The Final Eclipse of Our Summer 2011 Triple Eclipse Season: Cancer New Moon Solar Eclipse Within Cardinal Grand Cross Formation July 1

This is some Solar Return chart for good old Kanata.

Strap on your party hats. Hold onto your beer coolers. This birthday celebration is going to be one for the astrological record books.

The Cancer New Moon within Cardinal Grand Cross formation happens in the wee hours Friday morning (3:54 a.m. Central Daylight Time). This is Canada Day - Canada's officially recognized birthday - and the New Moon eclipse falls exactly conjunct the Sun-Uranus conjunction in Canada's confederation chart.

The version of Canada that came into existence that day in 1867 was only one version - the corporate, British-ruled one - but that seems to be the version that wreaks most of the havoc. At the same time as our debt-ridden neighbour to the South has its economic power checked and ultimately usurped (this eclipse falls just three degrees off a conjunction to the U.S. Cancer Sun and a few degrees from its Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer), this New Moon eclipse pushes that version of Canada into new prominence and into deeper roles on the world stage.

Coincidentally (not), British royal newlyweds Wills and Kate have chosen this weekend to make a stop in the nation's capital, Ottawa, for the first time in almost 15 years. Breathless subjects abound as this historic Canada Day New Moon eclipse ushers in a new strategic importance and image on the world stage for this country under a new generation of British control. A symbolic changing of the guard along the familial lines (Cancer) under this potent Dark of the Moon/New Moon energy.

There is also a tie-in with the 'far North' with this eclipse, as it will be visible only in a portion of the Antarctic Ocean, and we can expect intensified jockeying for position and control over the water and territory in Canada's North as an offshoot theme. This includes offshore oil drilling. Watch for various interests attempting to plant their flags, regardless of the interests of the people who already live there.

What follows is a re-post of my article from May 8 on the New Moon eclipse at 9 degrees Cancer and some of what it means for this country: Canada Day Cardinal Grand Cross Eclipse: Well, Golly Gee Whiz. Look Who's Fuelling the Global Nuclear Industry

The July 1 New Moon eclipse in Cancer amidst the Cardinal Grand Cross happens on Canada's birthday, and this nation is poised to take on new position and influence within the broader global agenda.

Uber Global Governor Stephen Harper is at the helm for the next four years with a brand, spanking new majority neo-conservative government (won with only 39% of the popular vote), and this global position is going to involve a whole lot of war activity. We see an aspect of this with the installation of Canadian General Charles Bouchard as head of the illegal NATO campaign against Libya. But that, friends, is just the tip of the depleted uranium-tipped iceberg.

Canada's benign, peacekeeper image, so strategically useful on the world stage, is in the process of being stripped bit-by-bit by a Pluto in Capricorn opposition to its Cancer Sun. Squared by transiting Uranus in Aries, the shocking extent of Canada's role within the global war machine emerges as the facade is stripped. The fundamental understanding of Canada's identity on the world stage - past, present and future - shifts rapidly and repeatedly over the next four years.

Canada Day Cardinal Grand Cross Eclipse: Well, Golly Gee Whiz. Look Who's Fuelling the Global Nuclear Industry

The July 1 New Moon eclipse in Cancer amidst the Cardinal Grand Cross happens on Canada's birthday, and this nation is poised to take on new position and influence within the broader global agenda.

Uber Global Governor Stephen Harper is at the helm for the next four years with a brand, spanking new majority neo-conservative government (won with only 39% of the popular vote), and this global position is going to involve a whole lot of war activity. We see an aspect of this with the installation of Canadian General Charles Bouchard as head of the illegal NATO campaign against Libya. But that, friends, is just the tip of the depleted uranium-tipped iceberg.

Canada's benign, peacekeeper image, so strategically useful on the world stage, is in the process of being stripped bit-by-bit by a Pluto in Capricorn opposition to its Cancer Sun. Squared by transiting Uranus in Aries, the shocking extent of Canada's role within the global war machine emerges as the facade is stripped. The fundamental understanding of Canada's identity on the world stage - past, present and future - shifts rapidly and repeatedly over the next four years.

With World War I already on the docket, the British North America Act was drawn up by the "Fathers of Confederation" (no sign of the Mothers) and signed May 8, 1867 as the Sun crossed Pluto in Taurus with Mercury, Neptune and Venus in Aries.

The Act came into effect and Canada "officially" became a nation July 1, 1867. This is Canada Day, the date used as the nation's official birthday - like July 4 Independence Day in the United States.

On July 1, 1867, as the union came into effect, the Sun and Uranus were conjunct in Cancer.

The Moon was in Balsamic phase, and as Canada's day of birth unfolded, the moon went dark in Cancer before a Cancer New Moon exactly conjunct Uranus. So Canada's date of official confederation was set to occur on the Cancer New Moon - echoed this Canada Day with the Cancer New Moon eclipse. (The recent federal election May 2 also utilized Dark of the Moon/New Moon energy - this time in Taurus to re-elect Taurus Sun Conservative leader Stephen Harper.)

The dark and shadowy side of Cancer, which I wrote about last summer during the Cancer/Capricorn eclipses, is woven into the foundation of this country. From the beginning, it was built on native genocide and forced assimilation and the exploitation of poor immigrant settlers who came to do back-breaking, life-snuffing labour because they had nowhere else to go after being forced from their own homelands in one way or another.

Let's just say those enjoying the spoils are dancing on some very deep graves.

Currently transiting Pluto in Capricorn is opposite Canada's Sun-Uranus conjunction in Cancer, making its first exact opposition January/February 2012 and its final pass November 2013. Transiting Pluto is also conjunct Canada's Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn, pushing to the surface dark and twisted elements generally kept quiet, including the role Canada has played and continues to play in furthering inhumane agendas on the world stage.

Post-Eclipse Emotional Backdrop Transformations and What the Crab Can No Longer Deny

We're on the other side of the third set of eclipses on the Cancer/Capricorn polarity, which began in the Summer of 2009, and our underlying foundational emotional realities have officially shifted. What it means to call this planet home (however temporarily we call it that) has shifted.

Previously held safe havens - both physical and emotional - have evaporated into thin air. Bulldozed unceremoniously. Razed to the ground or poisoned beyond the point of being habitable.

With the Sun in late Cancer, we can see quite clearly (for those who wish to look) that the complete transformation of the energy of that sign is deeply underway, acted upon relentlessly by the unearthing of stark collective realities from the other end of the spectrum and Pluto in Capricorn.

As a Scorpio stellium in the 4th house, life taught me up to now that no matter what hell scenes existed around me and no matter how tumultuous my emotional reactions to those scenes, there was a safe haven deep inside me that was always there. I was always connected to it and all I had to do was go inside to feel it, know it. To know that I was connected to something much bigger than this single life on this planet.

And then I was slipped poison by the Nazis at Big Pharma. They penetrated that safe haven and attacked right to the core, right to that safe place where I could previously calm and still myself. And that place was turned into a nightmarish hell zone, reflecting exactly what was and is going on externally all over this planet.

This scene, I think, is indicative of a broader process going on. As Pluto razes and (hopefully) resurrects our entire structural reality on this planet over the next decade-and-a-half, the opposite sign of Cancer is inextricably linked to that process and will come out of the Plutonic alchemical fires no less changed.

The crab can only retreat so far - its natural inclination. At the point that the external threat penetrates it's shell, it's home, it's body, it's self, it must take action. Cancer is a cardinal sign after all. But a security-clinging cardinal sign. A sign that must be poked and prodded into action in a lot of ways. A sign that seems to only take action when it is absolutely forced to.

And its lack of action up until this point has been fully complicit with the horrors being wrought by the corrupt power structures around this planet.

Socially privileged parents living in safe, little bubbles. Believing, falsely, that the very act of producing their precious offspring warrants them safety and security somehow above and beyond the other members of this planet.

Maintaining the false understanding that the soldiers, the police, the governments, the rules, the banks, the money are "keeping them and their's safe." Protecting the sanctity of these nuclear family bubbles. Feathering the nests. Their Cancerian shells.

Or maybe not truly believing that, but going along with it all the same.

Happy to paint pictures with the kids, make mud pies in the yard, to shut out any unpleasantness, to keep it "out there."

While soldiers are killing, irradiating, and destroying the families of people in other parts of the world. Keeping them safe. While soldiers themselves are being killed, irradiated, destroyed "keeping them safe."

While more than 1,000 peaceful demonstrators in Toronto are brutalized, strip searched, strangled, mocked, threatened, tossed into unmarked vans and illegally detained by police for hours on end. Cordoned off by police officers and then illegally forced to provide identification and have their bags searched in order to leave the area. Lied to by police and city officials about supposed new rules that allow these breaches of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The "protected" obediently train their eyes on agents provocateur on the payroll to break windows and stage violence and light purposefully abandoned police cars on fire. They snuggle in with the kiddies in front of the telly as martial law "keeps them safe." They watch United States Marine Corps helicopters flying over Canadian airspace and feel all warm and fuzzy that they're being taken care of on all fronts.

Separating themselves from the mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers peacefully protesting the murderous tyranny of the world governments.

Separating themselves from the mothers giving birth to children deformed from exposure to depleted uranium or Agent Orange or any number of chemical weapons. Even when it's mothers in their own country. That's them. This is us.

Driving SUVs to and from soccer practises, art lessons, play dates, all the while cluck clucking and tsk tsking about what's going on in the Gulf.

Filling swimming pools and watering lawns to outdo neighbours and golfing every Saturday. While three billion people don't have enough clean water to drink to keep themselves healthy. While Palestinians are slowly being tortured by thirst.

Doesn't matter what Daddy (or Mummy) does from 9 to 5 every day as long as there is money to support this (slowly rotting) dream. Mortgage scams, Ponzi schemes, poisonous oil regimes, toxic pharmaceuticals companies, crooked stock markets. Doesn't matter who the employer is as long as the income keeps streaming in. No questions asked. As long as they get their two days off per week in their little bubbles, it doesn't matter a good Goddamn what goes on the other five days.

So very separated, so very detached. That's them. This is us.

A false protection offered them on a silver platter through the destruction of the sanctity of browner, blacker, poorer families all around the world.

The false Cancerian world of precious pure white babies, birthday parties with bouncy castles, designer strollers filled with bored-looking toddlers.

We all know Johnson & Johnson as the baby corporation. What most people probably don't know is that it produces the most heinous and toxic fluoroquinolone antibiotic, Levaquin. This drug has destroyed the lives of thousands of people now struggling to recover from complete systemic poisoning.

And yet, the mothers on the advertisements keep smiling down on their lovely little tots, scrubbed clean with No More Tears shampoo and Head-to-Toe baby wash.

No one can scrub this shit clean.

Toxic rains are being reported in Ohio and Tennessee and Miami.

Our home has been penetrated. Our Earth. Our selves.

It seems to me we should have moved on long ago. To the new spaces that full awareness bring. But the clinging, the holding, the denial has stopped us from that.

There is only so far Cancerian denial can take us. We're at the Do Not Pass Go point.

The natural inclinations, the natural rhythms have been purposefully, poisonously disrupted. Weather patterns are being manipulated and so are the underlying energetic patterns related to being a natural human being.

To continue as if nothing is amiss at this point becomes more and more insane.

We see the fishermen of the Gulf coast trying to keep their life rhythms, the only rhythms they've ever known. The rhythms ingrained through generations. And the farmers attempt the same thing.

We see Gulf fishermen going out to sea now, allowing themselves to be employed by devils who have destroyed their ways of life. And they're getting sick. Just as the clean-up crews of the Exxon Valdez spill got sick. Many later died.

BP has denied the clean-up workers respirators or full protective gear as it would be bad for PR. Ha. Add this to their crimes against humanity, just as the conspirators and perpetrators of 9/11 can add the sickness and deaths of thousands of rescue workers who breathed in toxic dust in New York City to their list.

And then there is the long-term social deterioration. The divorces, bankruptcies, suicides. Just ask the people along Prince William Sound, Alaska. Twenty-one years later, they are still bearing the brunt of it.

The rhythms are rapidly, unnaturally changing, and we must be aware of the full extent of it.

There's a deep primal knowledge trying to surface. We have to dig way down to find it. It's the thinnest of threads at this point, dragging us out of the muck but only if we hang on for dear life and follow its lead to a tee.

Accepting this mess is not easy - especially for those who have worked their entire lives to try to head this off. We didn't. We couldn't. And now we have to remember Plan B. We have to remember why we agreed to be here for this, what our end of the deal is. And complete it.

Cardinal T-Square Summer 2010: Things Are On the Move

The Sun, newly in Cancer, brings us fully into the cardinal t-square involving the Sun in Cancer opposite Pluto in Capricorn, both squaring Jupiter and Uranus, conjunct in early Aries.

We head now to the Full Moon Capricorn eclipse exactly conjunct Pluto Rx at 4 Cap on June 26.

Things are moving - both in devastating ways and in wholeheartedly exciting, "deliver us" kinds of ways.

Deliver us - from evil, from corruption and greed, from illegitimacy and control, from dirty tricks and falsity, from the forces and people who are attempting to steal our health, our well-being and all that we hold dear on this planet.

Deliver us - beyond reinforced structural toxicity. Beyond follow-the-leader pyramid-scheme hierarchies and illusory experiences based in mass, collectively-reinforced psychosis.

Deliver us - into a world where the power of our love and our raw individuality, connected to God, our source, the loving creation force, is the vital, motivating force. The only real force. Where we know God's will, and it's our will, and we do right by it. We commit. Where we are no longer artificially separated into "the lucky ones" and "the sacrificed." Where we are free to apply our genius to solve the grand-scale problems we face here, rather than being milked and used to further damage and dismantle life on this planet.

There's a force rising here.

As those who would destroy us along with this beautiful planet and all its creatures stir and harness their dirty, corrupted energies, the loving and the righteous is there in lock-step.

And that's us. Don't you forget it.

We have the power to edge this here, but it's going to take all the courage we have, both individually and together. We have to give it all we've got - all we've got left. And we have to go all in, as terrifying as that can be. Give all the love in our breaking hearts to the vital current moment.

And my heart's breaking. I can't deny it. The loss of personal health is devastating. The loss of health of family and friends is devastating. The deaths and the senseless destruction. Knowing what's coming, what people are going to be facing, is devastating, too.

The Plutonic razing of all illusion and delusion. Laying bare stark reality and then saying, OK. There you go. That's where you are. Now find the love and follow it. Bring it through you, despite your fear, despite the pain. And know that you're OK on the other side of this, no matter what happens. Even when things aren't OK. Even when they haven't seen the light of OK in months or years.

What's going on in the Gulf is far worse than people are being told. They've breached deep within our Earth, puncturing 30,000 feet beneath the ocean floor. They have created fissures - not a single leak. Many leaks in a destabilized ocean floor that they are now further destabilizing by drilling "relief wells." The pressure coming up from that puncture is so great that human beings do not currently have the technology to stop it - even if the forces in control wanted to stop it. They don't.

The workers on the Transocean knew a disaster was about to happen. They warned about it. The toolpush, Jason Anderson, argued with his "higher ups" the morning of the explosion about the recklessness going on. He's the man who was so worried about BP's lack of safety standards and corner cutting that he got his affairs in order and wrote his will the last time he was home with his family. He was one of the 11 killed in the explosion.

Over one million gallons of Corexit chemical dispersant have been dumped in the Gulf water, against the orders of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This is now in our water, evaporating into our air.

The name Corexit is no coincidence. Corexit is a neurotoxin being applied to the gaping wound within the Earth. Attacking the core energy. The central nervous system.

There has been a systemic attack going on here for decades now, and it has trickled down, morphed, spread. Anyone can see clearly now that there is no real separation into "the lucky ones" and "the sacrificed." There is no situation where certain races or money-holders or spiritual lineages get off scot-free from the systemic poisoning of our systems - not if you're a biological human being.

And really, we know that. That's core spiritual knowledge that runs through all human beings - all who have not been artifically separated from the working connection to their souls and inherent spirituality. We know our connection. Our interdependence.

This is not grandscale karmic comeuppance here "teaching us a lesson," as people are being fed in New Age circles. We have not "allowed" this to happen - playing on guilty consciences. Those aspects are tiny parts of the true situation that are being latched onto and manipulated, as New Age does.

We've been attacked. And when you attack the central nervous system, the systems start to fight themselves, attack themselves. Scorpio tricked into turning its poisonous tail on itself.

The Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) that will be used against protesters at the G20 Summit this weekend in Toronto, Ontario are sound/energy weapons that also disrupt and damage the central nervous system. Coincidence? Not one little bit.

In Chiron in Piscean fashion, at the very end of the astrological Piscean era, we are having our inter-related energetic nature used against us by forces that seem to believe (whether true) that they will remain beyond it, unaffected.

The Sun in Cancer (home) is squaring Jupiter conjunct Uranus in Aries (soldiers), and we're heading to Canada Day July 1 and the Fourth of July in the United States. Independence Day. Ahem. Sandwiched between the Full Moon lunar eclipse in Capricorn (June 26) and the New Moon solar eclipse in Cancer (July 11).

Home. Warmth. Family. Children. Protection. A safe little nest. All we hold dear.

Squaring war, fighting, soldiers, bare survival, gutteral instincts, Fourth Reich, hell on Earth.

For decades (centuries) now, soldiers have been being used as guinea pigs, subjected to the most heinous of energy and chemical weapons, radiation and experimental vaccinations.

They have been exposed to radioactive dust from depleted uranium munitions designed to penetrate tanks in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Not to mention the radioactive hell left behind for the citizens.)

Soldiers sent to the Middle East during the second Gulf War were dosed with a number of vaccines, one of which is an anthrax vaccination. They were also dosed with the fluoroquinolone antibiotic Cipro - made by Nazi pharmaceuticals corporation Bayer - which was initially developed to ward off anthrax.

So these men, the fittest and strongest, have been assaulted in a multi-layered attack. And I know from my experience with Cipro that they are in a living hell right now.

Over one million soldiers are suffering, many horribly, from Gulf War illness and cannot get assistance from their government. At the same time, many doctors along with the U.S. government are working hard to reinforce the idea that Gulf War illness does not exist. Much the same as how mainstream doctors refuse to admit horrific adverse reactions to fluoroquinolones are possible and keep prescribing them irresponsibly, as a first-line antibiotic.

Forty-two percent of veterans of the second Gulf War are sick. That's over 400,000 men from the second war alone. Fifty-eight percent of those are young men between the ages of 18 and 29. Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, neurological problems, Guillain-Barre syndrome, Lou Gehrig's (ALS), multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, lupus.

I can't express the helplessness of having your nervous system attacked and poisoned. The crushing nature of it. The vulnerability.

When does this become not OK? Where is the real catalyzing point? Dear God, we've been working for it...

Vietnam couldn't do it - not in a sustained way. Drugs and hedonistic sex and the introduction of cool, new consumer toys became the escape hatch then, just as ascension and 5th dimension and New Earth and UFOs taking us away from it all are now.

Agent Orange poisoning, napalm, babies born deformed. Now the babies of the Gulf soldiers are being born with related birth defects. The Cancerian home has been penetrated. Who protects the soldiers when they can no longer protect themselves from their own government?

And I see the reports of what has been unleashed in the Gulf - the neurotoxin Corexit, benzene, hydrogen sulfide, methane, possibly even radioactive elements coming from near the core of the Earth. I see reports of people getting sick already. Dead sea animals floating on the surface. Our sweet, sweet sea creatures.

And I wonder if we are going to be able to come together here. That's what's necessary. But the pull of "the lucky" versus "the sacrificed" is so strong here. No one wants to be sacrificed. We all want to be winners.

And that will be manipulated.

Will all that is so hard to face and accept, the people living it, be rejected, marginalized, separated off, as has been done? Or do we get it together now? Does the love fill the cracks and bring us back together as a whole? Do we go beyond our manufactured, segmented, single-serving lives?

I could cry and scream and rage for a thousand years, and it would not express it. There is no energy left for that. Uranus and Jupiter are in Aries, urging us forward. Gotta move. Gotta go. Gotta survive. Just get through it.

After a summer of cracking into the Aries themes, we're back in tail-end Pisces territory with retrogrades. Uranus goes retrograde very soon - July 5 - and Jupiter July 23.

We're riding some unbelievably emotional dips and peaks here. But they're smoothing out, even in the midst of the hell-scenarios. There's a calm centre we can hold, even a buoyance I've experienced lately, that we can share with each other even while we're horrified by what's going on around us. Surfing.

We've been prepared emotionally here by the series of eclipses on the Cancer-Capricorn polarity. Last summer was the raw, initial tear. The rip out of any kind of linear regularity or feeling of place. We were giving up our Cancerian versions of home in light of the propulsion into Aquarian times.

December/January's eclipses coincided with the Haiti earthquake with between 200,000 and 500,000 people dying. More shock and awe. Stirring the tortured soul energy of the Arawak-Taino people, slaughtered en masse by Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) in his search for the New World.

And now we are within range of the third set of eclipses on the Cancer-Capricorn polarity. We're hardened a bit now. Weary. And when you're so very weary, all you can do is let your soul take the lead. That's what we do now. We make every day count. We say the things we want to say to the people who mean something to us. We make things right and keep things right in our lives, with each other and with God.

Third set of Cancer-Capricorn eclipses. Fifth and final Saturn-Uranus opposition July 26. Third and final Saturn in Libra square to Pluto in Capricorn August 20.

Big cycles completing. Something bigger than we can imagine emerging. Keep going.

Willow's July 2008 Astro Perspective

Last month pretty much kicked my ass, and I’m in the midst of moving the store where I work to a new home - very fitting for this month! - so this month’s update is going to be quick and dirty. Err…compared to my usual length, anyway.

I see a lot of themes that started last month continuing this month and a lot of sometimes tricky adjustment aspects (called inconjunct or quincunx) involving connections/clashes of the past and the future.

But first off, we start the month with Canada Day. It’s our country’s birthday and very fitting that we are in the Cancer Sun part of the year.

Cancer relates to home, roots, our early lives, memories, family and emotional security - what we hold near and dear. In Cancer, we’re asked to deal successfully with our inner lives, our pasts, our souls and our soul families. Emotion and family - trickier parts of life than we like to let on a lot of the time. Ruled by the moon, Cancer is reflective, ephemeral and soft and snuggly at the centre. A mother’s lullaby, a comfy bed with fresh sheets, a home-cooked meal and loved ones gathered around the table, the family photo album. Comfort and contentedness. Our inner selves come to the forefront here, and we can understand emotion intuitively, without having to speak. In Cancer, we understand the importance of how we feel…and of how the people around us feel. We feel the importance of home, family, where we come from. At this time of year in the northern hemisphere, patriotism and the love of our country (home) comes up. Family BBQs, family reunions, kids graduating from high school, getting ready to leave the nest. Teary-eyed parents who want to hold on but know they can’t. The misty, bittersweetness of knowing a chapter of this sweet, terrible, beautiful life has closed, never to be relived again, with only memories and a few snapshots remaining. Feelings of loss. Understanding the march of time but not wanting it to end JUST yet. But also being happy for new chapters, new homes, new emotional anchors in our lives. Resolving our emotions about the past so that we do not carry them forward with us as baggage.

And as with the moon, which regulates the tides, there is a constant ebb and flow that must be attuned to, a constant cycle of changing emotions that can be very challenging at times.

Symbolized by the Crab, there is a harsher side to Cancer, as well. Cancer energy is very attached to its roots, its family, ancestors, where it comes from. It has some fear of change and of the unknown, and it will try grasping onto things when it feels them start to slide away. And man, those pinchers can grasp! They can also be viciously hurtful when they’re out to protect someone or something they love. Think of a mother bear protecting her cubs from a potential threat. A mother ANYTHING protecting its young. There is nothing rational about it. Just pure rage that anyone or anything would even dream of harming her nearest and dearest. The threat can be real or imagined. That’s one of the problems with Cancer. When it’s operating out of fear, it can work itself up into a completely irrational and damaging fit of emotional rage. In that state, everything is taken as a threat. Cancer can make its own emotions the ONLY guiding force. And it can use its own emotions to justify almost any behaviour. It can move into the “unfair” territory, treating other people badly and selfishly with no other explanation than, “I was in a bad mood” or “I felt…”. These are some of the cautions to keep in mind this month, as the future and the fresh Aquarian air can become the things Cancer fearfully takes as a threat to its cherished familiarity. Some other things to be aware of: detrimental emotional withdrawal from those situations or people you “just can’t deal with,” avoidance, emotionally shutting down, leaving other people holding the bag, clinging to the past, tribalism and staying cemented into older family structures, dealing with life in ways that were conditioned into you from childhood or teen years, living out old cycles and using other people as props for these scenarios, refusing to mature emotionally, controlling other people with emotional over-reactions, acting ineffectively out of irrational fear.

The pain of saying goodbye is something Cancer doesn’t want to experience and therefore, can fearfully spend time avoiding. But with inconjunts of the Moon, Venus, Sun and Mercury in Cancer to the North Node, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius this month, the call of the future is making those goodbyes necessary. We’re on the move. New homes, new families, new paradigms in many different respects. New emotional territory in our lives and collectively as a planet. But all in good time, when we’ve emotionally come to terms with the changes we’re taking on. The shift the planet is currently going through (on an ongoing basis) is huge. It’s bringing new consciousness at a very accelerated pace, which can be scary. I’ve heard it said that Cancer energy is highly persuasive and usually gets its way by slowly breaking something down with wave after wave of emotional persuasion. I think this is sort of the vibe of this month. Inconjunct after inconjunct, with many small adjustments taking us into new territory, not one huge leap that could leave us feeling rootless and adrift. But tackling one emotional adjustment at a time until we finally look back and can’t believe the territory we’ve covered and how far we’ve come.

The inconjunct aspect is an adjusting aspect between two very different energies. Each sign will have to adjust in its way of operating for the sake of getting the job done for the benefit of both. We will feel the energy of these inconjuncts all month. Pretty much constant adjusting, constant allowing or disallowing, some exasperation and hopefully, by the end of the month, a harmonious and productive connection between past and future that both energies can be happy with.

Here’s how the inconjunct action breaks down, for anyone into the specifics:

July 2 - New Moon in Cancer (Sun conjunct Moon at 11 degrees Cancer) - new Cancerian cycle, new emotional territory in our lives
July 3 - Moon in Cancer inconjuncts the North Node, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius
July 3- Venus inconjunct North Node
July 4 - Venus inconjunct Chiron
July 7 - Venus inconjunct Neptune
July 10 - Sun inconjunct North Node
July 11 - Sun inconjunct Chiron
July 15 - Sun inconjunct Neptune
July 18 - Full Moon (Sun in Cancer opposite Moon in Capricorn at 26 degrees) Bringing to a head those home - work, private - public polarity issues that we’ve been dealing with - which Pluto will be transforming once it re-enters Capricorn in November.
July 20 - Mercury inconjunct North Node
July 21 - Mercury inconjunct Chiron
July 23 - Mercury inconjunct Neptune

So you can see that the New Moon followed by the Moon inconjuncting all the Aquarius energy throughout July 3 allows us to internally make the necessary adjustments between past and future before they show up in our outer lives. We’re working hard to allow for the emotional detachment necessary for moving things forward while staying connected to our roots and pasts and to the emotion of being human, in general.

Aquarius (air sign) energy has a tendency to cool, scientific detachment, something that can be quite abhorrent to the sweet, sentimental side of Cancer. And yet Cancer has a tendency to hold on too long, to hide from the challenges of moving on and to cling emotionally to people, places and ways of doing things that have had their day. So these energies can definitely learn from each other. In order to be fully successful in an Aquarian shift in consciousness, we have to understand and honour our roots while using their knowledge and wisdom. Past, present and future is a continuum, one that has to be kept in harmony. There can be no disconnect from our past or we will be rudderless and ineffective. For a tree's branches to reach high up in the sky, its roots must be strong and healthy, holding it to its place of origin. However, we cannot cling to situations that are way past their prime out of fear. We have to emotionally grow up, accept that things are changing and move on - something Aquarius energy can help with.

With Chiron involved, the themes, like last month, have to do with our painful pasts. The ways we have been emotionally wounded in our early years of life, especially within our family structures. Conditioning that has to fall away and elimination of emotional reactions that have more to do with the past than the present or future. Wounds to the feminine, but also ways that the mothering energy of the world has to evolve, eliminating excuses, co-dependence and “happy, happy bubble” type thinking. A big issue for Cancer (and mothering energy) as it transitions from Pisces to Aquarius is the elimination of denial, especially denial of the darker, more unpleasant aspects of life or even just of those aspects that aren’t personally palatable. Cancer and Pisces both have a tendency to “if I don’t look at it, it doesn’t exist”-type thinking when faced with challenging facts or ideas. But this is not going to be successful at this time. The crab might believe it is safe hiding in its shell from the dangers of the outside world, but in reality, refusing to look at potential threats is what makes it vulnerable to the outside. Staying aware of what is going on around it and facing fears instead of avoiding them also discharges a lot of the power of fear. The imagination generally makes things much scarier than they actually are. With Neptune in Aquarius involved and all the Aquarius planets being ruled by a just-turned-retrograde Uranus in Pisces, this month has very much to do with eliminating bad emotional habits for the sake of moving forward. This month, the crab will be forced to poke its head out of the shell to keep its eye on where we’re heading.

In addition to all those inconjuncts, there are yet more to be dealt with! Soon after the inconjuncts to Aquarius, the planets in Cancer inconjunct Pluto at the 29th degree of Sagittarius. Yet more adjustment. How changing beliefs and expanded understanding can rock the more tradition, home and hearth-loving Cancer - forcing it out of its comfort zone, out of its shell. But at the same time, how no matter how far one goes, how many countries one visits, there can still be a longing for home, for the place where one belongs. And all the philosophical meandering in the world can’t change the desire to be safe and cared for. The big ideas don’t necessarily change the fundamental emotional basics, but you can’t bury your head in the crab shell and avoid expanding your outlook, either. These are some of the themes of those adjustment aspects…again, sprinkled throughout the month.

Mercury is in Gemini at the beginning of the month, still retracing its steps since its powerful retrograde in June. Mercury enters new territory July 4 at 22 degrees Gemini. It then opposes Pluto in Sagittarius at the 29th degree of both signs July 10 before conjuncting the Sun, bringing all the information from the retrograde to our conscious moment. This is the point when we can finally wrap our heads around the Venus and Sun oppositions to Pluto in Sagittarius last month and the uber intense Full Moon and subsequent days. Soon after the opposition to Pluto, Mercury enters Cancer for a quick trip through the sign, as we come up to speed on all the emotional progress that has occurred since then. Mercury’s transit through Cancer ends July 26 when it enters Leo.

Mars enters Virgo July 1, and we turn our energy toward working the details and perfecting function, along with more streamlining of our goals, our egos, our tempers, our use of will. This is not as simple as it sounds. Mars will conjunct Saturn in Virgo July 10, which can show up as a feeling of constriction, restriction and physical heaviness. Difficulty doing what we want to do, even the basics.

Saturn in Virgo is still ruling retrograding Jupiter in Capricorn, adding another layer of perspective. Jupiter is currently going back over the expansion of our careers and public standing/status we’ve achieved since December 2007. So this Virgo work is instrumental in our development there. The level to which we can refine, streamline and master ourselves will determine how far along we get and how close we come to achieving our career ambitions. To achieve the status and recognition we desire, we have to go over ourselves with a fine-toothed comb.

We have three planets heading into Leo later in the month - Venus on July 12, the Sun on July 22 and Mercury on July 26. The introspection of Cancer lets up a little here, as we turn to outward expression.

After the emotional adjusting and processing from earlier in the month, hopefully now we’re secure that our roots are still there, as they always will be. Our loved ones are in our hearts, as they always are. And that we carry the love of our families and homes with us to strengthen us and bolster our courage as we show the world who we are and shine as the stars that we are (Leo).

Venus in Leo opposes the North Node, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius in the last week of the month (July 27 - 31), reinforcing these themes. Enjoying being in the moment while keeping an eye on what’s to come. We’re performing in the first act of a new play, one where we don’t know what’s coming next. All we know is that our performances today are setting the stage for big things. A little confusing, a little surreal, with only our hearts and the visions of our mind’s eye to guide us.