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Aires   (March 20 - April 18)  Fire.  Ruling planet Mars.    Top

You are seeking a different interaction with society around you, Aries, and it involves a shift in values as well as ideals. You are plumbing your depths for a new way to connect yourself up. Family and home improvement is only one focus; the real issue is what you came into this lifetime to accomplish. Your social and group engagement has been blurry for you lately as you try to find a solid spiritual basis for your societal connection that takes all your truth and all your fantasy and rolls it up into one big ball, moving more or less directly forward.

As the month begins, you are settling down after a wave of energized social connection from the last half of June, finding new ways to connect with family and with your own core process of understanding. Slow and serious energy for long-term connection is your hallmark right now. You are becoming more whole through grounded bonding with others and with working to actualize your very high ideals at this time.

Since Mercury is retrograde, this first half of the month is not a time to make any sudden moves, but rather a time to wait patiently for answers to coalesce. Meanwhile, pay close attention to everything that happens to you right now; your observations will be rewarded as time goes on.

The Last Quarter Moon takes place after the July 4th holiday, on the first full weekend of the month, on Saturday morning, the 7th, and this is the crux of a few good days for taking stock of your situation, and your communication and connection goals. Not everything that you can imagine can be worked out in realistic terms, but as the Stones suggested in the turbulent sixties, sometimes you can get what you need.

The New Moon that takes place on the following weekend, on Saturday, July 14th, brings great inspiration for personal healing along with it, and for changing relationship dynamics with significant others in your life.

This powerful energy for healing and for connection continues right through the following weekend of the 21st, when there you may pass through a minor crisis of some kind. During this entire period, you will find yourself in the process of discarding old patterns of interaction that are no longer valid for your present state of awareness. You may have felt disregarded in some way at an earlier point in your history, and these experiences can be wounding, and can affect your behavior long beyond their real utility.

These relics from the long-dead past can hang on, poisoning your perception of current possibilities, and this mid-month period of time represents an excellent opportunity to transcend them. Again, it is essential that you begin by paying very careful attention to everything that happens to you at this time, without reactivity, judgment or blame.

Taurus   (April 19 - May 19)  Earth.  Ruling planet Venus.    Top

This is an important month for you, Taurus, when you are getting ideas and feelings straight that have been percolating through your awareness for some time now. The vision of a novel and spiritually powerful future is pulling you mightily as you reinvent yourself yet again. Having paid your dues and walked the extra mile, you are standing in entirely different shoes by month's end. Although the rewards may be both more and less than what you bargained for, and of a largely internal rather than an extroverted nature, they may surprise you by being enough.

As the month begins, you are feeling strongly constrained toward home and family concerns, and yet free in the very weight of your sense of responsibility. There is a push-pull of practical necessity versus wild imagination and the desire to have everything both ways. You are in the midst of a spiritual sense of mission for your life, whereby you are actively promoting a deeper sense of values, engaging in communicative outreach that shares a profoundly spiritual point of view with others around you.

The Last Quarter Moon of Saturday, July 7th, brings with it a sense of self-imposed limitation regarding what is concretely possible in this world, highlighting the tension between action and idea. You strive to communicate your deep thoughts to others at this time, but may find that your best audience is your own internal process, always there ticking away in the depths of your being.

With Mercury just changing direction in the next few days, returning to direct motion, the following week caps a productive time for you for journaling your thoughts and visions.

The New Moon that comes along on Saturday July 14th, emphasizes once more the contrast between the ideal and the concretely possible, and brings you to the point of synthesis.

You may be on the verge of important realizations over the next few days, as your ruler Venus starts to slow down, now in your sector of creativity and self-expression, and eventually changes direction on the 27th. This begins a months-long process of backing away and regaining ground that will not conclude until October. It's paradoxical, but you may be learning that there is a way of combining practical necessity with the vision for a better future that you have been harboring, living inside the dream but remaining very much a part of the world around you.

Gemini   (May 20 - June 20)  Air.  Ruling planet Mercury.    Top

This is a strange and wonderful period of time for you, Gemini, as you strive to make concrete, and to integrate into your awareness, mysterious concepts beyond your conscious understanding. Delving into your depths may provide the unexpected pearl. This is no simple road, and your goals can change in an instant as you round the next bend. Your introspective stance and lack of financial progress yields, over the course of this month's journey, to a more definite and financially sound presence in the world, and you may find yourself reaping the accompanying reward of an entirely transformed point of view.

As the month begins, in the wake of last month's New Moon in your sign, and with your ruler Mercury retrograding through your identity sector, you are exploring the nature of your reality from the standpoint of your own internal understanding and no one else's.

By the time of the Last Quarter Moon of Saturday, July 7th, as you face your potential squarely, you will be able to see where you exceed and where you fall short of the goal. This phase is traditionally referred to as the "crisis of consciousness" that follows all attempts to reach new heights of achievement and understanding, when what has worked out bolsters your morale and what has not provides food for thought and greater awareness.

The New Moon in your resources sector that follows a week later, of Saturday, July 14th, presents you with renewed energy for the philosophical battle, as you continue to refine the vision of your mind's eye. Some aspect of your finances or may jump into gear at this time. You are also finding your way around your universe in a new fashion, potentially confused by what you see but attempting to make a practical connection between starry idealism and realistic possibilities for yourself going forward, and between work and personal priorities also. You may find that some way of seeing things suddenly slips into place at this juncture.

Your ruler Mercury has just changed into forward motion on the 9th, although it only regains its lost zodiacal ground toward the end of the month, on the 24th. Just as it does, Venus retrogrades in turn, on the 27th, in your sector of home and family.

This end of the month period may be a time when your home life changes in some way, or perhaps your physical dwelling, or your relationship with close family members, which may take on a different coloration under this influence. It's all good; these changes lead to a better understanding of your involvement with the surrounding environment and ultimately yourself as well, provided that you are keeping your eyes wide open.

Cancer   (June 21 - July 21)  Water.  Ruling planet is the Moon.    Top

You are coming from a slightly internal place these days, Cancer, as Mercury retrogrades through your identity sector. You might find yourself re-thinking your priorities and the way that you come across to others. Exploring your psychological roots in this your birthday time of the year is a serious occupation, and leads you toward the prize. There may be boundary issues that come up or another form of fuzzy thinking around intimate connection with others, but these can be viewed as compassion and a sense of oneness with the universe if you look at it another way. Discrimination is the challenge and also the reward.

As the month begins, you are feeling the contrast of opposite points of view represented by inner and more public concerns, and also by self and other, as you mull over your outer-world presentation and your life direction generally. In these first few evenings of July, just after Sunset, you may see the ruler of your relationship sector, namely Saturn, as a faint yellow star near the very bright light of Venus in her last month as Evening Star. Their conjunction in the Western sky may remind you of the importance of others in your life, in a particularly clear visual echo of the astrological symbolism. Of course the trick is to let others count for you, but not too much.

Since Neptune is also involved, this area of intimate partnership with others is somewhat nebulous for you right now, and full of high idealization, with the potential also for self-deception. You can benefit from applying clarity to the situation, at least so far as you are able. Nothing is wrong here; you are only experiencing the paradoxical joys of life on planet Earth.

In the days surrounding the time of the Last Quarter Moon, taking place on Saturday, July 7th, your focus shifts to your work in the world, and to the conflicts inherent in maintaining your position while still remaining at core a feeling and private being. This is a time when you may see the final philosophical fruits of the impulse for transcendence that carried over from mid-June and the beginning of the Mercury retrograde period of time. This period of time is great for reflection, not so good for accomplishment, but if you are willing to go along with that program the rewards are there in terms of increased understanding of your true situation.

The New Moon in your sign of the following weekend, coming along on Saturday, July 14th, represents a fresh start in all these areas. At this point Mercury is in direct motion, but it still has a week or so to go before it regains its lost zodiacal ground.

A few days after that, on the 27th, Venus retrogrades in your communications sector for six weeks, so that this entire summer may remain a relatively contemplative period of time for you. Through it all, you are striving to find the balance point of integration between your subtle inner workings and the more conscious mental process of your understanding mind; and this is the essence of spiritual growth.

Leo   (July 22 - August 21)  Fire.  Ruling planet is the Sun.    Top

You are in an entirely practical and yet also idealized and fantasy-oriented state of mind these days, Leo. There are layers within layers to explore as you make a journey to the center of your Earth over the course of this monthly cycle. Relationship is a deep and paradoxical mystery for you right now, and can lead to confusion. The potential is there for illusion, either yours or theirs, but also the possibility of dramatic break-through. By month's end, though you still might not know where you are headed, you'll be much further along than when you started out.

As the month begins, you are digging in and working hard toward making something happen in the outer world, while still occupying an entirely reflective and internal space somewhere behind your mind in the cracks and crannies of your inner world. Your goals may be somewhat nebulous right now, although at least you know that they involve deeper connection with others around you and with the universe within your psyche also. The Last Quarter Moon taking place on Saturday, July 7th, would seem to represent one crux of the mental gymnastics that you are currently engaged in. You are all for progress at this time, but forced to take a closer look under the covers of your motivation, and perhaps to painfully reject certain portions of your ideas that do not fit in with the reality of your current situation.

With the advent of the New Moon a week later, on Saturday, July 14th, you may find that you are attempting to further the paradoxical joint urge to advance your outer goals and to take your own internal process forward in any way that you can.

Partnership with significant others is valuable to you at this time, even if somewhat confusing, and helps you to mediate between conflicting extremes, promoting union with the deeper levels of your psyche. There is the potential for idealism, even self-deception, in the relationship dynamic that you are experiencing at this time, so that you benefit when you employ a more grounded approach. If you take the presence of relationship figures in your life for who they are rather than for who they may become you are halfway there already.

Toward the end of the month, on the 27th, Venus retrogrades in your resources sector, and you may find that some financial curve-balls are thrown, or other material issues may shift in their status.

The Leo – Aquarius Full Moon that follows a couple of days later, on the 29th, may also be a delicate time, when your relationship dynamics with others will be brought once more to the forefront of your awareness. Through this entire month you are balancing the highly ideal with what is concretely realistic or perhaps with self-imposed limitation, and you do well to keep your head up and your eye on the prize of increased understanding, the true reward for all the trials and changes that you manage to put yourself through and also to get beyond.

Virgo   (August 22 - September 21)  Earth.  Ruling planet Mercury.   Top

It's hard to know where you're heading right now, Virgo. Your recent priorities may be turned upside down with Mercury retrograding through your sector of future goals. A spacious way of life beckons that includes your inner world as no less important than your outer. When you encounter goals of this more universal kind, you may find that they can be startlingly illuminating in their clarity, and yet also rather vague as compared with the so-called reality of day-to-day life. The answers that you seek are far from simple, but yet again, entirely easy to grasp if the worldly complexities are seen for the illusions that they are and simply allowed to drop out of the equation.

The month begins with your ruler Mercury still retrograde from the last half of June. This is a time when you might be in the process of reviewing and refining your goals and life plan, figuring out how to take the best of the past and leave the outworn elements of yourself behind. You are a living and growing creature of the universe after all and like all living creatures you need to keep changing and expanding. Careful thought process is your friend right now; it may be too early to launch out with a new vision for your future. You are perhaps best advised to simply watch and wait, and keep careful tabs on everything that happens to you right now.

The Last Quarter Moon that comes along on Saturday, July 7th, symbolizes a time of increased awareness of your spiritual as well as physical situation, by seeing exactly what does and doesn't work for you. You are being asked to let go of what has been outgrown as no longer useful to your present state of awareness. However painful it may be to leave parts of yourself behind in the dust, it may be less painful in the long run than maintaining an outmoded self-image that no longer serves you in the present moment.

The Cancer New Moon of the following weekend, taking place on Saturday, July 14th, represents a fresh start, a whole new way of looking at the day. You are encouraged, especially during this New Moon period of time, to dream big, for what you consciously vision and intend has magic and power in it. Mercury is still shaky, and you should proceed with caution, but you are likely to find yourself on a very different road than when the month began.

The Quarter Moon that takes place a week later on the 21st may have its own set of challenges, as you expand your vision to include others in your life and also begin to see where more work may be needed to articulate your vision, but you are on your way.

Toward the end of the month, the retrograde of Venus on the 27th may also strongly affect you, especially if you were born early in the sign, with an August birthday. Your finances are likely to suffer setbacks, and a more self-protective stance becomes your characteristic mode of operation. This more internal state of mind over the next six weeks may however help to enlighten you regarding your true priorities.


Libra   (September 22 - October 22)  Air.  Ruling planet Venus.    Top

This is a big month for outer commitment, Libra. You are coming to new realizations concerning how you do your work in the world, the public statement that you make with your every action. You have been serious lately regarding your societal connection, this month even more so. How do you plug into the gears of the machinery in a way that is both consistent with your immediate career goals and yet also lines up with your highest purpose for yourself in this lifetime? The answer may seem confusing from the standpoint of the mundane race to the supposed ribbon, but when you turn around and take further unseen dimensions into better account, everything becomes crystal clear.

As the month begins, you are getting entirely serious regarding your possibilities in this world. There has been a period of re-evaluating your goals for the future, and your creative process also, that is completing during the present timeframe.

Since Mercury is retrograde right now, and since later on in the month your ruler Venus also changes to a backwards direction in the sky as seen from the Earth, this entire summer represents a time of reflection that is largely internal for you rather than outgoing. With the possible exception of the two-week period immediately following the mid-month New Moon, this is definitely not a time to push the river, but rather to watch and wait, paying careful attention to everything that happens.

The Last Quarter Moon taking place in the first full weekend of the month, on Saturday morning, July 7th, is a great time for evaluating where you are heading this time around, especially regarding significant relationships in your life, either personal or business partnerships.

The New Moon that comes along a week later, on Saturday, July 14th, is accompanied by renewed opportunity regarding career goals, as you respond to issues of service, and of self-sacrifice, to the larger collective that surrounds you. You are seeking an ideal of service to others and attempting to ground this vision in the reality of concrete possibility.

When your ruler Venus retrogrades near the end of the month, on the 27th, this again signals a more or less internal period, when you are attempting to refine and to some extend revision what you are looking for in terms of societal connection and building for a future that really matters to you. There are some ups and downs to this cycle of Venus as she loops through the zodiac over the next several months. There is a change to direct motion on September 8th, which may represent one shift in where you see yourself heading, and then there is also the point in time when Venus will re-enter Virgo and regain lost ground, which is not for another thirty days.

During this entire period you will likely be subject to important internal questioning of your basic motivation, so it is good to be prepared. The end result of all this thinking and rethinking of your position is that when you do finally emerge from this complex period of time you will b more sure than ever regarding your true direction.

Scorpio   (October 23 - Nov 21)  Water.  Ruling planets Mars, Pluto.   Top

You are settling into your changes this month, Scorpio, adapting to a new attitude. Spiritual investigations at the core of your being have left you with less stability but a broader footing in the multi-dimensionality that more accurately represents the nature of things. Partnering with others leads you into some very positive new directions, although adjustment is undoubtedly required. That process continues right through to the end of July, when fresh challenges and priority twists are likely. When you are ready to emerge more fully into the life of practical achievement, you will be prepared with an integrated approach that includes the hidden as well the more obvious sides of your personality.

As the month begins, you are definitely on the go, with a strong career orientation that has been your hallmark for many months now. Partnership with others, of both a business and a personal kind, is powerful for you these days, and helps you to sort out your priorities as you retrofit basic beliefs to your actual real-life situation, at least as you currently understand it. This is a time of reorganization and relearning for you, at least over the first half of the month.

The middle point of this time, the Last Quarter Moon of Saturday, July 7th, brings the crux of these issues to bear. This is a time when you may encounter the tension of bringing your ideas more directly in line with the reality of your situation, and when you will be planting the seed for what you can take with you into the future regarding your philosophical orientation and communicative outreach to others.

The New Moon of Saturday, July 14th, in your sector of higher mind points the way to a fresh start in these matters. You are letting go of old patterns of partnership interaction that no longer serve you, and attempting to find a new footing in future plans. You are being pulled at this time in at least two different directions at once: your public offering and your private world. On the inside you might feel somewhat at sea and more than a bit confused, since the Saturn – Neptune opposition, triggered by the New Moon, strongly affects both your career sector and your root psychological home base.

Because out of line expectations are the first cause of suffering, and whatever you accept has less power over you, you benefit from taking any feelings of instability as normal and par for the course during this Neptunian time. When the dust has settled, you will find the net gain of increased wisdom regarding your course forward.

Sagittarius   (Nov 22 - Dec 20)  Fire.  Ruling planet Jupiter.   Top

This is an important and quietly exciting time for you, Sagittarius. You are coming into a new relationship with the cosmos, feeling your way into a better sense of balance between disparate parts of your psyche. You have been going through immense changes all year, and this month represents one more movement of your spiritual compass. You can take comfort from the notion that while in one way everything might seem topsy-turvy, the universe has its plans for you and its own hidden landscape where it all makes absolute sense. Your mind may be cloudy, but your heart has songs of its own.

As the month begins, you are seeking your regeneration through the agency of others in your life, attempting to draw the intelligent line between healthy influence and overly committed merging. With Mercury, your partnership sector ruler, retrograde, you will also likely be taking a closer look at the significant relationships in your life and where they might be heading at this time. Communication and philosophical discourse open many doors for you, but this type of interaction is a potentially cloudy mirror for you right now, when you may find that the deepest truth that you are trying to get across goes beyond words.

The Last Quarter Moon taking place on Saturday, July 7th, serves to remind you that it is yourself first and foremost that you must satisfy in the course of your interactions with others, although there will likely be conflicts to be worked out. This is also the time when your ideals may collide with practical considerations, when you must accept certain limitations.

The New Moon of Saturday, July 14th, presents you with more possibilities than solutions. You are on the verge of important breakthrough in both career and private life, and with respect to significant partnerships also, but you must first find a form of integration between inner and outer. You are striving to make your interior world more consciously available and at the same time to allow it to communicate to you and through you by virtue of your dealings in the world.

This later half of July is an important time for refining your presence on the stage of public action, since Mercury, the ruler of your career sector, is beginning to straighten out during this period, and Venus is simultaneously entering this same domain.

When Venus turns to retrograde motion on July 27th, you may feel the shift in your presence in the world of activity and achievement. Venus turns direct on September 8th and does not return to the sign of Virgo and your career sector until October, so there may be a long-term process of refinement of your activities and goals that continues well into the fall. Your achievement orientation is in any event constantly being modulated by the prodding of your inner world at this time, as you strive to find the balance point.

Capricorn   (Dec 21 - Jan 19)  Earth.  Ruling planet Saturn.   Top

You are making some major adjustments this month, Capricorn, getting squared away on where you are ultimately headed. In the process you are finding out once again just who you really are, this time in the context of significant partnerships in your life. You have been exploring your boundAries lately, where your own resources can be differentiated from the legacies that relationship may bring, and it is important that you make a new start at this time. There are no wrong answers here, just varying degrees of future difficulty. Seek the pure bliss of inner connection first, and all else will follow, naturally.

As the month begins, you are leveraging a strong link to your public presence in the world to make necessary changes in where you are headed as an individual. Partnership with others in your life is an important component of your own transformation at this time.

With Mercury retrograding through your relationship sector until the 9th, you may be refining your ideas of what partnership with others means for you, and there may be a reoccurrence of an earlier relationship situation that provides further food for thought.

The Last Quarter Moon taking place on the morning of Saturday, July 7th, will fuel these fires with conflict and potential resolution. You may be tempted to regard the dilemma of satisfying all sides as an impossible one, but if you conscientiously seek a third way you will find it.

The New Moon that comes along the following weekend, taking place on Saturday, July 14th, brings renewed commitment to bear and provides fresh energy for partnership interaction. This may be a confusing time for you, when you are no longer sure of the ground that you are standing on, and yet also find yourself hard-pressed to declare an alternative. You are on the verge of a breakthrough to a different way of looking at your life circumstances, and patience is required to wait for the stream to clear.

This is a process that may take the rest of the summer, as the planet Venus, which rules relationships, turns retrograde and then back to direct motion over the course of the next few months. The retrograde takes place on the 27th, just as Mercury regains the ground it has lost since the middle of last month, so there is a long process of refining and distilling information that you are in the midst of, for the benefit of increased consciousness all around. You are rewarded by paying close attention to all your relationships and their fluctuations over this period of time.

The First Quarter Moon of the 21st may provide an additional moment of tension and an opportunity for further refining the vision of what you want and the realization of what is concretely realizable.

Aquarius   (Jan 20 - Feb 18)  Air.  Ruling planets Uranus, Saturn.   Top

There is a spiritual landslide in the works for you this month, Aquarius, but it may not come all at once. You are finding new value in service to others and in your day-to-day routine, worshiping the god of small steps forward. After the July 21st First Quarter Moon you may find that priorities have migrated in the direction of active relationship and shared participation and that by month's end some element of your dynamic with important partners in your life has shifted. The earlier foundation for these changes arrives quietly, almost without you being aware that anything very special is even going on.

As the month begins, you are setting your course for perspective changes that will prove to be a watershed moment for you. This month is about finding your true path forward along the way to your highest purpose for yourself, what you originally came into this lifetime to fulfill. Partnership with others is powerful for you right now, and leads you in some unexpected directions that will eventually pay off in terms of increased wholeness, although there may be some bumpiness to contend with along the way. As the month unfolds, nebulous feelings of insecurity will yield through a process of establishing greater accord with your spiritual mandate.

The crux of this newfound awareness may come at the time of the Last Quarter Moon, at the start of the first full weekend of the month, on Saturday morning July 7th. Then you will be confronted with some aspect of solid necessity that pushes you toward the shift that you were already making.

The New Moon of the following weekend, taking place on Saturday, July 14th, represents a fresh start in these matters, and provides a grounding influence. What you are attempting at this time is challenging, a paradoxical merger of heart and mind that defies logic, but takes a higher perspective into account that is capable of transcending the horns of the dilemma.

The First Quarter Moon that follows a week later, on Saturday evening, July 21st, traditionally represents a minor crisis in the achievement of the goals set forth in the rush of energy of the New Moon of the previous weekend. This is a testing time, when some aspect of the perspectives of others must be somehow integrated. This proceeds, perhaps with difficulty, or perhaps with relative ease, over of the final ten days of the month. Acceptance of your situation is the key. You are making what is essentially a trust fall into the arms of the universe; hinging backwards, eyes closed, arms raised, allowing nothing other than the beneficence of Spirit to provide for you.

Pisces   (Feb 19 - March 19)  Water. Ruling planets Neptune, Jupiter.   Top

You are coming around to new beginnings this month, Pisces, forging ahead into new territory. Although advancement has been slow lately it has been sure, and you are about to enjoy the benefits of sticking to your task. After a period of soul-searching, you enter a new phase about mid-month, both with your creative presentation to others and in your sense of self. Your voice becomes more your own. Your round-about progress trends upward on the mountain of your destiny as you complete another spiral turn in your intentional ascent.

As the month begins, you are very head-in-the-clouds, and yet potentially quite grounded as well, seeking a practical way to live day by day consistent with your high ideals. You are in some sense reinventing yourself over the course of this monthly timeframe.

You may encounter a few bumps in your road on the first full weekend of July, beginning on the morning of the 7th, since this corresponds to the Last Quarter Moon when traditionally a "crisis of consciousness" arises; that is, when the impulse that gave rise to new initiatives at the time of the New Moon from the middle of last month are seen more clearly as to whether they are viable or not. The increased awareness itself is your treasure, to store up for the next step forward.

Since Mercury is currently retrograde in your sector of self-expression, the first half of July represents a largely internal time, when journaling your realizations will bring rich rewards, and when the emphasis is on consciousness rather than concrete contribution.

This may shift with the New Moon of the following weekend, beginning on Saturday, July 14th, when the energy for change is once more very present in your life, and when your creativity is highly stimulated. Your capacity to relate to others is also strong at this time, and interactions with significant partners are likely to affect your process over the remainder of the month. This New Moon is a powerful one for you and will likely bring changes in your own attitude or in those of family members, and may be the start of an important new phase.

Mercury leaves its retrograde shadow on the 24th, which could represent a positive change in the weather for projects that you have initiated over the last few weeks.

Then Venus turns retrograde on the 27th, which is likely to indicate a shift in relationship emphasis for you. You are in some way thrown back on your own at this time, and may try to see your inter-dependence with others in a different light. Venus turns to direct motion on the weekend of September 8th and re-enters your relationship sector a month later, on October 8th, so that this entire three-month period will be an active one regarding the energy that you have for others.

Aires   Taurus   Gemini   Cancer   Leo   Virgo   Libra   Scorpio   Sagitt   Capric   Aquar   Pisces   Overview   Top

Overview of the Planets this month:                                Top

The Astrology of July features Mercury, Venus and Saturn - Neptune. The Mercury retrograde period that began last month is still with us, and continues well into July. Mercury turns direct on the 9th, but does not make up its lost Zodiacal ground, called its "retrograde shadow," until the 24th. This entire time period is great for reflection, journaling and looking inside ourselves rather than "out there" for answers. Then, on the 27th Venus retrogrades in Virgo, the sign of Mercury's rulership. When the inner planets retrograde they become more poignant and intensify their influence and also encourage us to take a reflective stance. Venus in Virgo corresponds to discrimination in matters of aesthetics and romance, and the Venus retrograde period is a time when we get to take a closer look at the deeper meaning of our important connections, and hopefully arrive at a better understanding of ourselves and others.

The July 14th Cancer New Moon emphasizes the Saturn – Neptune opposition, now fading but still potent, and is also the last day that a slowing Venus appears in Leo. At the very end of each sign, Venus lets us take a good snapshot of her energy there. Venus in Leo has the advantage of being very expressive and romantic. We shine a bit more with friends and family during this first half of the month, and we take them quite seriously also, since Venus is consorting with Saturn in this timeframe, beginning with their conjunction on the 1st. After the 14th, Venus gets crankier, and we may find that the energy we have for others has changed. The advantage in this case is in terms of discriminating awareness and greater purity of our intentions toward one another.

The Cancer New Moon squares the new planet Eris, goddess of Strife and Discord, and features a Mars-Chiron square, so that we might find ourselves talking a closer look also at our aggressive impulses in the mid-month timeframe, and at the way that we defend ourselves or struggle for dominance. The wound of self-assertion is likely to arise in some form, as we strive to identify the places where we feel afraid to put ourselves fully out there. We also might react over-zealously to perceived threats from others at this time.

As we face our relationships more closely in this monthly timeframe, we must also be aware of Saturn, prominent in the skies throughout these summer days. Saturn is difficult, slowing us down and making us pay strict attention to what we are about. But Saturn is also our friend, giving us hard-fought insights and long-lasting bonds. We may revitalize an important relationship in our lives during this period, and we may find that our partnership dynamic is slowed down, that we are thrust back upon ourselves in some way, and that we have to deal from the top of the deck with all our kin. Since Saturn is also at this time still opposing Neptune, we are enjoined to take a hard look at where our ideals might be getting us into trouble, especially in terms of relationship, and, contrary-wise, where we might be able to expand our horizons by incorporating more fully into our lives the spiritual ideals to which we internally aspire.

Current Configurations

The Last Quarter Moon of July 7th traditionally represents a "crisis of consciousness" regarding the impulse that was seeded at the time of the New Moon from June 14th and what elements of that impulse are viable for the future and what part must be abandoned. Either way, knowledge is gained, a most precious commodity and much needed in today's world. This configuration is accompanied by a separating Venus – Saturn conjunction that has been prominent since the very beginning of the month, indicating that our relationship energy is slowed for this first week of July, and that we are playing for keeps in this department of our lives.

Saturn and Venus have both been gloriously visible in the evening skies just after sunset. In the first days of July their conjunction was very close. Venus is bright in the sky right now because close to the Earth. Soon the Earth will swing past her, changing her apparent motion to retrograde. Venus enters Virgo the day after the mid-month New Moon.

The New Moon of the following weekend, taking place on July 14th, is another powerful lunation, and triggers the Saturn – Neptune opposition that is still close in orb, although now fading. Mercury is now direct, having stationed on July 9th. Saturn and Neptune represent in opposition a collision of forces that are irreconcilable, for stubborn practicality and real-world limitation on the one hand, and for wild-eyed idealism, even deception, on the other, but which must somehow be reconciled. This is the task to which we must set ourselves if we are to gain in our spiritual understanding, through embracing paradox to discover a third way.

This New Moon also closely squares Eris, the new planet that was only recently named last November for the goddess of Strife and Discord. There has been some evidence lately of this emerging archetype in the world situation. Mars almost exactly squares Chiron at this time, so that issues of self-assertion and even of violent struggle could be evident on this anniversary of the storming of the Bastille that initiated the French Revolution in 1789.

The First Quarter Moon of July 21st takes place in the last degree of Cancer and of Libra. This time represents a moment of tension in the progress of the energetic impulse that accompanies the New Moon. In the last degree of any sign, the qualities of that sign are given a "last chance" to shine, so we might find ourselves concerned at this time with both the nurturing qualities of Cancer and the relating qualities of Libra, or more closely examining the connections that we have with our fellow travelers of the earthly plane of existence. This is especially true since the ruler of Libra, Venus, is slowing down in the sky at this time.

A few days later, and just two days before the Full Moon, Venus turns to retrograde motion in Virgo on the 27th. Venus will eventually retrograde backwards into Leo, there to once more conjoin Saturn in early August. The entire Venus cycle takes several months; she makes her symbolic journey through the underground beginning August 12, which ends with her Heliacal Rise on August 24th or 25th as the Morning Star. Venus finally turns once more to direct motion on September 8th. It is not until October however, that she regains her lost Zodiacal longitude and re-enters Virgo for the second time. This entire period may be thought of as a Venus oriented time, when we will more than usually aware of the significant relationships in our lives.

The Leo – Aquarius Full Moon takes place at nearly the very end of the month, on July 29th, and represents the flowering of the impulse that arose at the time of the New Moon, and a chance to share the feeling and the manifestation of that process with others around us.


Text © Copyright 2007 AstroGraph
Used by permission
Web design ©Copyright 2007 Walter Zajac
www.psychicwalter.com

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