Surrounding a Cancer New Moon solar eclipse this week, Mercury stations retrograde in Cancer and Neptune stations retrograde in Pisces. Cancer and Pisces are water signs, and the water element relates to our emotions. With two retrogrades and a New Moon occurring in water signs, we are likely in our feelings – and not just in our feelings but flooded, saturated, and washed-over – whether this is rapturously pleasurable or deeply challenging and overwhelming, or a rollercoaster of it all.
How freely do emotions tend to flow through your life? For most of us, we compartmentalize some things, some times – how else would we get anything done, or function, or conform (like not having outbursts in public, if you care about that kind of decorum)?
The interesting thing then about getting flooded in our feelings is that it has a way of eclipsing our plans, our concept of business-as-usual, our sense of being put-together in whatever ways we tend to be well-contained. This opens up a window for us to re-assess the little sacrifices that we make. Do we work too hard? Do we pretend that nothing is wrong in our relationships even when we are hurt? In what ways are we normally holding back the flood?
Sometimes, after the flood passes we go back to normal life — the flood could have, after all, been our basic fears and anxieties, the ones that come to haunt us when we’re tired, or irritated, or generally less buffered — but not the voice of reason. And yet, there are times that the emotions that flood us are harbingers of change. What’s interesting is that WE DON’T ALWAYS KNOW! This week is as good as any an opportunity to be okay with being uncertain, and perhaps even more importantly, to open to new information and new perceptions and resist the need to have a conclusion just because a conclusion feels good. This New Moon eclipse occurs on the North Node in Gemini – favoring curiosity and seeing ourselves and our lives from new perspectives. Give yourself as much spaciousness as you can to be with your process so fully, it changes from flood/overwhelm to medicine/epiphany on its own accord.
Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the vibe feels 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. This is also a great way to stay in the loop about special offerings and to be notified when Evolutionary Astrology Intensive opens up for enrollment!
I recently started sharing these forecasts to YouTube as well, though there is no video for this week – I’ll be back next time. You can subscribe here.
Here’s our week after a few announcements:
Kickstarter coming June 2020: June has begun the sixth year of writing these weekly forecasts and I’ll be asking for your support to crowdfund the year ahead. I’ll be offering astrology readings, discounted tuition to my Evolutionary Astrology course, and more. These forecasts have long been free and providing so much value to many people’s lives, and I truly need the support of you as my community to thrive. (Consider me like public radio!) I aim to keep sharing valuable free content for years to come and I ask for your help keeping Monarch Astrology around. This will be my first Kickstarter – please help me make it a success! The Kickstarter is coming later this month.
New episode of Magic of the Spheres! I had fellow astrologer and friend Bear Ryver on the show to philosophize about reincarnation. I really enjoyed this conversation and the sense of timelessness and reverie that it opened up – from discussing reincarnation, meeting people again in this life we’ve met before, spiritual transformations that emerge from romantic and erotic longing, dreaming – and astrology – these are definitely realms of conversation that can get us starry eyed. 😌✨
We traveled to some places so it’s a two part episode! Part one of this episode (this one) focuses on reincarnation through the lens of Venus and Mars, and catch us on Part two (coming out next) for our thoughts on reincarnation through the lens of the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Bear Ryver is an Intersectional Astrologer and Reiki Master, winner of the Organization for Professional Astrology’s Most Promising Astrologer Scholarship 2018. He offers private consultations internationally, including his signature Astrohealing Sessions, through his practice Psyche & Soul Astrology. With a background in anti-oppression activism and organizing, his astrological research integrates Mundane, Evolutionary, Modern, and Traditional schools of thought and explores the intersections of power, privilege, and politics as seen in the chart. His mission is to help his clients remain grounded and empowered while they accelerate their growth.
You can find out more about him and his readings at his website: http://psycheandsoulastrology.com
Tune into this episode where you listen to podcasts or on your browser here!
Here’s our week:
June 17, 2020
Mercury stations retrograde in 14 Cancer: 9:59 PM PDT
- We are more deeply internalizing what care and self-care are and how these can be put into praxis in our personal lives as well as how we structure communities. The conversation about defunding police in the United States and investing more in community services is one example of this happening at a collective level. Something that is particularly interesting about this conversation, in the context of Mercury retrograde’s re-thinking themes, is the question from some who systemically have not been on the receiving end of police brutality of “but who will protect us?” – and then going down the rabbit hole of are really uncovering and re-thinking what role police serve within the United States social matrix. Considering the copious amounts of money and social imagination (social imagination as in cultural norms, propaganda, cultural values, etc.) that have been invested into the US criminal system, versus what forms of community care could be created that serve, rather than brutalize people, is a collective *care* conversation as well as a justice one.
- Cancer is a water sign, and water is the realm of feeling and emotion. The acts of thinking and the acts of feeling are only as separate as we’ve believed them to be or have been culturally imprinted to believe. This retrograde season may reveal some of our dualisms or places we have separated reason/rationality with feeling. Unfortunately, an ethos or way of perceiving that privileges “objective” mind over subjective feeling is part of why collectively we are able to rationalize the lack or absence of care – why it is okay to swallow our emotions and just do our job, why it is okay to favor efficiency over empathy, and so on.
- If you wish to harmonize with, and build a relationship with this transit, consider the possibility that your conception of what “care” means in theory AND in practice may change for you this retrograde cycle. Something new could open up, and your awareness can be deepened. Do your own research or inquiry and pay attention to opportunities from your environment to expand your consciousness in this area. When we have a question or a curiosity in mind, we scan our reality differently (the mind looks for evidence) and the Universe is a generative, abundant place and it speaks to us in synchronicity. Good questions and genuine curiosity open the path, so think of what you’d like to know.
June 18, 2020
Mars in 24 Pisces sextile Pluto retrograde in 24 Capricorn: 4:08 PM PDT & Mars in 25 Pisces sextile Jupiter retrograde in 25 Capricorn on June 20 at 12:56 AM PDT
(Image: Mary, Comforter of the Afflicted II by Kehinde Wiley, 2016)
- The Pluto-Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn can be observed on Earth through the mass conversation around deconstructing and dismantling systemic cultural values. It is also the mass conversation of analyzing the historic roots of society, and where laws and cultural values have racist, sexist, and patriarchal roots. Pluto in Capricorn itself relates to the guilt and shame an individual soul may feel for existing within society – that in order to exist and belong in a society which is itself unjust or corrupt, a soul has conformed in some way, either perpetuating society’s abuses through action or complicity. Another possibility is resistance, as well as the possibility of organized or structured resistance, which is to say some form of social change that is highly strategic and in it for the long game.
- The invitation with the Pluto-Jupiter conjunction has been moral transformation. Pluto in Capricorn relates to systemic shadow, and Jupiter’s union with Pluto has brought up themes of exposure and amplifying perception (Jupiter expands what it touches). When unconscious dynamics within the individual psyche or the collective psyche become so blatant and apparent, it triggers a transformation. This is the power of depth insight, the quality of seeing what has been unseen. In some cases, insight is powerful enough and we are receptive enough to it that we choose to allow our lives and our identities to change. Other times, we retreat back into the cocoon of unseeing, which is a path toward crisis.
- Mars points to a conversation around courage, and Pisces is a water sign related to deep compassion and oceanic feeling. We can be flooded in Piscean experience with any type of emotion, from despair to ecstasy and anywhere in between or really any emotional tenor at all. One possibility for this alignment between Mars in Pisces and the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction is expanding our courage and willingness to be flooded – to feel the enormity of life in all of its range, its suffering and its bliss, and to experience inner-alchemy because of the permissioning to feel. And through these deeper or more expanded feelings, we may inevitably be inspired to shift how we participate with the external world, as well.
- Remember that compartmentalization is a very powerful tool that must be used wisely. Compartmentalization is the process by which we put something out of mind, like in a box, to revisit later. So if we are flooded by a difficult emotion but we have to do a thing, we can put the emotion away to deal with later. Certain high-pressure situations may call for this. Certain personal development practices may call for this. However, compartmentalization is what allows people to numb themselves to the harm they do to themselves and others while they do it. Compartmentalization is also what allows us to do difficult things or to stretch our own capacities. The places where we compartmentalize constantly and don’t unpack, and are backlogged, are also places that we are consistently avoiding confrontation. We avoid the question of “is there another way than this?” And we continue to soldier-on.
- Mars in Pisces brings us the courage to dream, and the courage to face the flash feelings of failure or shame that come from the realization that we have been doing something a way for years, and we only now realize it could be another way. It can sting! But it’s not too late. Having faith that we can change what we wish to change gives us the courage to face what are afraid to look at.
- For an example of positive compartmentalization, ritual or ceremony is an example. We may pass a threshold into the ritual container and leave behind our day, our worries, or thoughts, and get into an altered state. If we are wanting to engage in visionary process, compartmentalization is part of that. We take what is, or what appears to be, and put it aside for a moment to go somewhere else. Then we can weave and integrate these visions into our lives. Getting into visionary states can help us access novel or highly imaginative solutions to complex problems. But, staying in that visionary state and continuing to compartmentalize the world or the suffering of the world often translates to lack of empathy or what is often called spiritual bypassing. The issue isn’t the visionary state – it’s that it it isn’t connected and that it only exists in a bubble. Even spiritual people, using compartmentalization to stay high-vibe are potentially being rigid! There is a way to live an enchanted, magical life that has a deeper range of feeling and connectedness.
- With all of this, it is worth noting that having range – being able to feel the whole spectrum of life – isn’t easy, or perhaps we’d all be doing it by default! It’s a choice and a practice, and one that often requires courage and even discipline.
June 20, 2020
Sun enters Cancer: 2:43 PM PDT
- Cancer Season is all about feelings, and the joy that we can feel when we are with family and/or chosen family. We may like to engage in nostalgic pleasures – pastimes we’ve engaged in since we were young or that have positive memory associations. We are drawn toward connecting with home, whether that manifests as a literal home space we are connecting with and nesting into or an energetic, emotional, spiritual quality of home that follows us everywhere we go.
- We each have our own language of what Cancerian luxuries may be to us, and Mercury retrograde in Cancer may relate to an accelerated thought-process around identifying what restores, soothes, and nourishes us. Take some time to visualize and imagine a beautiful day, and see what you can do to manifest/create that vision. One image that comes to me personally is a collage of times I’ve been outdoors with people I love, on hikes and in fields of grass, where we had nowhere to be at any particular time and we were free to just bask and play and melt into the day.
- The Sun relates to generativity and creativity. Cancer has two sides I’d invite you to consider: the side that wants to be held and wants to receive care, and the side that wants to hold and give care. Both of these experiences can be creatively generated. If we wish to receive more care, we can certainly ask, and if our environment is not very amenable (for whatever reason), we end up with the responsibility of finding a better environment. People move or shift social circles, for example, to have more people in their geographical area or social life of like mind. But at an inner level, we may take the time to visualize how we would like to be treated and affirm to our nervous system that this is safe, okay, and that we are worthy of it. For generating more care and love in the world, this is a state of being, as well. Coming up with an idea that brings people together and facilitating it is one of many care-generating activities.
New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer: 11:41 PM PDT
(Image: Jean de La Fontaine)
This New Moon occurs just a degree away from the North Node in Gemini. Some thoughts:
- Gemini (where the North Node is) relates to the generation of novelty, of being able to perceive life from ever-new angles and vantage points – endless curiosity and endless discovery. This type of consciousness is extremely medicinal where we have become stagnant or rigid in our lives. Can you recall times where a conversation, a book, something you saw o social media, etc. changed your life?
- An old way of doing things or an old way of being may be comfortable in its familiarity, but the North Node in Gemini with a lunation here suggests we may be discovering new places of home that are found in explorations of newness, of entertaining perspectives we never have before or more deeply than ever before.
- This can be enjoyable and sweet if we are open if we are up for the adventure of newness. It is also possible that our sense of security feels threatened in times of change, and eclipses are definitely seasons of change and often accelerated change, at that.
- It may be a simple mindset shift that we can create for ourselves by encouraging ourselves to feel more curiosity and welcoming for new sensations when we feel aversion. This can even be utilized for old stories that have been circulating through your psyche and nervous system for years – memories of bad things that happened, and beliefs you formed about them and yourself. What would it mean to reimagine a raincloud that has been hanging over you for years? To free yourself from seeing it in that way, or to free yourself from endlessly processing it by shifting your attentions to new experiences? Different phases of healing call for different methods in our own time, but perhaps there are some places in your experience where you can surely identify that change is just what is needed.
June 22, 2020
Neptune stations retrograde in Pisces: 9:32 PM PDT
Planetary stations bring the archetype of that planet into focus – it is intensifying. In the context of this week’s transits and this Neptune station, here are some thoughts:
- We can feel flooded and open – there can be more spaciousness for compassion and love. We can also feel a lot more vulnerable.
- How often have you heard the identity as empath used in the same sentence to describe why life is hard or why someone is a victim? “I’m just such an empath… woe is me!” We need better skills and imagination for what it means to be a sensitive and feeling person, and how one can actually be empowered in that identity. Understandably, it is not always a lauded cultural image – the highly emotional person lost in the sea of their feelings. Yet many people who display high level of excellence are also deeply-feeling but they have learned how to work with the power of their emotions and channel them into their endeavors.
- This is not just something that people are born good at – there are practices, and work, that goes into being in touch with feeling and inspiration and channeling it versus being diffused and washed out by it. If we like to stick to nautical imagery for Neptune here, consider what anchors you have that empower you to have a greater bandwidth for emotion and inspiration. These anchors are your practices, your self-care, and your self-awareness that drives you to make decisions that are life-enhancing. These anchors are your connections and bonds with loved ones and community, and the ways you engage with others from a place of integrity within yourself. These anchors are how you treat your body and your physical environment. These anchors are the thoughts you choose to think day in and day out, and the attention you give to re-writing your disempowering beliefs. These anchors are so many things, but the point is we need them.
- Learning how to have deeper compassion and acceptance for ourselves as we navigate complex emotions, and investing energy to learn and practice skills that help us channel our energies may both be important this week and onward (as they are perennially valuable). Feelings of overwhelm may be moments to consider how we might pivot to bring more alignment and compassion into the situation at hand. And we may also, and ought to, relish in the moments of being flooded with highly energizing emotions like love and happiness. This is care, also.
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like further guidance, I do offer natal chart readings (book here) and have been increasingly focused on longer-term 1:1 work with my students and clients, in the form of mentorship – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to heal, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. If you’re interested in working together in that capacity, I am currently accepting new clients. Send me an email at sabrina@monarchastrology.com to start a conversation and set up a free consultation call.
Find me on Instagram @sabrinamonarch and Twitter @Sabrina_monarch, get on my mailing list to stay apprised of all upcoming offerings and events, and I’ll see you next week!
Enjoyed this forecast? I welcome and accept tips! I’m @SabrinaMonarch on Venmo and $SabrinaMonarch on CashApp.
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts, works with clients and teaches. She is a novelist and has a M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
(image of monarch butterflies coming out of envelope by @chthonicbacchae)
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