The 2021 zeitgeist-defining transit of Saturn in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus exacts this week in the wake of a solar eclipse in Gemini, that is also a Mercury-Sun cazimi. This combination of events feels like a surprise level in a game where the rules have changed and we’re catching our footing again in a new level or world. This astrology feels frustrating and startling, at least to any part of us that is not interested in having to adapt to change.
On the other hand, a friend and one of the participants of METEORITE, Rudy, offered a quote inspired by one of our class’s recent conversations on Saturn and Uranus: “Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” (From “Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
So if I may offer then, my sense is that the game that is being played this week may be disruptive or jarring, but also quite a boon. I think it’s possible that we are even responding in new ways to historic stressors, like finally we have the insight or awakening alongside the graining or irritating situation we have encountered so many times before.
With the Gemini transits offering an influx of novelty, see if you can lean in here. There is a game in Comedy Improv called “New Choice” where at any point in a scene the referee pauses the actors and yells out “new choice!” The person who last spoke has to offer something else. The referee keeps yelling out “new choice” until the actor generates something the referee is a yes to.
An example, post rabbit hole…
In moments of pressure, like the Saturn-Uranus square and pressing up against the edges of our old paradigm, combined with the Gemini transits, it really is like a game of generating something new to break-through some of the grave inertia of the past and open up something potentially even whimsical. Though first we often feel the edge of the cage or the box, which frustrates us enough to be inventive.
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 zeitgeist 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 and be notified of upcoming educational opportunities, sign up for my mailing list here.
Watch this week’s forecast on YouTube or keep reading below:
Here’s our week after a few announcements!
New episode of Magic of the Spheres! I had a 🔥🔥🔥 conversation with Maraya @marayakarena about Pluto, the cosmological nature of desire, and a concept called your high and low dreams. A must listen if you wish to understand the astrological Pluto more and how it shows up in your deep inner world. https://marayakarena.com
THE GARDEN OF SLEEPING HAMMERS IS NOW OUT!
Katerina is twenty-one when meets a spy twice her age who offers to teach her anything she wants to know about spycraft and magic. This apprenticeship plunges her into an unconventional romance and a heightened state of psychic awareness. Her new identity inspires complete strangers, who are sure Katerina is destined for fame, but scares those who know the old Katerina. Katerina’s family believes she’s mentally ill and forces antipsychotic, antidepressant and mood-stabilizing medications upon her at the advice of a psychiatrist. The novel follows her struggle to maintain the heightened state of awareness and aliveness that she suddenly feels after years of depression, in the face of her family and friends urging her to come back down. What happens when a massive opportunity for personal growth is seen by others as a dangerous mistake? In the hope that she might be able to return to an extraordinary life, but with no guarantee, Katerina has no other choice than to use her recent spy training to play the game, and to get an up-close, inside look at the state of mental health in mainstream America.
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🐝 Announcing IMAGE HIVE: a series on creative writing coming soon. Image Hive explores the craft of creative writing, drawing in influences from poetry and literary fiction. Image Hive derives its title from the idea that a writer is a collector of images: that it is our capacity to have vision (of all kinds) that underlies our word craft.
As a writer, one of the important parts of my journey was hearing/reading what other writers (mostly ones who had already left this Earth) had to say about the craft. Their ideas gave me permission, and sparked new pathways for me. I am excited to carry on this lineage and create some talks that are completely emergent from my direct experience and study of the craft.
Image Hive will be available through the upcoming Kickstarter funding the seventh year of content creation, Monarch Astrology and Magic of the Spheres podcast as one of the backer rewards. Read more about Image Hive here.
Here’s our week:
June 10, 2021
New Moon Eclipse in 19 Gemini: 3:53 AM PDT
This is our second of two eclipses this eclipse season! The next Full Moon in Capricorn in two weeks will not be an eclipse.
- One potential of this transit (as it builds, exacts, or wanes – consider it an imprint of a time period that is Eclipse Season, the several weeks surrounding the eclipses on either side) has been to allow new information or new perspectives (Gemini) to literally eclipse our old belief systems. The South Node is in Sagittarius, which can relate to a process of reviewing and letting go of historic beliefs that our ego has formed attachments to. These are beliefs that we hardly have a concept of who we’d be without them. It might be refreshing, even exhilarating, to let those beliefs go and step into an entirely new world. Perhaps into a place where we genuinely have questions (Gemini) instead of answers.
- While the South Node has been in Sagittarius (the South Node representing in part, energies leaving the planet), international travel has been more blocked due to the pandemic. Sagittarius of course, relates to travel to distant lands! Whereas Gemini relates to getting to know our local neighborhoods and local culture, as well as the capacity to travel metaphorically through a change of mind. Without as much free range to just go somewhere else physically, we have to come up with other ways to generate novelty and keep ourselves entertained – and that’s where fun, random, silly, flexible and dynamic Gemini comes in.
- With the Sun, Moon, and Mercury (and Mercury cazimi at that) all in Gemini on the North Node in Gemini, this signifies that our environments are rich with offerings of novel information or messages, which we can likely best contact through conversation, interaction, and genuine curiosity. Unconsciously, Sagittarius can hold an assumption that it already knows, whereas Gemini is often asking questions. Consider that our unconscious assumptions really are unconscious (the ones we know about… are conscious). So an ordinary, lighthearted conversation that challenges a previously unconscious assumption is going to have a huge impact, even if the conversation seems simple on the surface. The key into these kinds of expansive but ordinary conversations is actually leaning into curiosity as opposed to treating the world like cardboard, like it is flat and lifeless. But of course! 😉
- Events during Eclipse Season can take on a more dramatic quality. We can be more easily triggered or activated. Eclipse Season is essentially a shadow work ceremony. 🙂 So consider what influences in your life are essentially neutral or happenstance but strike a deep chord with you that feels challenging – that is your invitation toward greater embodiment.
- When bothered, ruffled, upset, or encountering a charge in your nervous system or a bodily sensation that is more than you like to hold, notice and track and allow it. Be curious about its subtle textures, where it lives inside of you, and what its stories are. From the perspective of personal power, we actually have a lot more access to our own power when we are self-aware of where sensations exist within us and what stories we create about them. This allows us to alchemize our triggers.
Sun in 20 Gemini conjunct Mercury retrograde in 20 Gemini: 6:13 PM PDT
(Image: Rachel Newling)
- Mercury cazimis (Mercury conjunct the Sun) always speak to me of a moment in time to be very present/mindful about what the messenger God is delivering to us – what messages are particularly striking or stand out?
- Consider the activity of taking time to track your impressions and what you notice, with increasing nuance and honesty. Mercury is retrograde, so things like ‘reviewing’ apply here. It’s easy to overlook connections, or the profundity of our experience, if we don’t take the time to reflect. And then when we do, the quality of our experience unfolds and opens up to us. The message for us at this time may be accessed through the portal of a second or third reflection.
- I also enjoy receiving astrology, tarot, or any kind of psychic/divination reading and this last week remembered it was time to do that again! I got a tarot reading from Shahir and some advice they gave me was echoed in a conversation with a friend later that night, reminding me that readings can so often be a portal into greater synchronicity.
June 11, 2021
Mars enters Leo: 6:34 AM PDT
- Mars in Cancer can correlate with a lot of emotional heat, and internal wrestling and pressure – and certainly the pressure was building with last week’s Mars-Pluto opposition. Mars entering Leo may relate to a transformation of this emotional heat to creative, outward expression.
- Mars in Leo can emphasize or reveal to us how game we are for the creative process. Creativity (in whatever form we like to be generative, which is not always about art-making but can be) has an inherently edgy or vulnerable quality to it. It is a portal into our nakedness and eros. It is a portal into our deeper aspirations or wishes. It is a place we might think we are not good enough. It is a place we have potentially neglected or ignored in order to be more practical or adult. With Mars representing will, courage, and action, we might consider how we apply our Martian energies to the process of creativity, and being willing to face our fears that come up in the creative space.
- One of the mysteries of Leo (by mystery I mean initiation, deeper entrance into, etc.) is that of self-validation – feeling connected with our own worthiness intrinsically and then participating in life from that place. This is literally radiance. What actions can you take to cultivate your radiance? How would you engage this part of yourself? Deepening our relationship with an energy (like self-love or confidence) is also a form of creativity, and the art is our life.
June 12, 2021
Venus in 12 Cancer square Chiron in 12 Aries: 11:28 AM PDT
- Chiron in Aries can be a pain-point around beginnings or the start/first leap of the hero’s journey. Though, we might not always recognize these pain-points as being that. The more self-aware we become (Aries key), the more reflective we are capable of being when it comes to our fears and developing necessary courage. A painful beginning to consider here is simply noticing when a trigger or situation is confronting you with your range: when you wish you weren’t feeling something or that something distressing would just stop – when you close or contract. From a certain vantage point, this is us rejecting the journey and wanting to control it.
- I’ll give an example – for me, when I’m in my own company and not considering a single romantic interest, there’s a certain baseline of peace I feel. As soon as I am interested in someone and perhaps develop anxiousness around if they feel the same way, if they get back to my message, etc… I can notice myself being bothered, and being bothered that I’m bothered. I’ve begun to reflect on this more as an opportunity to hold and expand my own nervous system. I have no problem posting things on the internet (which is an anxiety trigger for others) for example, but I used to and I expanded to hold that. In my past, I was more likely to play games in dating to try to control my feelings of overwhelm, until I learned this isn’t actually conducive to what I really want which is connection. Lately I just hold and open up to the sensations beneath the stories, and tend to my inner-being there. I used to think an external situation would relieve my insecurities (like being loved fiercely enough) but more and more I see my confidence/security as my own responsibility and the place from which I can recognize resonant connection.
- Where it applies to you, think just of where you’d like to feel supported and safe but where you feel like you need the external conditions to be a certain way for you to relax or open.
- So here’s where we have Venus in Cancer: she desires to feel safe, to feel connected, to feel at home, to feel belonging. With Venus squaring Chiron in Aries, we may specifically feel moments where Venus’ desires here are challenged. If we make a point to accept these feelings as opposed to simply building defenses around them, we expand our personal sense of home. This is not about buffering ourselves from feeling – rather it is about being able to feel more than we used to allow ourselves to. We all have a range, and places that are beyond our current range. When we touch those out-of-range places Cancer can get insecure and crusty (initiate the shell) and Aries can get puffed-up, reactive, and defensive. There is a different lover/protector archetype within that can be accessed, someone who truly holds and creates security with their presence and attention.
Venus in 13 Cancer sextile Uranus in 13 Taurus: 10:38 PM PDT
June 13, 2021
Sun in 23 Gemini square Neptune in 23 Pisces: 4:40 PM PDT
- Sun-Neptune contacts soften the solar field or personally our auric fields, creating more receptivity. The caveat is that this opens us to ALL influences, and can relate to having weak boundaries.
- There is an importance along this path (regarding being spiritually sensitive or empathic especially) of strengthening the auric field. This can be done through learning about energy work, playing with imagination/visualization, and significantly through contacting mindful and joyful/grateful states of consciousness. If we have the sovereignty to choose an emotional frequency or state and know how to create it, we are not always tossed about in just being a reflection of our environment.
- Being sensitive is beautiful, but it can get into places of martyrdom, leakiness, victimization, or powerlessness. Building the muscle to be the energy in the room, or to be the temperature not the thermostat (as they say) is learning how to create, as opposed to only responding. Creating opens up the opportunity to add an energy to the planet. To skillfully guide our own lives and experiences. Responding can also be a choice and an act of intimacy – but not something we are always doing so reactively/unintentionally.
June 14, 2021
Uranus in 13 Taurus square Saturn retrograde in 13 Aquarius: 3:02 PM PDT
(Image: The Anatomy of Melancholy – from https://lauramakabresku.tumblr.com)
Watch my video on the Saturn-Uranus square characterizing 2021 here. Here are some more thoughts.
- There is a lot of frustration building in the field of this transit due to the confrontational nature of the square aspect and the nature of the planets involved here. Saturn represents the crystallized structures and patterns in our lives – convention, the status quo, how things have historically been done or how we have historically operated. Uranus wants to break free from all of that, or is already free and here to disrupt the status quo, like Prometheus giving fire to the mortals (and you can see how, in the myth, the government of the Gods does not like it and punishes Prometheus – more than a directly cautionary tale, I take this symbolically as the resistance that the status quo has to change or the re-distribution of resources). So we are grappling now with a tension between how things currently are and what our responsibilities are, with breaking outside of that box. This is a free-floating caginess and desire to break free, but it can be psychologically projected onto particular circumstances or arrangements. This transit could be stressful for families, workplaces, or marriages for example – because tensions regarding freedom or the desire to change things is coming up. The degree to which these impulses have previously been suppressed also influences the intensity/urgency at which they are arising now.
- While the way this transit may show up may not feel graceful (Uranus can be abrupt or jarring in general, and the square aspect is also related to crisis), some of these tensions coming to a head may be necessary. There are likely dynamics that need to change! A first impulse on how to address the situation may be more extreme than needed, as a reflection of built-up and repressed pressure. With some adjusting and processing, a more conservative approach may emerge as well. All situations being unique, some things may actually need a radical shake-up whereas other situations may only need a slight adjustment.
- To come back to the Prometheus metaphor, I also think the way that Prometheus is punished is deeply symbolic of Saturnian resistances to change. These dramas may be enacted socially, but also internally in our own personal psyches. There are increasing levels of freedom we have access to – freedoms we have access to right now – that are simply places we have to allow ourselves to go to or open up to. Historic parts of our ego that are more rigid in their protective role can likely put up a fight when we go for greater liberation internally. This tension might be loud enough at the moment to actually see it and process it in the light of day.
Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like further guidance, I have been increasingly focused on longer-term experiences in the form of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive, higher level courses for alumni, and 1:1 mentorship – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to be in their power, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. I would love to support you in building your relationship with astrology. The intensive is currently in session but will be offered again, and I am soon to take on new coaching clients.
Find me on Instagram @sabrinamonarch, get on my mailing list to stay apprised of all upcoming offerings and events, and I’ll see you next week!
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
(Top Image: Sandra Yagi)
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