Celestial weather: 1 - 11 June 2023
After the hard and heavy, haywire energy of recent months, this week’s Full Moon in Sagittarius feels like a party, sweet friends. Ruled by the Greater Benefic Jupiter, planet of generosity, joviality, hospitality and adventure in the sensual temple of Venus, the Lesser Benefic, sign of earthly riches and natural beauty of the world, it’s a welcome moment to celebrate the blessings in our lives and the dreams we’re nurturing, and to feel invigorated and inspired by the possibilities for the future.
Mercury finally breaks free of its shadow
The Sun is well on its way through curious, playful, mutable, multi-faceted Gemini but there’s still a lot going on in Taurus this week, which influences our ambitions and aspirational trajectories. Mercury, the planet of mind, mercantile activity and all kinds of gadgetry, and the ruler of Gemini, FINALLY cleared its shadow at 16 Taurus on Thursday 1 June following a period of tech glitches up the wazoo. Hopefully, problematic digital, communication, mechanical and mental matters etc should hopefully begin resolving although minds and situations remain in a heightened state of electrical and emotional sensitivity over coming days and into next week.
On Friday 2 June, the fallen Moon in Scorpio opposes Mercury, potentially triggering intense subterranean feelings or revealing significant information previously undisclosed. It could help to illuminate a situation, bringing greater awareness of issues that build towards breakthroughs in thinking when Mercury conjoins Uranus, the planet of lightning insight, on Monday June 5.
Jupiter meets the amplifying North Node
On Friday 2 June (@ 10:42 am AEST) Jupiter fuses with the magnifying influence of the North Node, the point of intersection where Sun and Moon are eclipsed, which amplifies all things Jupitarian in the Taurus areas of our charts, placing emphasis on our values, the destinies we envision for ourselves and what we’re willing to commit to or invest in to expand towards them.
It’s worth tuning in this weekend to the messages and intuitions that surface as body wisdom in quiet moments of contemplation in nature and other peaceful Taurean contexts. They enhance the earthy power of Jupitarian fortune, wisdom, altruism and growth. Think daydreamy walks, gardening, reading, dancing, cooking, adventuring in the natural world, luxuriant stretching, making, imbibing eco-philosophy etc.
I’ve definitely been noticing an emphasis on the eco-philosophical this week. I’ve found myself listening again to the remarkable Sophie Strand whose sublimely poetic exploration of ecology and identity reminds us of the myriad mycelial, microbial connections on which our own fortune depends. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure, I recommend popping her name into the search field of your preferred podcast app and doing the Jupiter thing by intuitively picking an interview that resonates. She speaks on many of these Jupiter in Taurus themes with deep and embodied insight.
As does Gina Chick of course, our own freshly minted superstar, whose writing on her experience Alone in lutruwita is similarly luminous and inspires real joy in the sacredness of our terrestrial relations of interdependence and co-mingling. With Jupiter in Taurus the greatest rewards and abundance are generated when we aim our efforts towards the benefit all beings. The seeds of intention we plant in the rich soil of our lives are always nourished by other organisms.
Grand Water trine: Venus, Neptune and the Moon
On the morning of Saturday 3 June, Venus, the planet of love, value and beauty in Cancer trines Neptune, planet of transcendence and imagination in Pisces, as the fallen Moon in Scorpio trines them both at 27 degrees. This is fleeting but potently sensitive astrology, which offers a portal of intuitive opening and emotional depth, ideal for healing and honest, heart-centred conversations, art-making and therapeutic imagining. All three planets are in the bounds of Saturn, currently in Pisces, where melancholic vibes are well directed into creative disciplines of articulation and expression.
Speaking of which, I mentioned a while back that Saturn in Pisces has been associated with incredible peaks in musical and artistic production throughout history. An exasperated composer friend recently asked me what was up with that recently. Things have felt emotionally gruelling as opposed to artistically inspirational. I realised that I’d failed to emphasise that much of the artistic brilliance signified by Saturn in Pisces was inspired either by melancholic feeling, psychedelics or the straight-out sads. Think: Billie Holiday’s I Cried For You, the Beatles’ Sgt Peppers, Jimi Hendrix’ Are You Experienced, Jeff Buckley’s Grace, Nirvana’s Nevermind, REM’s Losing My Religion, Portishead’s Dummy for a tiny glimpse of the Saturnian vibe. So if you’ve got the feels going on this weekend, get them down on ‘paper’ and give your Venusian artistic expression some Saturnian form sweet friends. Holotropic breath work and/or other mind-altering strategies optional.
Full Moon 13 Sagittarius
Feeling, celebration and lightning insight
The Moon ripens into fullness on Sunday 4 June @ 1:41pm AEST just in time for a festive Sunday lunch, exhilarating hike, or early Sunday sesh with extra rounds and friends. The rulers of the Gemini Sun (Mercury) and Sagittarius Moon (Jupiter) are both in Taurus, the temple of Venus who’s making a mellifluous trine to Neptune, planet of glamour and dreamy visions as previously mentioned on this Full Moon. In modern astrology Neptune is considered the higher octave of Venus. It’s the planet of transcendent rather than earthly love. Both planets are in signs where Jupiter does particularly well, although they’re hidden from its view suggesting the potential for festivities and fun where conversations veer towards mystical, magical, meaningful philosophical depths - my personal faves - or where unexpected confusions complicate and enlarge emotional responses.
A Full Moon to celebrate the distance we’ve travelled, the adventures we’ve had along the way, the challenges we’ve overcome and what they’ve revealed to us about ourselves and what we’re here to do. It reminds us that we have what it takes to find our way to the next of our dreamed of destinations. And it supports self-belief and a lust for life that helps us forge a balance between the hard work necessary, the R&R needed and the creative outlook essential to generate good fortune and new potential from challenging conditions. With Mercury one degree from Uranus, we could be experiencing the electrical charge of paradigm-shifting ideas and conversations that radically re-alter mindsets and status quo.
Awakening to lightning insights:
Mercury meets Uranus
It’s taking place so early on Monday 5 June (@5:49am AEST) that the material of our dreams could provide pathways to insight and radical awakenings of the body-mind as Mercury fuses with the planet of revolution, Uranus. But it could come through any means. It’s the kind of shocking liberation of energy that come through suddenly jarring realisations and events, which instantly reroute energy into new directions. For deeper context, and a sense of the storyline seeking some kind of evolutionary continuation now, look to the period around 18 April 2022, for themes. Where were we then needing to wake up in our lives and thinking to radically reorient our energies in accordance with our true values? And where are we needing to do this now? Where are we practically, perhaps even stubbornly committed to ideas and beliefs that are out of step with the lives we actually want to lead?
These are powerful days to seek out new and unusual experiences, connect with different people and create space for unconventional, exciting ideas; to listen to radical, revolutionary, thinkers and break free from deadening mental routines and limiting patterns in order to try new things; and to risk the true weirdness necessary to honour our own strange, brave hearts.
The Goddess Venus enters the fiery heart of Leo
In the early hours of Tuesday 6 June, Venus, the goddess associated with the magnetic power of attraction, treads the ground broken by Mars on Sunday May 21 following the Taurus New Moon and immediately opposes Pluto at 0 Aquarius. As Venus comes into confrontation with the mysterious lord of death processes, power and the riches of transmutation, Pluto, we could receive a glimpse of the transformative context in which Venusian karma will be playing out when Venus retrogrades into the underworld of Leo from Sunday 23 July to Monday 4 September. This is a fairly big deal sweet friends. The Venus retrogradation through the childlike sign of heart-centred leonine creative expression is one of the most significant transits of the year.
From now until Monday October 9 the planet of love, peace, beauty, art, attraction and resources will be undergoing a powerful reset. Venus will first sweeten the Leo area of our charts before making a sharp turn in direction, which will provide the context for a major reworking in this area of our lives. More on this to come but it’s worth paying attention to the underworld messages. Again the Venus retrograde cycle in Leo provides a timeline of reference. Look to themes that were unfolding in 2015 and 2007, particularly in relation to aspirational trajectories, experiences attracted, reversals incurred, and the resets, re-training and outcomes that occurred.
In the meantime, we have much to look forward with Venus direct in Leo for the next couple of months. She’s magnetising glamorous, playful, expressive energy and artistic, heart-centred brilliance and leadership. She’s the goddess of good hair days and sensual, heartfelt, passionate self-expression.
Mercury enters Gemini as Pluto returns to Capricorn
On Sunday 11 June (@7:36pm AEST) the planet of destruction & rebirth returns to the critical degrees of Capricorn for its second last phase of demolition. It reactivates the area of our charts that was subject to Plutonic pressures in late March & prepares us for an evolutionary revision, which should be complete in its processes of transformation by November 2024. But for now we may still be in the decomposition/putrefaction/fermentation phase when things can be a little pungent.
Capricorn represents material, institutional, structural power dynamics traditionally associated with long-established hierarchies of financial power. Pluto will remain in Capricorn until 21 Jan 2024 before migrating back into Aquarius for another karmic preview of the quantum social & technological shifts that will be underway there over the next two decades. Aquarius represents the decentralisation of power through both social justice revolutions that empower marginalised and disempowered communities and radical intellectual and technological advancements. As an air sign ruled by Saturn - the planet of limits and natural laws and Uranus - the planet of what’s possible beyond them and of the shocking events and catastrophes that serve to liberate blocked and stagnant energy, Aquarius rules AI, alien intelligence, air quality, breathing issues and airborne diseases. It’s no surprise to me that in the final days of Pluto’s first reconnoitre into Aquarius, we’re witnessing a crisis of air quality caused by out of control fires in Canada whose dependence on fossil fuels is even greater than the US, and of course the air quality is most negatively impacting indigenous communities and poor frontline workers across Canada and the US.
Revelations & unravellings over the next six months focus our attention on issues of power & should reveal any lingering power dynamics of toxic entanglement, which are more than ready for composting & regeneration. And the less tightly we hold on to the things that the lord of death compels us to relinquish, the less painful those experiences are likely to be. At the same moment that Pluto re-enters Capricorn, the Moon merges with Neptune, planet of dreams & visions at 27 Pisces & sextiles Pluto just as Mercury, the planet of mind, trines it from 29 Taurus on the precipice of its rulership in Gemini. This is a pretty interesting ingress chart which bodes well for the Plutonic work ahead. Powerful insights, intuitions, news & messages facilitate processes of healing, transformative imaginal power & creative expression and help us to regenerate an area of our lives that has been rotting and from which the fruiting bodies of its decomposition are beginning to emerge. There’s a Roman mosaic of the dictum - Know Thyself - inscribed at the temple of prophecy at Delphi whose cheeky skeleton lying on a mattress of those words reminds us that it’s through these processes of psychological death & transformation that we come to know ourselves more deeply & discover our true power.
An hour after Pluto’s return to Capricorn at 8:26pm AEST, Mercury tips into Gemini, sign of curious, critical, divergent, perspectives & witty intelligence. It heightens our capacity to translate & make sense of the feelings, information & ideas that emerge with these Plutonic revelations & to appreciate their seriously funny side. Things should get busy and interesting. With both Mercury and the Sun in Gemini, our cognitive acuity, mental capacity, mercantile thinking and magician’s minds should be able to keep apace with our ambitions, which is something to look forward to. Mercury in Gemini is playful, carefree, trickster energy, which champions curiosity, comedy and changeability. Have fun with it lovelies.