When I look at the transits occurring this week, it feels… vulnerable. Chiron (an asteroid related to wounding and healing) stations retrograde and is aspected by Venus and Mars, and the Sun in sensitive Cancer opposes the heavy, grave, lineup of Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn.
Watch this forecast on YouTube, or continue reading the written version below.
Crisis is a liminal state – stability is shaken up, and the pieces of a new order are yet to fall into place. Our minds can run off with our fears, or we may try to distract ourselves. Alternatively, in the eye of the storm (the trigger, the wound, the fear) there is often an opening.
This opening is a portal between earth and heaven, or concrete circumstance and immaterial spirit, or present reality and infinite possibility. These dualities are not necessarily opposites and I don’t mean to imply them as such, but bear with me. Whenever we are in particularly liminal states (in life transitions, facing unknown outcomes, etc.) we have an opportunity to make contact with something beyond. We often do turn towards spirituality when we are anxious or under duress. By “beyond” here, I mean tapping into a new relationship with prayer or faith, or receiving a vision, connecting with a liberating healing modality, or having a paradigm shift.
So whatever is up for you personally – the places in your life you feel insecure, stability in your life that has been interrupted, or fears that run through your mind – I invite you to tune into the ways that this is a healing process. How would you tell your own story if life were happening for you, and not to you? How would you define the ways you are becoming or self-inventing at this time? Is there a narrative that brings empowerment and encouragement to you, and can you choose to live by it?
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.
Here’s our week, after a few announcements:
Kickstarter to fund the year ahead of astrology forecasts and Magic of the Spheres podcast episodes: June marked the beginning of the sixth year of writing these weekly forecasts and I’m asking for your support to crowdfund the year ahead. I’m 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. Please help me reach my goal of having 200 backers – we’re at 60 at the time of publishing this forecast! The campaign lasts till July 30. Back the campaign here.
I’m really excited to share this course in part because I literally don’t think there is anything else out there like it! It’s a psychological, intutive, mystical exploration on the process of cultivating an online presence. This includes moving away from the narrative of the internet as a place of soul-depleting scrolling and moving toward an imagination of the internet as a place of magic, opportunity, and connection — and then actually embodying that more enriching perspective in how one participates with the collective airwaves.
This course also explores the inner-psychological, often hidden/private, processes that go into the cultivation of an online life or a public presence. The resistances and anxieties that come along with this are archetypal and human, and very much part of the path.
I hope that this course unlocks catalytic insights that makes way for businesses, friendships, colleague relationships that are now just awaiting in the wings. Enrollment is open through the Kickstarter at its lowest ever price.
Learn Evolutionary Astrology with me in August! The next run of the Evolutionary Astrology intensive begins this August. Note you can enroll at a discount through the Kickstarter! This is a transformational course with glowing alumni feedback – learn more about the program and read reviews on the course page here.
This course is all levels. Have that click where you *get* astrology and can begin to form your own interpretations, or profoundly deepen your existing awareness. Learn how to read charts as a whole from the perspective of reincarnation – what past life themes have you brought into this lifetime that you are still working with? What is your purpose in this lifetime, and what helps you to evolve? Gain a personal mythos and a soulful context for a deeper understanding of any area of your life – and learn wisdom teachings of depth astrology that you can engage to empower your soul’s potentials.
Having a personal understanding of astrology is LIFE-CHANGING.
If you’re considering this course and have any questions, start a conversation with me by sending me an email at sabrina@monarchastrology.com. Most logistical questions should be answered on the course page itself, but if you have personal questions about your learning journey with astrology or what you wish to gain out of this class, I’m here to talk with you!
New episode of Magic of the Spheres!
I had astrologer Jaliessa Sipress on to discuss the Pluto in Scorpio generation and this generation’s relationship with social change. You’ll need to look up any given natal chart to be sure of where Pluto is, but the Pluto in Scorpio generation is born roughly between 1983 – 1995. We discussed some major themes of this generation, how this generation influences the social fabric, and how this generation (and other generations) are involved with the current racial justice movement.
Jaliessa Sipress is an Astrologer, writer and artist committed to expanding people’s minds and helping them love themselves and their lives more. She uses Astrology as a catalyst to talk about broader spiritual topics, love and relationships, manifestation, and more. You can find out more about her and her work at jaliessasipress.com.
Tune in where you listen to podcasts or on your browser here.
Here’s our week:
July 8, 2020
Mars in 6 Aries square Mercury retrograde in 6 Cancer: 3:41 AM PDT
(Image: Kurt Solmssen)
- This Mercury retrograde in Cancer has potentially been expanding our inner-mapping of our emotional reality. Additionally, our emotional responses have effectively ‘detoured’ us (as Mercury retrogrades are apt to) from our typical agendas and ways of moving through the day.
- This square from Mars in Aries adds urgency to this current dynamic – emphasizing the way that emotions can just flare up suddenly. This can create moments in which the heat of our interior reality confronts us with the necessity to discover new ways of adapting/reconciling.
- At the beginning of Mercury retrograde, Colin Bedell made a concise and helpful (and as always, which you know if you know him, entertaining) video about how simply identifying one’s emotions during this transit can be a helpful tool for emotional regulation.
July 10, 2020
Venus in 9 Gemini sextile Chiron in 9 Aries: 11:37 AM PDT
- Venus stationed direct after being retrograde May 12 – June 24. Venus is still in post-retrograde shadow, meaning Venus is catching up to the place Venus originally retrograded from (21 degrees of Gemini). This means we are in the wrap-up phase. Venus retrogrades are journeys of the heart – we learn new things about our value, our self-esteem, and how we engage in relationships with others. It is a time of accelerated growth in all things Venus, which in addition to love encompasses our relationship with beauty, luxury/pleasure, aesthetic, and money.
- The sextile to Chiron in Aries suggests that this could be a beneficial time for integrating the lessons of the Venus in Gemini transit and retrograde season into our identity (Aries relates to self-discovery) by reflecting and/or dialoguing about what we’ve learned recently. By going over it again and giving it words, we integrate, and may also discover new angles that weren’t available until reflecting.
- Gemini is the best at unlocking infinite angles of any given story or truth. One potential of this season of Venus in Gemini has been to discover and practice more loving self-talk. This isn’t just saying some generic mantras or affirmations, but actually sourcing something very personal that is more elevated and kind, in direct relationship to places where we may have been inwardly cruel, doubtful, or judgmental.
(Image: Odile Robinot)
- As we reflect on ourselves and our experiences, it is possible that our traumas or unresolved hardships take up a lot of space and charge. While it is often part of personal development and healing to be with these aspects of ourselves, one point of balance here might be holding a variety of lenses for self-contemplation rather than fixating on a few. I’m inspired by something I read recently on twitter by Terese Mailhot:
“When I’m teaching students how to write about trauma, I often ask them to carry five other stories about themselves for protection. Like a verbal medicine bundle: there’s what happened to you, how you survived, and carry some other stories, like:
How you learned to gut a fish, or how you used to bind your own books as a child, the time you stood up for yourself at work, occasions where you felt joy. Carry many stories about yourself, … give yourself dynamism and let that dynamism inform your work.
We’re more than what happened to us, but it’s also okay if you need to sit in the pain and execute how awful it felt. I support all victim and survivor stories, any way you tell it. Holding five other stories is mostly a safety measure to not feel like I’m only one thing.” – Terese Mailhot @TereseMarieM
- Narrative is identity-creating, and can help us process and digest experiences we have had. If you look into your memory, it is full of narrative – it is human to think in story. But one story can be told so many different ways. When it comes to change and moving toward goals, having the right “mindset” is highlighted. But this applies as well for self-concept and memory, and the narratives that make up our identity either by choice or by default. Often if we wish to make a change in our lives, we might need to look at the stories and narratives we have about ourselves that are continuing to generate the waking dream of our life. These narratives can change if we are willing to one, identify what stories we are running honestly, and two, creatively engage with the potential of sourcing a new angle of the story that we wish to live more fully into.
July 11, 2020
Chiron stations retrograde in 9 Aries: 2:09 PM PDT
(Image: Julio Reyes)
Chiron will station direct on December 15, 2020 in 4 degrees of Aries. If you want to learn more about Chiron as an archetype, listen to a podcast interview I held with David Leskowitz about the astrological centaurs.
- Stationing planets and asteroids (Chiron is the latter) are louder energies in the sky and in our experience when they station – from Earth’s perspective the celestial body is coming to a standstill before moving backwards in the zodiac.
- With Chiron in Aries emphasized in this way (during a conjunction with Mars, which goes exact later in the week), themes emphasized could be: self-assertion; how we respond to aggression or conflict; personal courage; our relationship with the masculine, inner-masculine, or masculine people; our relationship with vitality or lack thereof; our willingness to try new things; our willingness and capacity to bounce back from setbacks or failures.
- Chiron relates to a real thirst, or drive, for finding answers to complexly difficult situations. Chiron relates to the quests that we go on to find answers to what troubles us the most. The deepest vulnerability of this archetype is that we don’t always find the answers or the solutions that we seek. The possibility that we might not “win” can induce humility, deeper surrender, and deeper patience. Through the pressure of experiencing complex problems, the Chirotic journey is one of discovering wisdom. There are moments of breakthrough, where what was before impossible becomes possible, and this phenomenon is connected to the healing arts – that there might be a “key” that unlocks new possibilities, and it is when questing that we find these keys.
July 12, 2020
Mercury stations direct in 5 Cancer: 1:26 AM PDT
(Image: Ngabo D.Cesar)
Mercury leaves retrograde shadow on July 26.
- Emotional intelligence is a cyclical journey, as we continue to face new experiences and new challenges. It is easy to form ego concepts about ourselves when we have accomplished something and to think we are generally good at whatever x thing is, because at one point we developed it or experienced our own skillfulness. But perhaps this Mercury retrograde put us on our toes a little – confronting us with some emotional experiences we thought we’d already figured out.
- Cancer already has a penchant for nostalgia and for the past – and dipping into this well can be nourishing, at times. It may also be important to consider the context of this present moment which can very well be future nostalgia – as in, there may be something precious about the now that will one day be fodder for nostalgia – so why not be here now?
Sun in 20 Cancer trine Neptune retrograde in 20 Pisces: 11:43 AM PDT
- The trine between Sun and Neptune in water signs brings a dreamy intensification to our perception and our moods. I think of Cancer as having a soaking-in-bathwater quality and we’re just in the feelings of that particular bath. One form of self-care in Cancer is moving toward sources of real nourishment, which can involve pulling ourselves out of one state (when it’s time) and moving into something else. The opposite of wallowing.
- The dreamy intensification of this transit can be found in enjoying and sinking deeper into pleasures of life once we have moved toward them, initiated them, or allowed ourselves to receive them.
July 14, 2020
Sun in 22 Cancer opposite Jupiter retrograde in 22 Capricorn: 12:58 AM PDT
- While on the one hand there is a desire to feel safe and secure with the Cancer archetype, the Sun’s light in this sign illuminates Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn in Capricorn and reveals our doubts and basic fears. If you’ve ever had the experience of comforting a scared child (and feeling a kind of authority and presence in your body as you do so – a way you are resourced by showing up for them) – this could be a quality to call upon for yourself if you’re facing anxiety or fear.
Mars in Aries conjunct Chiron retrograde in Aries: 2:08 AM PDT
(Image: Julio Reyes)
See section above on Chiron retrograde.
- Around the same time that security and safety needs are highlighted (Sun in Cancer opposite Jupiter in Capricorn), Mars conjunct Chiron is an activation around courage.
- Mars and Aries both relate to severance and separation. Aries is birth, the emergence of a distinct individual from the cosmic oneness. So there are threads here of loneliness and isolation, and learning how to be in connection is a powerful healing process for anyone who feels alienated. But for the purposes of this conversation, what are some of the healing powers of separation itself? Consider if you have a negative pattern, or a place you tend to self-sabotage (because that’s always the way the story has gone). Separating from our own history, in certain instances, can have a liberating quality. We can make a new choice; initiate a new path.
- Many of our fears can be based off of history or how things have happened in the past, and we bind ourselves to that. Courage can sometimes take the form of having the willingness to engage a new experience within our reality even if it is an area of life we have encountered failure or disappointment in the past.
- Consider if there is a need for some ceremony in your life when it comes to doing things that take courage. If we’re entering new territory that we’ve never been able to get to before for whatever reason, we are at a threshold moment – one of moving beyond the limitations of the past, but also stepping out into the unknown. These transitional moments can just happen, but sometimes there is a guiding process, value, or figure that ushers us into the new. It could be as simple as being conscious of our breath as we mark the threshold.
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? Please help me fund the year ahead through this Kickstarter!
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
(Top Image: Andreea Dumuta)
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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