Summer Solstice -- Season of Abundance
Summer Solstice 2023
Once again, the Wheel of the Year turns. We are leaving the Spring Equinox/Beltane season behind and coming to a big turning point of Light – Summer Solstice/Lammas. Summer Solstice marks the highest point the Sun reaches in its northern journey. Summer Solstice occurs on June 21st this year at 10:57 am EDT, when the Sun enters the sign of Cancer. The Sun will seem to ‘stand still’ and stop there for three days (Jung 21 - 23) before it seemingly moves again. That movement will be the first step of its journey South again. Now the North will slowly lose the light, while it will grow in the southern hemisphere where they are experiencing Winter Solstice.
We in the North are at the end of the Yang part of the year – the time and the energy of birth, action and growth. Now we’ll be entering the Yin part of the year at Summer Solstice/Lammas – a time of gathering in, of the harvest, of fulfillment and finally of death.
But for the next three months, before the light fades in Autumn, we are invited into the Garden of Delight – High Summer in the North. In summer, Nature is fully blooming, the heat is hopefully enjoyable, or at least tolerable, and food and gatherings are more abundant. There’s a freedom to summer, the need to be out and about. This is the season of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, when the Earth becomes once again the Garden it was meant to be.
This season starts with Cardinal Water, concentrates in Fix Fire and manifests in Mutable Earth. Cancer asks: What do you need to stay true to your soul’s life? Leo asks: Are you living it deeply, passionately, creatively? Virgo asks: Are you reflecting on what you’ve done and made some plans so your harvest will manifest?
We’re constantly creating new threads in the weaving of our lives. What have you birthed this year? Which threads are you pulling on?
I’ve gone back to re-edit and publish a book on Aphrodite/Venus. Because of the renewed interest in the cycles of the planet Venus, I want to share a more in-depth mythological/psychological study of the archetypal energy of connection and attraction. We experience the movement of this planet by observing it in the heavens and feeling it in our body and imagination. To know the ancient stories and symbolic meanings that embody the energies of this planet can only enhance our experience of it.
Doing this re-edit has also made me consider that some of my other writings might need a re-working. Since it’s work I’ve already done in one form or another, I won’t be starting at the beginning. That will leave me plenty of time for loving my new granddaughter!
Summer Solstice: June 21, 2023
The Sun enters the tropical sign of Cancer and begins the season of Summer Solstice on June 21, 2023 at 7:58am PDT/10:58am EDT/3:58pm GMT.
The Sabian symbol for the Summer Solstice Sun at 1* Cancer is: On a ship, the sailors lower an old flag and raise a new one. On psychological level, this symbol describes what Dane Rudhyar says is a re-orientation. Of course on a physical level, it describes the shift in the Sun’s path. But on a societal level, it speaks to a needed change, one where we live in harmony with nature and each other-- which is what we modern people do in the summer. But now, it means more than that. There are dire warnings about the changes Mother Earth is going through – warmer oceans, melting ice caps, higher CO2 levels, stronger storms, polluted waters. We need a new society that understands the realities of modern life – the good and the bad – and is determined to use our resources to heal Earth’s environmental damage as humans once again learn to live in harmony with Her. A society that values Life over Death.
The Cancer Sun’s aspect to Venus in Leo is a 45* semi-square. This aspect shows us where we’re stuck and asks us to stop stubbornly holding onto old desires so we can change our habits, not only for ourselves but for everyone. Most of those desires are for things that our media has convinced us we need to buy to make ourselves happy. In reality, with Venus ending her Evening Star phase, we need to discover new, lasting desires that have nothing to do with buying things to make ourselves feel good. This wisdom aspect of Venus’ journey wants us to listen to our hearts to discover what we value. That is what will make us whole. That is what will make us feel good.
The Solstice Sun forms an inconjunct to Pluto retrograde 29*+ Capricorn, which can help with those necessary personal and societal changes that will truly nurture us. Or it can make us obsess over the need to control things out of fear. Once again, the choice is ours to either accept necessary changes or fight them. Real security (a Cancer need) can only come from within.
If ever there there was a time for a new vision for our future, it’s now. The old order is falling apart. It can’t be sustained. Pluto is backing into Capricorn to revisit America’s Pluto degree and complete the demolition of our cultural institutions that begin in 2009. Pluto will be in Capricorn from June 11th, 2023 until it goes back into Aquarius on January 21st, 2024, the day after the Sun enters Aquarius. Next year we’ll be entering Aquarius season with the power of Pluto to begin a new evolution.
But until then, we’re still dealing with the power struggle between the old world run by the wealthy elite and the new world of greater equality and freedom. At the moment, instead of dealing with the major crisis of our time – climate change – the old order has reverted to war and domination to try to retain power. Using old behaviors that are set on destruction rather than life. When will we learn that it’s up to us to get our governments to listen to us, rather than to the military-industrial complex?
This year the old structures are lashing out as they begin to crumble. With Pluto’s entry into Aquarius for the past two months, we witnessed the first stages of the fight between discrimination and equality, a very Aquarian project. Look at all the laws being passed by Republicans to deny equal voting rights and abortions, negating LGBTIQ rights as well as environmental laws, and making Christianity-based decisions about our collective life. Now that Pluto has gone back into Capricorn for the next six months, stand back and watch the old regime crumble from within. We are seeing the Christian evangelists vision of The End Times: their need to make society into a good, moral Christian world so Jesus can return to renew it.
Pluto’s retrograde back into Capricorn will test the integrity of our democratic system, especially through Trump’s trial. It will radicalize some of his followers, but if we truly do live under The Rule of Law that we’re all bound to obey, then this test will be the finishing touch of America’s Pluto return. Will our foundation hold steady and true? If so, we will renew our laws to make them more equitable and just, not only to all people but also to the Earth and her resources. What must we shed from the past and our mistakes – our attachment to wealth entitlement/royalty from the defeated British – and what must we save – our belief in living in a world where we have to take responsibility for ourselves and each other. Living as a citizen of a democracy.
Hopefully, we’ll pass the test.
And that will open us up to new ideas, new behaviors, new understandings of what faces us, and calls on us to make a choice about our future. Will we demand action on the important issues? Or will we let manufactured and harmful opposing moral beliefs divert us?
Venus, Mars & the Moon
This Cancer Sun is ruled by the Moon, which is a Leo Moon squaring Jupiter conjunct the North Node in Taurus. Jupiter by itself can make any Moon need expand and get excessive. But together, Jupiter and the North Node are aligned with our earthy, sensual nature and can give our Leo Moon, which wants what she wants, an energetic charge to make those changes or relapse back into old habits. As you can see, this a moment of change for all of us. While we relax into summer and all the delights it brings us, we are also charged to change those behaviors that don’t align with our beliefs. It’s time to live up to our ideals.
The Leo Moon is also inconjunct Saturn retrograde in Pisces. Saturn turned retrograde on June 17th at 8* Pisces, and it turns direct at 1* Pisces on November 4th. The Sabian symbol for 8* Pisces is: A girl blowing a bugle. Dane Rudhyar says this is “a call to participation in the service of humanity, as an evolutionary crisis approaches”.
Saturn in Pisces places the center of gravity – our collective root chakra – in the realm of the collective unconscious. Jupiter sextiles Saturn, meaning they work together to provide opportunities for us to work things out. If Saturn is the root chakra, Jupiter is a crown chakra portal, for it expands our consciousness to other realms. When they work together, they open us more easily to these other dimensions. Neptune is also in Pisces, bringing us the gift of illumination ("to throw into light, make bright, light up;") or of illusion ("act of deception; deceptive appearance, apparition; delusion of the mind,").
There are multiple dimensions of reality. It’s the one we settle on that’s going to decide if we choose delusion or a new reality. There is an evolutionary crisis facing us. How will we face it?
We might see more religious/political fanaticism in the world; we can also see more true spiritual insight open people’s eyes to our world’s needs. While the clash between the old and the new is playing out around the world, the United States is ground zero in many ways – perhaps because we are experiencing our Pluto return.
This aspect between the Moon and Saturn retrograde asks us to accept responsibility for our lives and to develop some emotional maturity. It’s time to grow up! Saturn in Pisces is taking us on a deep dive into the collective unconscious, opening our reality to the deep wounds in our collective psyche. Isn’t it time to heal our collective trauma and get on with creating a more healthy, united world? Instead of wallowing in our old trauma, we can embrace the lessons we’ve learned and move on to our grown-up responsibilities to our community and the world.
At Summer Solstice, both Mars and Venus are in Leo being squared by Uranus in Taurus, challenging us to let go of our pride and self-centeredness and wake up to a bigger point of view – the Earth’s point of view and her creative genius. Leo’s energy is a conduit between heaven and earth – our personal creative genius. The Pluto in Leo generation is especially called upon to grow up and show some wisdom. We have to respond to the world around us. We can keep buying things we don’t need to feed our weak sense of self or we can begin to create out of our higher Self.
With the Moon, Venus, Mars, Pallas and Black Moon Lilith in Leo, we have access to a very creative force this summer, especially since Venus goes retrograde in Leo on July 22nd.
The signs are all here. We have to step forward and engage in the world if we want to create a better world. We can stop supporting the corporations who continue to pollute our world. We can stop supporting politicians who are much more concerned with corporate profits than with feeding the hungry and helping children and elders.
Of course, it’s time to take action as citizens, instead of wasting our energy on being the consumers they’re turned us into. Don’t forget that after 9/11, George Bush told us that our response needed to be – to buy more things! To become even more entrenched in a consumer society. Instead of asking us to become engaged citizens.
If we really want a different society, we can only make it happen by engaging in those issues that are important to us. We the people vastly outnumber the wealthy elite, who aren’t so different from the British monarchy that the American Revolution fought against. We are living in revolutionary times, but unlike those people who stormed the Capital on January6th in a push for more patriarchal domination, we have to create a peaceful transition to a new world. This is where women can lead the way.
The good news is that after the wrecking ball comes renovation. It’s a good time to begin envisioning who we want to be as a person and as a nation in the future. With the Solstice’s Leo Moon just barely visible in the evening sky, along with Venus and Mars, let your visions be creative, loving, life-giving and beautiful. Why not?
Cosmic wisdom says we needed chaos to destroy the old regime of patriarchal power – which is still here and thriving. But as these old structures fall from grace, we’re going to re-define and refine the foundations of what the Founding Fathers left us.
One thing needs to change. We need our Founding Mothers as well – that Cancer mothering and nurturing energy that promotes life. Ben Franklin should have enshrined a Council of Grandmothers in the Constitution, just as the Iroquois Confederacy had in place. He embraced everything else about the confederacy of Indian nations, except the Council of Grandmothers, who made the important decisions for the tribes. We need some wise women for the job – maybe instead of the Supreme Court.
Venus in Leo: June 6th to October 8th
The Summer Solstice season will be infused with big magic from Venus’ long stay and retrograde in Leo, which is the big news of this season of the Wheel.
Venus is going to be in Leo from June 6th to October 8th, rather than her usual 3-4 weeks, while she retrogrades through Leo and goes from being an Evening Star to a Morning Star. On the way, Venus kisses/conjuncts the Sun on August 13th while retrograde at 20*28’ Leo. She then starts a new Venus Star Point as her Evening Star phase ends and she soon appears as a Morning Star.
With Leo’s energies filtered through Venus’ power of connection and attraction, we will have many opportunities to do what we love, create beauty and harmony, shine out our own beauty, connect with our tribe and create something amazing. The work for this summer can be to find contentment and joy, and express gratitude – and to play! Venus in Leo is dramatic and playful, generous and expressive. If you channel her energy into your relationships, your surroundings, your self-worth and your artistry, you will find that contentment and joy. For Aphrodite/Venus entices us to live life fully. And that’s the energy of Summer Solstice season. The Marriage of Heaven and Earth. The season of Love and Light and Abundance.
The second half of Summer Solstice season is the cross-quarter holiday of Lammas, the first harvest. I’ll save more information about Venus’ retrograde and the start of her new Venus Morning Star Point on August 13th until that newsletter at the end of July.
Isis and Osiris: The Divine Couple
Since Summer Solstice is considered the Sacred Marriage of Heaven and Earth, I thought about which Goddess energy was a good mentor for this season. Obviously, a goddess who has a divine partner. And so let’s look at Isis, Mother Goddess, Lady of Magic and Divine Partner.
Isis and Osiris
In Egypt, Isis was called Au Set. She is identified with the star Sirius, whose rising before dawn in mid-June heralded the rising of the Nile, the source of Egyptian life.
The story of Isis and Osiris begins for us (although you can go back further to the beginning of creation) with the sun god Ra, who got so inflated with his power that he refused to let any more gods be born of his mother Nut, the Sky Goddess. Separated from her husband, Geb, the Earth, she was in labor for millennia with five children, until the moon god Thoth, whom Nut created with Ra, gambled with his brother Ra and won from him five days, in which the five gods in Nut’s womb would be born. (See The Passion of Isis and Osiris by Jean Houston)
Sky Goddess Nut
Osiris was first-born, then came Horus and Seth, and finally Isis and Nephthys. While Isis and Osiris were married, both lovers and partners, Seth and Nephthys, while also married, were often at odds, since Seth was jealous and so angry. Horus flew in his hawk form from one end of the Earth to the other, observing the beauty and laws of the Earth.
Isis and her husband Osiris were given the land of Kemet or Egypt to rule. They taught the people to till the soil and plant seeds and to harvest the grains, and taught them to gather together animals into herds to be domesticated. Isis taught the women to weave baskets of reeds to gather in the harvest, to grind flour and bake bread. She also taught them to harvest cotton, to spin and to weave cloth and to plait hair. She taught them how to press flowers for fragrant oils, to crush malachite into a fine green powder to go with the kohl that made their eyes beautiful. Isis made the sistrum and rattled gourds to set women’s feet dancing, their bodies swaying and their hearts beating; she taught them chants and prayers to offer to the gods.
Isis gave women the knowledge of counting to understand the cycle of the Moon as well as their own menstrual cycle. She also taught them the names of the stars. She gave people medicines for healing most ailments, the herbs for and knowledge of childbirth, and the making of protective amulets.
Osiris, meanwhile, showed people how to harness the cows to pull the plows that created furrows for the seeds. He showed them how to stomp grapes into wine and how to brew barley into beer. At night, he taught the people the music of his Mother, Nut, the Sky, with reed pipes and drums and the lyre.
Together, Isis and Osiris taught their people the gifts of civilization. They often traveled up and down the Nile, bringing the gift of abundance to their people and teaching them the holy, peaceful ways of community and the divine. They gave them the gifts of Ma’at, the gift of truth and justice. They were the Divine King and Queen of Heaven and Earth.
While their love story has many twists and turns, for Osiris is murdered by his brother Seth and becomes Lord of the Underworld, Isis remains on Earth, to guide us in the magic of being a woman. She is the Goddess of Life, and through her union with Osiris, the Queen of the Dead. She is a mistress of Magic, especially the magic of the Word. Which makes it more disgusting that we called a group of terrorist men Isis, stealing her powers by invalidating her name. A typical patriarch ploy.
Here are a few of her titles, which tell us about her powers. She is called:
Mistress of the Cosmos, Ruler of the House of Life, Almighty Lady of Wisdom, Establisher of Justice, Champion of Righteous Law, Giver of the Gift of Abundance, Inventor of Agriculture, Inventor of the Loom, Source of Healing Herbs, Owner of the Throne, Magistra of Fate, Restorer of Life.
With so many gifts to share with us, Isis is a wonderful mentor to guide us this Summer Solstice Season. Jean Houston’s The Passion of Isis and Osiris, Merlin Stone’s Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, and Normandi Ellis’ books on the Egyptian gods will give you more information to play with.
Enough for now. Despite the issues facing us, we have our Earth Mother’s support to live fully this summer. The more we see Her beauty and feel her delight in life, the easier it will be for us to sacrifice (to make sacred) our unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle. Once we commit to a simpler life, we’ll find joy and contentment.
May you have a blessed Summer Solstice season.
Cathy
What We Want
What
we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we
thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these
things bear our names--
now they want us.
But what we want
appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding
out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We
don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is
there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as
the stars are there
even in full sun.
~ Linda Pastan ~
(Carnival Evening)
