We’ve just arrived at the cross-quarter day of Lammas here in the north, a time of harvest and fulfillment. With the receding light and warmth, we are now definitely heading toward Autumn.
Welcome to Lammas season, the Harvest Season.
Regardless of what’s happening in our world regarding COVID and politics, Mother Earth still holds us in her yearly cycle of life and death and renewal. When we orient ourselves with these cycles, we can ground and connect to Earth’s biosphere, giving us the energy to align with our life’s evolution in a natural way.
Here in the North, we’re at the beginning of harvest time and the second half of summer. We’ll begin to notice the days growing shorter more quickly now as the Sun continues on its journey south as we head into Autumn. Down in the southern hemisphere, you are experiencing the light returning, heading out of late winter and into spring.
For us in the northern hemisphere, we can celebrate our personal harvest through ritual and meditation, gratefully acknowledging the new harvest this year. Is it a new job, a new book you’re writing, a new relationship with yourself or another, a new attitude or perspective on your life? Have you let go of fear and opened to your heart’s desires? Have you faces your shadow and freed up new energy? Whatever you’ve created this year, it’s now time to name and acknowledge it with gratitude.
Change is here, whether we like it or not. The question is, who is going to be making those changes? This summer’s astrological energies are intense, urging us to release what no longer serves us so we can start following our heart’s wisdom and start living our soul’s story.
The power of Leo’s energy is to help us discover and attend to the Heart and what really matters in life, giving full expression to our creativity. This year, while the Sun is in the sign of Leo, we will experience two Aquarian Full Moons (the first was on July 23rd at 2* Leo and the second is on August 22nd at 30* Leo and is the Blue Moon) with the upcoming Leo New Moon on August 8th near the Leo power gate of 15* Leo.
Uranus, about to turn retrograde on August 19th, is stopping at the Taurus power gate at 15* Taurus, squaring this week’s New Moon. It is a reminder to us that what we create must be sustainable and must benefit the whole group in some way. It can no longer be ‘art for art’s sake’ but ‘art as a healing modality for the collective psyche’.
It is only through the heart’s wisdom that we’ll get through these global health and environmental crises.
These power gates occur at 15* of the fixed signs – Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius – and are represented by the cross-quarter holidays of Beltane, Lammas, Samhain (Halloween) and Imbolc that mark the halfway point between the solstices and equinoxes. They are the energetic center of these ‘fixed’ sign, generating portals to other dimensions. If you have planets at any of these gateways, their energies will give you a persistence and determination to get through any troubles in life.
So as people continue to get in touch with their heart needs, they are quitting jobs that no longer satisfy them or leaving relationships that no longer give them the freedom to be themselves. We see this struggle between the old, repressive behaviors of patriarchy and the new freedom we each want to express in light of the Saturn/Uranus square – pitting the old (Saturn) against the new (Uranus). It’s up to each of us to break the chains of old patriarchal rules and beliefs within ourselves so that this societal paradigm dies out in the collective consciousness, leaving room for something new to arise – something better to arise.
For these past few years, we’ve talked about discovering our new story, which implies changing our beliefs and behaviors. Well, the need for change is upon us now! Yes things are getting chaotic, but the truth is out of chaos emerges the new forms we need to recreate our global society. And while there are a lot of powers in our world that want to take us back to the past, there is no way the past will win out. We are set to move into the future – the Age of Aquarius is calling to us. We just has to deal with the shadow karma of the Piscean Age – the old Them vs. Us beliefs that hinder the truth of Pisces – that we are all one.
When we re-emerge into a post-covid world, we have an opportunity to change our society and culture. Many of us want to change. How that’s going to happen will become apparent when we begin to let go of our fears and worries about the future. We are heading into that future and the one thing you need for the trip is a sure sense of yourself, a grounded presence that is willing to go with the flow and change when it’s appropriate, yet is strong enough to support and protect you.
We each have to find our wholeness so we can become holograms for collective wholeness.
Astrological influences through Leo and Virgo
There are a lot of planetary changes going on this season, especially between the two Aquarian Full Moons on July 23rd and August 22nd.
The themes coming up now in your life are important to the future, so pay attention. We’ll be making decisions about how we want to live our lives as we go forward. It’s time to take some action on our personal changes.
If you’ve been frustrated lately, blame it on Saturn in Aquarius opposite the Leo Sun on August 2nd, with both squaring Uranus in Taurus. Once again, the theme is out with the old, in with the new.
Sekhmet: the Heart of the Sun
Leo is all about heart energy. Leo is the fire that is passionate, creative and utterly unique. Leo is a shining Light that warms everything it touches. So this month, burn brightly and let your light shine out.
Mercury met the Sun at 9* Leo on August 1st and rushes through the rest of Leo, moving into Virgo on August 11th. Our creative vision gets down to earth and practical.
The Leo New Moon occurs on Sunday, August 9th near the Lion’s Gate at 15* Leo. With the square to Uranus in Taurus and opposite Saturn in Aquarius, it’s time to actively work on changing our ways, discarding what no longer serves our future Self. With Venus in Virgo channeling Neptune in Pisces, we can begin to make our dreams a reality. Don’t forget that beauty and embodiment go together. It’s time to let go of the ugliness we’ve created in our world and remember how beauty makes us feel.
It’s always good to let go of expectations and just accept the reality of the Now. Yes, old patterns need to be broken, but everyone is doing it in their own time and way. The frustration comes from how slow vast changes take.
So it’s up to us to make the small changes in ourselves that can make change happen in the world.
Uranus turns retrograde on August 19th at 15* Taurus. It’s time to turn all that revolutionary, transformative energy inward. Awaken your soul body.
The 2nd Aquarius Blue Full Moon on August 22nd occurs at 30* Leo. Blue Moons occur when there are two Full Moon in an astrological sign – NOT when they occur in a calendar month. This is because they switch the lunar cycle back to its original rhythm of New Moon followed by a Full Moon in the same sign. For the past two years, the cycle flipped and so we’ve had the Full Moon come before the New Moon in a sign. This part of the lunar cycle splits us open to encompass different energies. Now we can get back in rhythm and feel more whole.
For this second Aquarius Full Moon, Jupiter is conjunct the Moon, opening up our perspective to what is possible. Jupiter can make magic happen, so stay open to the synchronicity in your life that can show you the path forward.
While Uranus is now retrograde, it is still squaring Saturn retrograde in Aquarius, so the tension between old habits and new turn inward. Uranian awakenings are strengthened by a nice earth trine to both Mars and Mercury in Virgo, who can help plan out the small changes we need to make to shift our energies. Venus is in Libra opposite Chiron in Aries, asking us to love and respect ourselves as much as the Other. Because we have to ‘love our neighbors as ourselves’, we need to do the work of loving ourselves and facing our inner critics, those voices of old patriarchal beliefs that we need to shed now.
The Sun enters Virgo late in the day August 22nd . I’ll leave you to find out about the Virgo New Moon on September 6th and the Pisces-Virgo Full Moon on September 20th, two days before Fall Equinox arrives on September 22nd.
Virgo is the sign of the Great Mother and Child, the womb and the fruit together. What have we woven into being this year? How do we integrate that into our ongoing evolution? Virgo’s great gift of service comes from being aware of what’s really needed in any situation.
Exploring the Myth of Psyche & Eros: Part 2
Venus stays in Virgo until August 15th – 16th, when she enters one of her home signs, Libra. But while she’s still with Mars in Virgo, this pair wants to work out the details of their union at 20* Leo on July 13th.
I wrote about their union in relationship to the ancient myth of Psyche & Eros.
If you remember their story of an initiation into the mysteries of Love and Desire:
Psyche (our word for Soul) is married to Eros in a secret marriage. She can only make love to her new husband in the dark of night, without seeing who he is. When she finally lights a lamp to consciously see who her secret lover is, she discovers that it is the god of Desire himself who is her mate. But he flies off, leaving her to search the world for him.
She finally presents herself to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Beauty and Love, who is the mother of Eros and who initiates Psyche into the wonder and magic of this divine love. Aphrodite sets Psyche four tasks to complete before she can be reunited with Eros.
1) The first task is to sort and separate out a big pile of different seeds. When Psyche despairs of the job, friendly ants come to help her sort things out. Ant is a symbol of discipline, hard work, strength, unity, determination, teamwork, and patience. Sometimes, if we stick to the work of Love, we have to trust our instinctual nature to sort things out when relationship issues arise. A sorting of seeds lets us understand where things began. This is also the type of sorting that Virgo is good at, because it asks us to use this initiation’s gift of discernment in this sorting.
2) The second task is to harvest the golden wool from the sun rams. She gets advice from a friendly river reed to wait until the Sun is descending and losing power so the rams can settle down. Then she’ll be able to gather the wool that got stuck to the brambles. This initiation makes us face our fierce aggressive need to compete with the Other – to make our point and take our stand. It asks us to use our golden intellect in a different way. Can we stand in our own power without having to destroy the Other? How do we relate to power in relationships?
The ram symbolizes boldness, new beginnings, new paths and power. Like the reed who gives Psyche this advice, we need to understand the flow of life and not go head to head with our loved ones in the midst of powerful emotions and power plays. Instead, we need to let things calm down and then find out what really is going on. The gifts Psyche receives from this initiation are a sense of her own courage, strength and spirit.
3) The third initiation demands that Psyche find the source of the River Styx, or the river of life, and draw up a crystal cupful to take back to Aphrodite. There are dangers surrounding this river. But Zeus’ eagle comes to help, taking the goblet and filling it.
This is a test of our faith, our belief in love and our ability to fly high and see with the eyes of Spirit. It is also a challenge to take a larger perspective on the issues. And the paradox is that to do this, we have to stay in the NOW and deal with the present moment. There are so many possibilities in life to drink from, but we need the wisdom to know which possibility is the best to foster and deepen love. I would say that the gift of this initiation is that higher, spiritual perspective.
4) The fourth and last test is the most important. Aphrodite wants Psyche to travel to the underworld and obtain from Persephone, the Queen of the underworld, a little cask of her own beauty ointment.
Psyche's last task
This initiation involves staying on track and not getting thrown off track by other people’s needs. This is a journey into our own inner world to discover our own unique Beauty and Truth. On this journey, we have to curb our instilled sense of generosity and kindness and own our dark side. Persephone, Hecate, Kali all represent the dark energies that influence our decisions, those shadow aspects of our personality that used to keep us safe but now just keep us stuck in old patterns of low self-worth and self-criticisms. The gift of this initiation is a grounded “NO” in response to outer demands on our freedom of choice. Love must be freely given, never demanded.
This initiation asks us to die to the innocence of our youthful imagination and expectations of what love is and means. Then we can be reborn without fear, allowing a transformation of our consciousness to ripen and mature our understanding of the Other and ourselves. This is the path of individuation, where we can embrace all our ourselves so we can see and embrace the wholeness of the Other.
As the story ends, Psyche and Eros are reunited and Psyche gives birth to a daughter, who is Pleasure.
A life lived in and with love blesses us with all sorts of pleasure, especially joy and wonder.
Our task at the end of the Age of Pisces is to learn Love in all its forms. Love is never easy. It takes work. So work on loving yourself and then you'll know how to love others.
May the many blessings of Lammas flow through your life,
Cathy
Now
is the Time
Now is the time to know
That all that
you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A
lasting truce with yourself and God.
Now is the time to
understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just
a child's training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally
live
With veracity
And love.
Hafiz
is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy
message upon.
My dear, please tell me,
Why do you
still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?
What
is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?
Now
is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action
is sacred.
This is the time
For you to compute the
impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
Now
is the season to know.
That everything you do
(The Gift - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
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