people; that is, given up your power. Here is where it gets mysterious. What is this about? What is the underlying nature of any agreement you have with another person where they have control over you? Through the Pluto in Capricorn years (starting in 2008), this was an ongoing issue. There are times when you feel like you’re getting on top of it, and yet the matter persists. The emotional hooks always come from early caregivers, and some of those people have placed themselves beyond reproach. Your astrology is offering a clue. If you are analyzing the role of any person from your past, and you get a sense of what they did to you, and then you feel guilty, you’re onto something. Your guilt response is the scent you’re after, that is, the one that points to a potentially responsible party. Yet it’s also designed to warn you to look elsewhere, placing the blame on someone who does not deserve it. To grow, you must be courageous about this, and understand the influences of those who held themselves as paragons of benevolence.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Some ideas defy expression, and usually those are the most important to get into words. The question of your solar chart is, “What happens when you try?” Specifically, when you want to say something seemingly unspeakable, how soon do you encounter guilt? This is the potential barrier that stands against truth — a veil of wrongness or embarrassment that is really the resentment against being silenced. Let me say this another way. When you encounter guilt, it’s not because you’ve done something wrong. (That emotion is called regret.) Guilt is the eruption of suppressed rage that then turns into a bitter form of anger called resentment. This is why acknowledging guilt is so important: it’s you reminding yourself that you really do have something to say. Now, once you contact the anger, you’re at the next level, and anger does not make you right. But it does remind you that you feel betrayed in some way. And that is the topic that deserves a fair hearing — the one that is short-circuited by your initial feeling of guilt. All this seems complicated when it’s broken down into words, but in experience it’s simpler than it seems — as long as you don’t automatically presume you’re wrong when you feel bad. This is an essential point of learning and most people never get there; they remain entangled in negativity they don’t understand their whole lives. To get free from this, it’s necessary to violate the code of silence and speak up when you have something to say — to those you care about most, and even in casual encounters. Then you sort out the results.
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Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You may feel pressure building, this month and as the season develops, of the kind that says, “This is your last chance.” Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, though practicing a little carpe diem never hurt anyone: seize the day, and gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Yet the sense you have may be more karmic than immediate, like this lifetime is your last chance to get something right. I don’t know if that’s true — but I know that Jupiter in your sign square Saturn (which can only happen a rare few times in one lifetime) can come with a feeling of urgency. There is a fine line between honoring that and being a slave to the fear of death. The antithesis to the fear is making the choice to do what you can while you can. Emphasize your best options. When you have the chance to do something, consider whether it’s the kind of thing that happens once (an unusual invitation, or a rare concert) — or the kind of thing that recurs (a movie or a baseball game). Though there is something larger still — something that relates to your learning and your purpose on Earth. This is the kind of thing usually relegated to workshops at the Omega Institute, where you’re supposed to make big decisions and think important thoughts. Yet this may be following you everywhere. And you may be wondering whether it’s real. You are indeed here for a purpose. Let that purpose inform everything you do and every choice you make. It’s easier than it seems.
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Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You may have the sense that people feel unusually strongly about you these days, which may make you uncomfortable. You don’t need intense opinions coming at you in your ordinary day-to-day activities, or from your circle of friends. Fortunately, you are in possession of something rare to find in our era, which is social graces. And one of those is knowing when and when not to take things personally. Most people feel like they’re hanging on hooks right now, stretched and pulled in too many directions. They are struggling to find compassion for themselves, much less for others — and you’re an easy source of kindness. Yet you’re also something of a lightning rod, because comparatively speaking, you have a strong sense of your own direction and authority over your affairs. You make things that are very difficult for others seem easier than they are. The delicate message of your chart is to make sure you don’t avoid certain kinds of people just because they might test you. For example, if you’re running out of patience for one of the sexes (i.e., men or women), consider going toward them instead of away from them. Explore polarity with a sense of play and curiosity. The thing that’s sensible to skip over is social drama, which could fly in abundance early in the month. When encounters cease to be fun, that’s the time to go in another direction. Lessons in forming wholesome emotional bonds will manifest frequently. Remember that you’re the one who is making the choices for yourself — though others may try.
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Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — To have what you want, it will help if you identify what you don’t want. That said, eliminating what you don’t desire, do not need or that is in any way aggravating, stands as its own purpose. Most of us live in an overwhelmed state, and eliminating unnecessary and unhelpful influences is one of the most important exercises in choice. It may be the most relevant in our time, and many are waking up to the need to reduce. There is something that I think is more significant — the ability to tell where you are and to identify the properties of your environment at any time. This is called situational awareness. Martial arts teachers love to talk about it, because it’s so important. The more situationally aware you are, the less likely you are to do a roundhouse kick and take out five adversaries. Therefore, walk around life sniffing the air and asking yourself, ok, so what’s going on here? Who are these people? What are they doing? However, the more significant matter is your inner environment and awareness of your mental and emotional situation. Every day, your relationship to existence changes a little; and every morning I suggest you check in with what it is. Your relationship to yourself evolves and changes — as steady as your outer personality may be, your inner weather is in constant flux.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — A long phase of your life is melting into a new one right in these very weeks and months. Yet the change may be so gradual that you’re not quite noticing. The differences may be subtle, though one of them may be that you’re not feeling like you’re so driven along the tracks to your destiny. A space is opening up where you have available many possibilities that you may have never considered, or that only vaguely occurred to you. These may seem like slim or dim possibilities, though they will seem more real as you focus on them and draw yourself closer to them. This is a little dreamy, such as when you bring out the hidden properties of something by focusing on it. Your observation of the dream figure changes it, and there are many possibilities for how it might transform. If you notice this happening, you will start to catch onto other ways that your observations and awareness evolve the meaning of people, events and situations you experience. Focusing your attention is a form of participating. And then you’re likely to want others, though the deeper lesson is that a little goes a long way. You don’t need to plunge in. You can walk through the kitchen and give everything a little sniff — that will be as meaningful as tasting it. You are teaching yourself how to notice what you want, which is the most vital information you can be working with at this important stage of your growth. The result will be much better decisions.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — One theme of the next few weeks is you holding space for others in social situations. You will be free to have a good time — with a purpose, and that purpose does not really involve you or your needs. Rather, you may find yourself in places where your presence allows things to happen that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. Early in the month, you might observe someone set an example of how to do this — and recognize how helpful and necessary it is. In one scenario, you’re in a conversation with several people and you hear someone start to say something, but then they get cut off. Your role could be to notice that and ask them to continue what they were saying — and hold the conversation open until you’re certain they have said what they want to say. This same thing will also be true in more intimate social environments, such as among close friends. In a sense, you are in an advocacy role. Few people bother with this, and many are not meekly interested in what others have to say because it might challenge or offend them; or association with the allegedly offensive person would lower one’s unofficial social credit score. You have the capacity for none of this to matter to you — it should not. The thing that matters is the opportunity for people to be real, and for those whose voice is usually squashed to be free to speak — whatever they have to say. You will be performing a vital service for your immediate society, and learn some rather unusual lessons in the process.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — One emotional state I associate with your sign is playing hide and seek with how you feel. However, now certain commitments to yourself have come due — especially the promise you made about not disregarding your instincts, needs and opinions. You’ve long been reciting a mantra about being true to yourself. Yet the ways you skip over any such opportunity are long engrained, and they are the product of family conditioning. This has something to do with not ruffling feathers, not standing out, not being seen as the one who objects; not being the little girl or the little boy and going along with the adults like a good kid. Yet this has a tremendous effect on your relationships, more than you may imagine. Constant subtle and not-so-subtle compromises, adding up over years, can lead to considerable resentment. And then resentment is justified by anger and so on — consuming precious time and creativity. At the heart of all of this, you would serve yourself better by acting on your feelings or at least speaking up or even just saying to yourself out loud what you really want. Free will means you can ignore your personal truth. This is your divine right. Nobody can stop you. But neither can anyone induce you to be real with yourself, with the possible exception of the friendly neighborhood astrologer mentioning it to you in your horoscope. We all know about this. It affects both men and women, though in my experience, women are more frequently affected and also more surreptitiously. You will LOVE speaking up more.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — What drives you to the decisions you make? As forward-thinking as Sagittarius is said to be — think of the one-pointed arrow of will, expertly aimed at your goal — your thoughts seem to be mired in the past. This might seem to be your own personal past, though it’s more like the concerns of previous generations percolating up through your mind. Any time you’re troubled by something, ask yourself the stunningly revolutionary question: am I freaking out on behalf of my great-grandparents? You probably weren’t even thinking about them, though it just may be that what you’re worried about is more suited to their place and time than your own. This goes for all traditions that are reduced to cultural ritual, political beliefs more suited to when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, and religious notions that must be true because someone else said so. You have your own ideas, and you want to express them, but it’s often easier not to. You might clash with others in the process of figuring out what to do. Your ancestors had problems, and they had some few solutions, but they are not your problems or your solutions. Ah, but what might keep you coming back to their views, or their presumed feelings? The sense that you owe a debt to the past — the idea you owe those people something. But that’s not possible; they don’t care. The biggest favor you can do yourself is to be in the present moment right now and ask yourself what your life is about.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — For a sign allegedly driven by logic and structure, it’s often difficult for you to get a handle on your feelings. Or perhaps said better, it can take you a long time — and by then, you’re figuring out your decisions and actions in the past, rather than making the best decisions for yourself now. However, you’re in a good moment to get a handle on certain matters of personal and family history. The challenge is observing how the conditions of other people from other generations, who lived in other places, and had other problems, have largely determined who you think you are. It can be a wild revelation, or a little maddening, to think: I believed this about myself because those other people believed that about themselves? Hmmm, yes, I’m saying that you’ve likely taken on the karma of others, and that’s part of what seems to be holding you back. But now a hole has opened up in the attic and the debris is falling into your living room. All those choices and actions and experiences of other people that had nothing to do with you somehow feel like your whole world turns upon them. This could show up a diversity of ways: conflicts with authority; challenges in relationships; or a sense of having your plans delayed by you’re not sure what. It’s possible to blame the chaos of the world, and there is a connection. What you will see on the front page of The New York Times or any news feed is unresolved family baggage that concentrates into the global crisis. You are at a very important turning point right now, where the crux of the matter is right in your hand. Think carefully and the decisions you make today and this month can have a positive influence on the rest of your days.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — The more certain you are, the more appropriate it is to doubt your thinking. I’m not talking about giving yourself a bout of neurosis — the nameless void of vague, acidic uncertainty. Rather, I mean three things: an ongoing process of fact verification; ongoing checking with your intuition about what is right for you; and learning how to be mindful about knowing when you do not know. No astrologer understands the full influence and impact of Pluto in your birth sign; apart from the past year or so, nobody on the planet has ever lived through it, and Pluto was not discovered the last time this happened. Then, as now, the world was being rearranged faster than anyone could keep track of it. And this was likely the source of profound personal confusion for many people, as their moorings and familiar references were cut, one at a time. Pluto in your sign will, at least, be providing you with a sense of meaning and purpose: a point of orientation amidst the chaos of society. You must use this well, and allow it to guide you into yourself — toward that elusive thing known as the soul. The easiest way to think of this is as a learning process that drives your relationship to yourself. This is a self-creative process. You are taking the gifts given to you by Prime Source and using them to weave, grow, develop and gradually inhabit a world of your own creation. Stay close to the deeper intelligence that got the whole thing known as you started. Stay close to the mystery of your own existence, and of all existence.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You’re in an unusual position to use your creativity to earn money. This is a rare state of being, and while it will take some work, the actual necessary ingredient is the willingness to dare. I reckon you will have that in abundance, though as usual you’re probably worried about taking things too far. The influence of Saturn in your sign is providing a reliable boundary for you — a sense of conscience and also a reminder of your limitations. But these are the very limits you want to transcend. So be aware of them, and know that they represent past ideas about yourself, and past authoritarian influences, that are no longer valid. What you need and have earned is some authority over yourself, such that others do not need to take on this role. The turnaround is that the idea now is to exceed what you thought was possible, proper, appropriate or whatever — according to those in the past who would limit you — and to step up to your chosen challenges on your own terms. This is a privilege in all of human history. Few people rarely make it this far, so busy are they arguing with the (mostly dead) people who they think are holding them back. There is also the nagging fear, seemingly endemic in humanity, that to use your creative power means taking on responsibility. That’s exactly what you want. The message of your chart — sometimes whispered, and sometimes speaking with a crack of thunder — is that the buck stops with you. It always has, but the benefit comes from admitting this fact.
