Lessons on Earth School: Astrology of 6/12 – 6/18

Consider an elder who watches on patiently and with trust as someone youthful moves through necessary challenges and developmental tests in order to claim their authority and power in this life.  These two characters are also simultaneously inside of us: the part of us who trusts in life and sees the bigger picture, as well as the part of us who moves through life and comes up against specific challenges.

If life were a school, the challenges we face in this experience here on Earth are for our learning and advancement. There is a definite optimism to the Sagittarius archetype, the sign we are experiencing a Full Moon in this week. Coming into greater light and awareness is our emotional connection to learning and to wisdom, and insight as to how we are learning through direct experience.

As our perceptions may be charged up with this kind of Sagittarius optimism, Mercury and Mars in Cancer will oppose Saturn this week, and are closely approaching exact oppositions to Pluto – but since Saturn is so close to Pluto already we can say the Mercury-Mars transits are activating Saturn and Pluto.

Those of you who regularly follow astrology may know that the combination of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn is heavyweight! We may be becoming more aware of unconscious shame (and transforming it), and we are being invited to take more accountability for our shadow and to consciously integrate instead of projecting our shadow onto others. No matter how evolved we are, we have the capacity to project. Additionally, the combination of Saturn and Pluto can be showing us where we have to let go of something ancient inside of us, nearly primordial, that isn’t relevant to this moment in time anymore, like deep grudges or conditioning based on traumas. Letting these things go can necessarily be a process! What if we’ve grown with these things at our side for all our life, even? We don’t have to keep lugging around this bag of bones of debris, but we may not know how to let it go or if it will be safe to. So what gives? We may need to invest time, space, and gentleness for unwinding these things, without having to be in a rush about it. We may need a safe space. We may need faith that letting go of things that have served their time will open space for new life, just as any organic matter goes through cycles of life and death. We may need to hold space for ourselves, when it comes to facilitating the deeper questions we are facing.

Mercury and Mars in Cancer bring balance (and perhaps an uncomfortable one) to the ongoing Saturn-Pluto picture – bringing emotional sensation to places that have been dry for long periods of time. Like when you finally have a big cry about something you’ve been stoic about for years. These emotional bursts can reveal to us how we have suppressed emotional needs or perhaps ways we have not felt safe to feel until now.

These Cancer-Capricorn oppositions can bring us in touch with growing pains, frustrations, and a call toward greater maturity. We can throw a tantrum because we’re frustrated, blaming all sorts of external circumstances for the way that we feel. But ultimately what will that really do for us? The challenge is about realizing what our own responsibility is in the situation and making choices that reflect that, in order to improve our situation.

This being said, a rise in heat of the emotions, or emotional frustration, is a step toward identifying where the lesson is, or what may need re-calibrating at this time. The ability to be compassionate and nonjudgmental toward ourselves while also taking responsibility for our feelings will go a long way this week!

When in doubt, remember the wise inner-voice in you that can see above it all. If these circumstances have been placed here to support your learning, what is the call to adventure? How would you depict your own circumstances if you trusted that all was working out for the best – why are you facing these challenges? What is it doing for you?

Welcome back! In case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’ve been writing these weekly astrology forecasts for nearly four years now. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the vibe may feel like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox, sign up for my mailing list here.

(Top image: Jacek Yerka)

Here’s our week:

June 13, 2019

Mars in 18 Cancer trine Neptune in 18 Pisces: 11:11 PM PDT

• In more insecure states, we may have a nebulous feeling that we are not being taken care of. It seems like reality itself (or various facets of reality we are focusing on) are not supporting us. This can be situations where we don’t feel like we belong or others are not taking our feelings into consideration.

• Spiritually, this can be a call to put the over-defensive ego to rest. If we always feel like we are fighting or at war in some way, we will participate with that archetype of reality, drawing it out everywhere we go. Yes, it appears on the outside, but it took two to tango. This is not to spiritually bypass or deny actual issues – but to shift out of defense and lack mentalities and open up to miracles in the situation.

• We are called to have the emotional courage to soothe the defensive parts of ourselves that are by default, at war. Soothe, not repress. Soothe, not shame. Soothe to heal. See what miracles appear.

• Where the feeling of not being cared for persists, we may experience opening by asking for help! Prayer is always powerful in this way, and we may also ask others.

June 14, 2019

Mars in 18 Cancer opposite Saturn retrograde in 18 Capricorn: 8:50 AM PDT

(Image: Daniel Masclet)

• Emotional turbulence or urgency that we may feel is in a direct relationship with the degree to which we have been austere, self-denying, or continually compartmentalizing. If there is an area of life that we have gotten a little crusty or dry, another part of us (or perhaps manifested in the field of relationship, and in the other) demands we feel again! This happens internally in the ways that we continually bargain to go without in some way, projecting a feeling state onto the future. “I just have to get through this. THEN I’ll feel ________ or open to _________ experience.”

• Putting energy into tending to connections in our lives, and/or actively engaging and expressing with our feelings, may provide new insight and balance in our lives in regards to any ongoing projects or structures we are working with. The work desk can feel overly oppressive if we never leave it, while a day at the beach might open up some insight on why we’re doing that work in the first place, and recalibrate our emotional connection to it. (Unless we’re really at a quitting place.)

• We may be negotiating our willpower at this time – reassessing if the ways we are committing to things (or not) is in balance.

• Emotional experiences of frustration can provide insight as we are open to infer what the invitation is (some kind of change? enough is enough? willpower? the ability to step around the issue and come back to the problem another day with a fresh perspective?)

June 16, 2019

Mercury in 18 Cancer trine Neptune in 18 Pisces: 4:43 AM PDT

• The duality between emotionality and rationality is often artificial. At extremes, emotions can hijack our consciousness – especially when we don’t know how to emotionally regulate. But emotions have a logic of their own. Intuition, for example, is an emotional faculty and a spiritual faculty. We feel the path and we learn how to trust and surrender. During this transit, some of the boundaries we have around when and how emotions can be logical may dissolve.

Mercury in 18 Cancer opposite Saturn retrograde in 18 Capricorn: 7:00 AM PDT

(Image: Edward Robert Hughes)

• We live in our patterns, and our patterns create us. Becoming aware of and shifting patterns is really what anyone on a personal development path is doing – they are taking responsibility for the way that they are constructing themselves day in and day out.

• Patterns we are currently involved in can reveal emotional effects at this time. Consider the causes to why you feel a certain way – not really in a blame kind of way but in a neutral, cause and effect kind of way. We can make constructive new choices based on the emotional feedback we are picking up.

• Practical information about emotional management can be in the field and in conversations – and it may also be something that people are more tight-lipped about if they are feeling repressed about it. Consider how someone like Brene Brown speaks to topics like shame, in such a way that is so relatable and opens up a conversation about the thing people are afraid to talk about. These conversations are like a deep sigh and release for many who privately felt these universal experiences, but somehow felt alone.

Jupiter retrograde in 18 Sagittarius square Neptune in 18 Pisces: 8:22 AM PDT

(Image: Josh E Wylie)

This transit was exact last on January 13, 2019, and after this conjunction today it will occur again September 21, 2019 when Jupiter is direct again and Neptune is retrograde.

• Spiritual expansion is in the air. A lot of people are having spiritual breakthroughs as they see past limited beliefs and experience miracles.

• There is a capacity to feel disillusioned if we are attached to belief systems that are dissolving – a degree of spiritual optimism is not only helpful, but wise. Jupiter and Neptune together are about things getting better – and limited dreams or limited beliefs are replaced with upgrades.

• A challenge at this time is about authenticity – if we are living in truth with our dreams. Dreams can actually be very core to who we are, not just extra fluff. So are we believing in ourselves? Are we confident? Are we pursuing the path and answering the call to adventure?

• Many of our conceptions of limitations are based on fear, not on genuine wisdom. Dissolving unnecessary fear is a huge point of liberation right now. Consider the bigger picture stories of your basic anxieties – so often we can see we’re worried about petty or ridiculous things. This is a key turning point in letting that existential pettiness go. 

• Another notable shift at this time is moving from a place of striving and seeking and into just being that which you dream of. It’s the difference from “I’m trying to…” to “I am” – the secret of alignment! There’s a way to do this without being inauthentic. It’s just closing the gap between the destination and your excuses. As a most accessible shift, think about the mind loops that are running everything you still desire and still need to accomplish in order to feel worthy or happy. Refocusing the mind to gratitude is a way to get in alignment with having already arrived, and from there things will simply shift. How present with the miracles of this moment can you get? See what you can accomplish or do when you’re IN the highest mindset and not perpetually feeling like you’re falling short of it.

• Spiritual education is of increased interest – a lot of people are having breakthroughs through reading or courses they are taking. Many are also having breakthroughs of becoming more intimate with their inner-knowing and inner-compass. (The two are not, of course, mutually exclusive – study and inner-knowing can each enhance the other.) If there is something you wish to know, or help or a wish you would like assistance with, see what asking in prayer or asking for some esoteric learning suggestions can do for you.

June 17, 2019

Full Moon in 25 Sagittarius: 1:31 AM PDT

The Moon is conjunct Jupiter, and the Full Moon axis squares Neptune in Pisces. This lunation highlights the Jupiter-Neptune square and brings it into even more personal context and awareness. The next two lunations will be eclipses, and we may already feel we are in that time warp that is Eclipse Season.

• Getting new perspectives and having new experiences, conversing with new people – any pleasant Gemini experience of novelty – can have an effect of opening up our trust in life and the bountiful possibilities that life can offer us. 

• We may notice that we are starting to make connections about meaning – perhaps coming up with a focus or direction or realizing that we’ve collected enough experiences to really have an opinion or teaching to offer based on those experiences.

• Emotional optimism results when we can grasp the bigger picture, a sense of understanding as to why things are happening in our life, what have been the lessons, the gifts, the bounty of it all. With this lunation in the midst of some dynamic and challenging Cancer-Capricorn oppositions this week, it may be like an inner sage who recognizes the value of learning through experiences. We may enjoy noticing our own growth and how the challenges we experience in life are opportunities for increased wisdom.

June 18, 2019

Saturn retrograde in 18 Capricorn sextile Neptune in 18 Pisces: 4:47 PM PDT

• Did you have a rough year or particularly rough experiences in 2016? That was when Saturn was in Sagittarius and squaring Neptune. I wrote a retrospective on it here.

• The Saturn-Neptune sextile is not so rough. In fact, it may bring up some plotline developments of what happened in 2016: redemption through hindsight and subsequent understanding.

• A challenge of this moment: are you willing to make changes to the structure of your consciousness or the structure of your life to accommodate your higher visions and your true potential? And are you willing to be transformed in the process (your visions might evolve with you)? Spiritual pragmatism and maturity (the ability to invest in your dreams and spiritual purpose in a realistic way and ground them into actuality) can be easier to develop at this time and will pay dividends into the future.

Mercury in 21 Cancer conjunct Mars in 21 Cancer: 9:04 AM PDT

• Though this probably isn’t news – take note feelings are not a debate, and expressing them does not have to be about making another person wrong or responsible or being wrong or responsible for another person’s feelings. That attitude will inspire defensiveness, and the encounter can feel counter-productive.

• There may be a degree to which we already feel shame about our own emotions (ones that are surfacing at the moment) or have worked to repress them, so that when we do voice them it seems like there is extra charge. Consider how you might process with honesty and compassion, still having conversations that need to occur but without projecting unnecessary fear or drama onto them.

• Transformations in emotional intelligence are in our midsts – these planets transiting Cancer and opposing Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn can be all about growing and leveling up through the emotional body.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!

Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are tribe to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have.

I’m also becoming increasingly expressive on instagram and love connecting with people there, so go find me there @sabrinamonarch and say hello! You may also know that I recently started a new podcast called The Magic of the Spheres, a show about spiritual lifestyle and personal evolution. You can find it where you listen to podcasts!

With love,

Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts, works with clients and teaches. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She is a novelist and is currently pursuing her masters in Philosophy. She also enjoys kundalini yoga, meditation and ashtanga yoga.