Summer Solstice June 20, 2:44 pm + New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer, June 20 , 11:42 pm PDT
By @asiko_artist
I haven’t posted in some time. As a dear and ever lovingly cynical friend asked me, “do you even do astrology anymore?” Of course I do. We are all challenged with giving words to this moment in our history. The conjunction of Covid and the radical worldwide shift in consciousness towards the long trajectory of Black stuggles appears a reckoning, the sturctural collapse astrologers could see was on the horizon for 2020 and yet not one that I am aware of forsaw the definitive cauldron of transformation we are witnessing and a part of. We are so forunate to live at this time riding the crest of a wave into humanity’s so uncertain future. This New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer occurs just hours after the Cancer solstice and within a week three planets change direction including the retrograde of Mercury and Neptune on June 17 and June 22 while Venus turns direct on June 24th. Mars too will begin it’s 6 month passage through Aries on June 27th and Jupiter makes its second of three conjunctions with Pluto on June 29. Astrologer Stephanie Austin elucidated for me that solstice comes from "the Latin words for sun and to stand still. For three days, the Sun appears to rise and set at the same place on the horizon.” To rise and to set at the same place on the horizon. To set and to rise at the same place. May we encounter this stillness. May we witness the way stillness and movement intersect and the birth of a world reimagined.
The Venus retrograde cycle has asked us to find new language to discriminate our experience, to put into words our hearts, to discover new consciousness in our relationships on the collective and personal scale. During the past weeks we have finally seen race become “okay” to talk about in popular culture and worldwide movements. Scholar and activist Angela Davis says in her interview with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, “And this is a moment I don’t know whether I ever expected to experience.” She describes that she has over the years often encouraged activists who didn’t feel that what they were doing was leading to tangible results that forging legacies that can be handed down to younger generations as most essential. “But I’ve often said one never knows when conditions may give rise to a conjecture such as the current one that rapildy shifts popular consciousness and suddenly allows us to move in the direction of radical change. If one does not engage in the ongoing work when such a moment arises, we cannot take advantage of the opportunities to change. And, of course, this moment will pass. The intensity of the current demonstrations cannot be sustained over time, but we will have to be ready to shift gears and adress these issues in different arenas, including, of course the electoral arena."
I am so moved by her comment that I find myslef co-opting it to refer to how we might collectively too refer to the radical change on personal and systemic levels across all fields. Whatever information that we are receving now, however we are coming to understand our role during this as piooneers and as people in relationship, lovers, sisters, brothers, daughters, employees, daughter in-law and so on. The Cancer New Moon reveals the delicacy of our hearts, it is time we listen. It is time we listen to ways the elegance of words have the power to both expose and evade experiential reality. Our most tender courage and brave compassion is here joined by the Sun still on the horizon. May we ceaselessly empower wisdom and a world without oppression or betrayal. May our friendshps bloom like honeysuckle flowers fragrant and sweet with exact beauty and suppleness.
Cancer is the wisdom of the heart, the need to connect and belong, to feel. Our survival depends on the opening to our personal and collective trauma so that we can make this planet, our only home, a more beautiful place when we leave it than when we arrived. In learning to trust the feminine and the sacred dimension of the interconnected dimension we inhabit we discover ourselves and realize a dimension of openness beyond our narcissism.
Whatever is unresolved for you now, the invitation is here, you don’t need to invite the past with you. It will rear it’s head when you need it, you can trust yourself that much. As the world turns may we resolve our minds to meet the challenges and energy of Mars’ 6 month passage in Aries. We will be called to be warriors with heart and intelligence. What will you stand for? The eclipse solstice is a reminder to bring the stillness of your being as your shield and source of wisdom.