The Moon grows into its fullest light in the sign of Capricorn this week, following an opposition between Venus in Cancer and Pluto in Capricorn. Toward the end of the week, Neptune stations retrograde in Pisces and Venus will enter Leo.
There is a kind of magic in this existence that is the quality of openness: the more open we are to life and exactly what is in front of us, the more blissful this existence can be. Much of the pain we experience in our life is the byproduct of resistance, not wanting to be with what is, railing against what is, fighting what is. The vigilant part of us fears dissolving this resistance, as it would mean accepting something that is unacceptable. The mystery/secret here is that actually being with what is allows it to pass through more completely. A heartbreak fully felt transitions faster than one frozen and resisted. A depression fully felt may open the way for a revelation or a breakthrough that could only happen if the call to descend was heard.
Many of us form an image Capricorn as a mountain goat, who is always climbing. But Capricorn is the seagoat, a mythical creature which also inhabits the ocean. Like tree roots underneath the soil as well, or a deep underground spring, Capricorn relates to the depths as well as the heights. As we grow in self-awareness and capacity, we learn to trust ourselves more at the edges of our range. We learn that going into our pain fully doesn’t mean certain annihilation, but that we actually emerge back to the surface with greater contact with our soul. We learn that we can feel the fire of rage without misusing it or lashing out. We learn that we can stay calm and lucid, breathing through challenging situations, instead of losing touch with ourselves and splitting off in a moment of pressure.
Or, let’s bring it to the body. Imagine the action you take when your breath reaches no further than your chest, versus the way you inhabit space when your breath fills out your body and comes down to your root.
One of the most famous diary writers of all time, Anais Nin, was a Capricorn Moon – her intensely devoted path of giving portrait to reality, and her most sensitive and magical impressions, has outlived her. Her words remain real and alive and transportive on the page. As a kid, I remember realizing that the diary was a portal to finding magic in reality as it already was. It’s taking the raw materials of life and making art with it, showing our acceptance of it by writing it down and being with it. This Full Moon could be an opportunity to sink into the depth of what already exists all around you. It does not have to be your preference. Your circumstances do not need to be ideal. But if you simply connect with what is, it reveals a new source of life and wonder to you.
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.
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Here’s our week after a few announcements!
Kickstarter to fund the seventh year of Monarch Astrology, as well as a year ahead of the Magic of the Spheres podcast!
Monarch Astrology just turned seven! To kick of the seventh year of weekly content creation, I’m asking for your financial support for the year ahead. If you enjoy these forecasts and/or Magic of the Spheres podcast, please support them. They require hours of work a week, in addition to work I do creating curriculum, teaching, and working 1:1 with clients. Every single backer counts, so I ask you to take this message very personally 🙂 There are many exciting rewards – talks, courses, astrology readings – to choose from for backers! Check out the Kickstarter and pledge here. The minimum we need for funding is 12k, and I have a push goal of 22k. I also have a goal of having 116+ backers.
🐝 Announcing IMAGE HIVE: a LIVE COURSE on creative writing available through the Kickstarter! 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.
Image Hive is available through the 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.
Study Evolutionary Astrology with me! Stay tuned for the next course dates (around September/October) of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive. I will make the live calls for the next one friendly to American and European time zones (I alternate between a schedule that is more suitable for America, Australia and Asia). Catch a discount via the Kickstarter here. The price of the intensive is raising, and you can now get half-off tuition (of what will be the future pricing) through the Kickstarter.
New episode of Magic of the Spheres! Stefanie Sundara and I have a discussion about home and belonging, Cancer and the cardinal signs, Uranus in Taurus and the current Saturn-Uranus square! Tune in where you listen to podcasts or on your browser here.
Here’s our week:
June 23, 2021
Sun in 2 Cancer trine Jupiter retrograde in 2 Pisces: 3:11 AM PDT
- With the Sun in introverted, connection and intimacy-seeking Cancer & Jupiter retrograde in the dreamer/visionary sign of Pisces, this contact could be a moment of incubation. Some greater vision is gestating. A greater capacity to fill out into new expanses of our essence is gestating.
- While this may not immediately appear to be “doing anything” or moving toward the goal, when we rest, nourish and imagine, we nest into new realities.
- Part of the creative process may involve acknowledging our insecurities and sourcing a more expansive or optimistic view, whether we do that internally or talk to people who believe in us. If we metabolize these insecurities (as opposed to simply being stopped in our tracks by them), working through them emotionally is like troubleshooting the issues they point to in our imagination as opposed to in the 3D. Working through our fears can help us become more receptive to those things which we desire, but also fear. For example, a person may desire to be wealthier, but they also hold a belief that more wealth would negatively complicate their lives or that they wouldn’t like who they would become if they had more money. These imagination issues (negative imagination around money) can stagnate the desire from manifesting. Likewise, working through this imaginatively and coming up with a different perspective around a future with greater wealth would allow for more receptivity and flow around generating abundance.
- There may also be an opportunity this week to allow certain parts of our identity to dissolve. Most every conflict and limitation we face is connected to a sense of self: the part of us who is “bad at relationships” or prefers to be alone, the part of us that is easily petty and resentful, and so on. When we grow tired of these personality qualities or they are proving to no longer be adaptive, letting them go means surrendering into a deeper unknown, and allowing for the loss of egoic security that these personality patterns grant.
Venus in 26 Cancer opposite Pluto retrograde in 26 Capricorn: 4:39 PM PDT
(Image: Maria Berrio)
I have a few podcast episodes that may be of interest – Venus in combination with other planets with Becca Tarnas (part one & part two), an exploration of the Pluto in Libra generation (archetypally combines Venus and Pluto) with Sol Jonassen, and a solo podcast I did on lessons about physical beauty.
- The opposition aspect is like a full moon – the full moon is always an opposition between the Sun and the Moon. The full moon energy is like a full reveal, a flashpoint of awareness or consciousness. For an opposition between Pluto and Venus, there is a fullness or flashpoint around themes of relationship and connection (Venus) and shadow, power, and alchemy (Pluto).
- The alchemy that is potential here is most available to anyone willing to take deep, soul-level responsibility for the patterns that show up in their lives as opposed to projecting their own material onto others and in so doing become a victim to others and to the environment, rather than being a conscious creator. The Venus-Pluto field does involve projecting onto others. It also involves encountering hidden dimensions of ourselves through witnessing and/or being in connection with others.
- One impulse that can be present (especially for those who are not actively interested in shadow work) is to feel shame and repress the shadow content that comes up – to try to look the other way when jealousy, resentment, judgement, etc. arise, to not identify with these things. To see them as “bad” and not indulge in them, but not really transform them either. Doing this habitually only makes the knocks at the door louder, the triggers that evoke these feelings more intense. Alternately, if we can be raw and honest with ourselves and soberly consider the question of what is going on in our being such that we are feeling such intense things kick up, we may find hidden sources of power as well as where we leak our power.
- With the opposition here being in Cancer and Capricorn, there may also be dynamics arising around how empowered we feel in asking for help and receiving care from others, and giving to others in a way that feels balanced. Shadow potentials involve indirect ploys to get what we want instead of being able to claim a desire and ask with real vulnerability; trying to ‘save’ others or wanting to be saved by others; seeing another person as the source of our own wellbeing and parentifying them in some sense; realizing that we don’t have good boundaries in the way we take on other people’s energies or problems in a way that depletes/drains us and causes resentment.
June 24, 2021
Full Moon in 3 Capricorn: 11:40 AM PDT
“In deep, dreamless sleep there is no fear. Otherwise, fear swirls through your thoughts, emotions, an body for most of your day and night. You are afraid of poverty so you work to earn money. You are afraid of loneliness so you try to secure intimacy. You are afraid of relaxing without a future so you think, and think, and think.
Fearless ease is precious. Fear abates momentarily when you open yourself in a sunset, a child’s laughter, or a warm bath. Your mind opens, your heart unstresses, your body eases in pleasure. But soon, in response to a whiff of threat, imagined or real, you tense up. Your mind reels, your emotions churn, your body tightens. After a while, fear feels normal. Shallow breath? Tight jaw? Incessant thinking? Hey, that’s life, it seems.
Life seems to be suffering. You are constantly plotting, rehearsing conversations, living in apprehension. Your gut is knotted. Your heart is hardened. Deep sleep is just about the only time you aren’t mulling, cogitating, or dreaming. Deep sleep feels like a dunk into unperturbed bliss, a restoration of easeful depth and seamless openness. And then, as the alarm clock rings, your body tightens and your mind begins wheeling again.
Remain sensitive as you emerge from deep sleep into wakeful stress. with gentle openness, feel the deep, silent peace abiding beneath the swirl of emerging thoughts, sounds, colors, and feelings. Waking life is an addition to the depth of sleep’s bliss. In any moment, you can feel into the province of sleep’s deep openness, even now. The silent heart-hum of deep sleep lies beneath the flash of present occurrence, like a deep sea of peace below a hectic churn of waves.
Fear keeps your mind on the waves. Fear is a tension: What will happen if I stop paying attention to everything that needs to get done?
What does happen if you surrender as if in deep sleep, right now? What happens if you allow action and perception to well up from open depth, without effort, spontaneously springing from this source?” – David Deida, from “Blue Truth: a spiritual guide to life & death and love & sex”
Jupiter in Pisces retrograde is involved by trining the Sun in Cancer, and sexiling the Moon here in Capricorn. Chiron in Aries forms a wide t-square to the Full Moon axis.
- The Moon in Capricorn mood is SOBER. Sobriety can mean not partaking in substances, but sobriety can take many other forms: acknowledging facts as opposed to stories/fantasies, assessing behavior more than holding onto promises, or recognizing the work that needs to be done for change to happen, to name a few examples. Sobriety is an increasing mood as the Moon grows full in Capricorn.
- Fantasy can both be accessed irresponsibly and responsibly. Jupiter in Pisces aspects the Full Moon, suggesting that fantasy (dreamer, Pisces) is part of our conversation regarding sobriety. Have you ever been immersed in a fantasy that you knew wasn’t real, but you didn’t want to take greater responsibility in the situation? In some sense there is a lack of faith here that *the real thing* couldn’t possibly be more satisfying than the illusion. Divorcing ourselves from a problematic fantasy is painful, but it does open the door for a more intimate relationship with life. It would be like the difference between putting on a performance in your relationships and letting people love the false version of you, as opposed to dropping into your realness and being loved for who you really are in your fullness. Do we have the same capacity to love life, shed of the illusions we dress it in to make it more palatable?
- There can be a growing awareness of how we can be responsible for taking care of our needs. Where do we need to take more responsibility, and where do we need to drop something that isn’t for us to take on?
- Moon in Capricorn can speak of emotional strength – it can be the power to move toward a more nourishing life (making responsible choices for long term happiness, or doing what we need to do to move forward) when we already feel under-resourced. Capricorn provides the grit to find a better foothold and keep climbing. Alternately, sometimes we may let ourselves fall, be with the full depth of overwhelming emotions, and find some deeper truth or unravelling there that informs us of what is truly important in our lives.
- Reality checks, as we encounter them, may be augurs of a more expansive future. Expansion happens with alignment. What is not true is excessively difficult to maintain and tends to dissolve. Getting real gives us a better base for moving forward.
- As Deida illustrates so beautifully in the quote I shared above, the stress of “normal life” can also be an illusion. Capricorn is a sign that can relate to seeing our concrete experiences as “just the way things are”, but social reality is a construction. The deeper ocean beneath those waves is reality. At a spiritual level (rather than at a societal/conventional level), Capricorn is very much the study of reality – but an ontological reality, not a constructed one.
- We have the opportunity to breathe more deeply into our physical bodies, and to feel more deeply penetrated by our senses: sensing the arrival and falling away of images and smells, feeling the air on every inch of our skin or the feel of the fabric touching our skin, noticing every visiting emotion. In Capricorn reality, we can hold space for anything, or restrict anything. What difference would it make to truly hold space for the nuances of your experience in the places you generally choose to shut down or not feel?
June 25, 2021
Neptune stations retrograde in 23 Pisces: 12:22 PM PDT
- Neptune can speak to us in images and moods. In some schools of thought (like Hillman, Archetypal Psychology) images are ontological and exist independently of us. Instead of seeing images as something we generate in our minds, images are like entities that float about and we can catch them via our sensory apparatus. And rather than trying to so quickly collapse a dream or an image into identifying what it “means”, we can let the image saturate and work us, take us on a journey. Instead of so neatly filing away a dream image by categorizing it, we let it unravel like a thread leading us to a mysterious adventure.
June 26, 2021
Venus enters Leo: 9:30 PM PDT
Venus will stay in Leo until July 21.
- Venus in Leo highlights the creative power of play, and the way that being playful or having fun can open us up greater levels of receptivity. It’s not just fun, but it’s a whole vortex.
- Venus in Leo will soon come into contact with the current Saturn-Uranus square, by opposing Saturn and squaring Uranus. Many of us are feeling existential and practical tensions at the moment about how we are to organize and structure our lives or experience stability. There is a lot of stress in this dynamic (the Saturn-Uranus square). Venus in Leo may represent a needed pressure valve, the need for momentary breaks from the pressures of life to enter another world that is accessible through play. When we return to “real life”, we are refreshed, and perhaps encountered breakthroughs that could only happen in the play dimension. For anyone feeling excessively serious or run-down right now, Venus in Leo is a transit to lean into. In productivity-oriented cultures play is not considered practical, but play is absolutely primal and creative and necessary.
- In relationships, Venus in Leo relates to the generosity of expressing ourselves and expressing our affection and praise wholeheartedly.
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 to take on new coaching clients again in the future.
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!
If you enjoy these forecasts, please help crowdfund a year ahead via the Kickstarter!
With love,
Sabrina Monarch
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