Full Moon @ 24 Capricorn/Cancer 04
July 16, 2019 @ 5:37pm EDT, 2:37pm PDT, 21:57 GMT,
July 17 @ 9:37am AEST
The Total Solar Eclipse on July 2-3 started us on an uncharted path. Bridges are burning behind us, as we are invited to choose a path of personal integrity to move forward.
This July 16 partial Lunar Eclipse is offering us support —if we are willing to let go of the past— and a rope to hang on to as we pull ourselves across the chasm of this shadowy Moon cycle. Are you feeling big forces at work, both in your life and in our collective larger life?
Pluto and Saturn align with the Full MoonPluto, named for the Roman god of the underworld, takes 248 years to orbit the Sun, well beyond a human lifetime. Though quite small and faraway, discovered in 1930, this small icy world has potent nuclear impact, compelling transformation from the inside out. Unseen energies beneath the surface erupt like volcanos, decimating the surrounding landscape with fiery, mineral rich lava from deep inside the Earth. Recall last year’s photos from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. There is a power arising from deep inside (on whatever level you can conceptualize or feel this), like an enriching volcanic surge of deep earth magma.
Can we each welcome this gift, which takes us beyond our experience from the past, beyond old codes from ancestral DNA into our cosmic inheritance? This is a great wave or rushing river of letting go and breaking free that reverberates like a deep gong through the whole solar system. Some of this is literal and destructive. Is it ecologically necessary as Earth’s magnetic field is washed in plasma/light waves not experienced for thousands of years? The personal process is challenging, as “stuff” comes up that we must deal with, be it physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. Under this Cancer Sun/ Capricorn Full Moon, the physical and emotional realms are evoked most strongly.
Pluto is best-known in Greek myth for kidnapping Persephone and taking her to his underworld kingdom, ultimately making her his queen. In Hindu myth, Shiva is the Plutonian god of destruction, along with his goddess consort, Kali. She cuts away what is no longer life-giving and vital, like pruning a tree for vigorous, healthy new growth. She swings her sharp sword, cutting off dead wood, diseased limbs, as well as equally devitalizing situations in our lives. Rather daunting with her bloody tongue, necklace of skulls and sharp sword, Kali is, nevertheless, beloved in India for her compassion.
Pluto has a dark side and some people live that dark side more than others. We all go through dark nights of the soul at some point in our lives. Yet Pluto has a heart! 2014 photographs from the New Horizons spacecraft show an extensive heart-shaped feature on the surface of Pluto. It also has a powerful transformational energy, a redemptive side, dark into light. Pluto is bringing its essential theme of life, death and rebirth, of dark to light under this eclipse.
We are each experiencing this letting go and renewal in some area. Some of us feel the effects right away, but all of us feel them sooner or later. We have another pair of eclipses on December 26 and January 10, moving us further along the path that is opening to us.
When Pluto is around, it can feel like we are being turned inside out.
You may be feeling “embattled” or “invited” by the eclipses, As we tune in to the invitation of this special celestial choreography, we are feeling toward growth in our lives, for what nourishes us. It becomes more clear what situations and persons in our lives are supporting us or not, what energies are good for us and what are not. We don’t always know what we need or where to turn. This eclipse is an invitation to ask and to seek, to go beyond our experience of the past, because that past is past. Pluto tests us to live with more empowered self-awareness.
There can be a bittersweet feeling, as we are necessarily letting go at a very deep level–of attachments, perhaps of cherished people in our lives, or belief systems, the way we thought things were and are confronted with betrayal or loss, loss of faith perhaps. We need to deeply inside to find a place of reassurance. For some it may feel more like despair. This is not easy, and, involving the sensitive sign of Cancer, there may be sadness, some of these changes may hurt. Let’s remember that the necessity is clear for change and letting go, that a renewal is on the other side.
Playlist suggestion: Everybody Hurts by REM. I played this on my last Cosmic Inspiration Radio show (July 11), and the next day I somehow clicked on this video, without knowing what it was— in fact, a moving audition version of this song from Britain’s Got Talent
Have you been experiencing more such special serendipitous moments that help you know there is divine guidance in a universe that is aware of you? That is one of the greatest gifts the study of astrology has given me, continually punctuated by grace notes of serendipity and synchronicity.
Double Dose
Pluto is one intense energy to process deeply,
especially when Saturn joins Pluto— for a double dose of intensity and urgency. Saturn says this is it, it is time and it is happening.
At the end of 2017, Saturn entered Capricornfor 2 1/2 years. Saturn indicates situations and circumstances, endings and beginnings. Things happen when Saturn meets up with a planet. There is no way to miss or ignore Saturn, the god of time. Saturn is intensifying the activity of Pluto, with the impact of destiny at work. We are experiencing that now, though much is going on behind the surface. On a global level we are witnessing a complete restructuring on political and economic levels. This lunar eclipse throws and reveals its shadows across the opposition of Pluto at 27 Capricorn and Mercury at 24 Cancer in the July 4 birth chart of the U.S.A. Shocking news has been in the headlines this month already, indicating much more to come.
A very powerful date in this process is the eclipse on January 10, 2020. We are preparing now for that time. This eclipse has an attention-grabbing planetary pattern. Clearly something is changing, that has at least some positive results with the rebirth dynamic of Pluto. When Pluto is around it’s like cleaning old junk out of closets or unclogging sewer pipes. It can require stripping things back to the basic foundation and rebuilding from the ground up.
Thankfully, Mercury is retrograde. Most people groan when they hear Mercury is retrograde, and tend to think Mercury is retrograde if a bunch of problems mar the day. It’s not always Mercury! And his time, we can really use this Mercury retrograde internalizing time to pull back and settle down inside ourselves.
The “magic day” in the current Mercury retrograde cycle is July 21, when Mercury is conjunct the Sun, a good day for anything, as the retrograde effect is turned off by the Sun.
That same day Pluto opposes Venus in Cancer, bringing forth the Kali energy to deal with any feelings or relationships that are resistant to growth-oriented changes and to empower us to make changes that feel resonant. Take care of your self, repositioning is suggested, Find a resonant posture to nurture yourself and others with special care and divine guidance. It’s a tricky situation.
Mercury turns forward on the July 31 New Moon.
Venus is the sweet spotof this eclipse, so close to the Cancer Sun, with an invitation to open to the cornucopia of whatever it is that we need. Are you receptive? Though invisible to us on the far side of the Sun, from deeper in the heavens, Venus is channeling starlight through the solar rays stimulating our life force with love. The goddess of love shows us the way through the shadows of this eclipse month. Be open to love in all its forms. Be grateful for all you are given in the circular tides, the comings and goings of life.
Astro-Special Schedule via email to kelley@heliastar.com
Eclipse Month reading — Are you feeling “embattled” or “invited” by the eclipses? Let’s see what this eclipse can mean to you.
$110/hour, $60/half hour, when booked by July 31.
