The Cosmic Story: Sagittarius/Gemini Full Moon Lunar Eclipse 2021
The Shift Begins
I wish that I could show you
when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing light of your own being.
Hafiz
How has May been for you? Pretty crazy, right? Computers acting up – my whole file of pictures disappeared! People are moody. People aren’t sleeping because of high energy solar flairs and the energy of the up-coming eclipses. People are ready to finish one whole part of their life and move on to a new part – a new story.
This whole month has been intense as all the personal planets moving through Taurus got shaken up/conjuncted Uranus, embraced possibilities/Jupiter in Aquarius, got marching orders/squared Saturn in Aquarius, circled the wagons/sextiled Mars in Cancer and were inspired/Neptune in Pisces, and transformed goals/trined Pluto in Capricorn. And that’s with many of those same planets being OOB – out-of-bounds, meaning they don’t have to follow the rules!
So perhaps you’re ready for some new rules. Both for yourself and for our world. You can start during Mercury retrograde, but hold onto the list. It’s not time yet.
First let’s look at where all the planetary players are, because there are circles within circles and spirals happening in the sky and here on Earth.
Pluto in Capricorn: Transforming Society
Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008 – the last financial crisis before Covid. Pluto’s energy evolves society and it does it by exposing all the parts of society that don’t work. Sound familiar? Then from 2012-2015 we went through 7/seven squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn, waking people up to the fact that our society wasn’t serving ‘we the people’ very well. The rich kept getting richer. And blacks and women kept getting killed and abused. It was time to stand up to those patriarchal structures that repressed and devalued most of us.
On January 12, 2020 Saturn and Pluto joined together in Capricorn to start a new cycle, one that hasn’t been seen since 1517 C.E. – the start of our modern society. Later they were joined by Jupiter and Mars – really blowing things up. Covid arrived and we’re just beginning to emerge from a year of lock down and deaths. And political shenanigans unlike we’ve ever seen in the United States – our unconscious shadow dictator came out and got people lying and acting like sulky, vicious teenagers. This can also be attributed to the upcoming Pluto return for America. You could say we’ve reached the ‘bottom of the barrel’.
Well, the other planets have moved on from Capricorn, except for Pluto, who’s hanging out in the last degrees of Capricorn. Next year the United States will have its first Pluto return on February 20, 2022. (2202022)
The Sabian symbol for the US Pluto at 27* Capricorn is: A large aviary.
Birds symbolize spiritual messages or messengers like angels. Some of the first goddess statues found are bird-headed. This symbol says the ability to hear and listen to that inner voice of instinct and wisdom has to be honored. If this symbolizes the United States’ Fate/Pluto, then our country was created to be a conscious society, one that is attuned to spiritual (not necessarily religious) values. Attuned to the Cosmic Laws of Life. May It Be So!
Pluto is in the Virgo decan (last 10*) of Capricorn, so this is the time to make plans about what we want our future society to look like. Just like the Founding Fathers of the United States, it is our time to re-create a more fair and just system of governance. A country where ‘we the people’ finally join together to make the rules, not the ruling class.
Saturn in Aquarius goes Retrograde
Saturn turns retrograde this year on May 23rd at 13*31’ Aquarius. The Sabian symbol is: A train entering a tunnel.
Dane Rudhyar says this symbol represents, The ability to short-cut the process of natural evolution by the exercise of Will, mental skill and physical discipline.
With Saturn here in the sign of Aquarius, a fixed Air sign, it makes sense to get organized. Once we envision what we can achieve, we have to get organized and plan out what skills we need to succeed. And then we have to pick the right time to begin. NOW is not the right time. We’re still planning, especially with Mercury going retrograde within a week. If we follow the seasons, we’ll begin to see results at harvest time in September and October, when Saturn turns direct again on October 10, 2021, ready to move us forward.
Saturn is the Great Teacher and Tester, the energy that says, Do the work! Saturn tests our endurance and our patience as we overcome the obstacles that our life presents us with. Saturn helps us stay present in our lives. The limitations Saturn imposes help us commit to the work without distractions. This is the great Teacher who imposes tasks on us to build up our muscle memory.
Wax On. Wax Off.
So this is your Saturn Mantra: perseverance, commitment, patience, endurance and conviction – I know it’s mine since Saturn is squaring my Taurus Sun! It’s also an initiation, since all of Saturn’s tests initiate us into a more coherent form of ourselves.
So when Saturn goes retrograde, the energy of re-structuring turns within. It’s time to become the author(ity) of your own life. This retrograde invites us to get honest about how we’re not living in coherence with our own thoughts and ideals. Since Aquarius is the sign of the group mind, fostering both individual freedom and communal caring, Saturn can teach us how to live our lives with faith in ourselves and faith in each other.
But first, see yourself in the new story you want to inhabit. Inhabit it now while Saturn can build the new structure inside you that will hold that story for you.
Imagine. Play. Become.
Uranus in Taurus square Saturn in Aquarius
Uranus in Taurus is showing us Earth’s experimental creative genius. We are finally mimicking Mother Nature’s ways instead of imposing our wills on Her. Nature let’s everything blossom, what we call weeds (dandelions! really?) as well as what we use as food and see as beauty. She isn’t into something she creates being ‘chosen’ over other things. All are equal in her biosphere.
Uranus wants us to wake up to our connection to Mother Earth and our place in her biosphere. As equal partners with everything we interact with. Isn’t it time we once again became ‘Stewards of the Earth’ and resumed our place in her bounty?
Saturn in Aquarius also wants to set up societal structures that serve the many rather than the few. While he takes Jupiter’s visionary possibilities into account, he wants some accountability. Saturn’s energy wants us to manifest our dreams in 3D reality. Collectively, we’ll see lots of technological advancements in new energy, new social rules and new community values.
This second Saturn/Uranus square on June 14th asks us again to decided between the New and the Old. The push for change comes up against the resistance to change.
We can see the Old playing out in the Republicans’ mindf**k strategy, to simply keep repeating The Big Lie, keep lying in the face of seeing it as well as the facts of it, that has so many representatives, senators and newspeople lying about what happened on January 6, 2021. This is called the transvaluation of values – when lies become Truth and unjust acts are seen as righteous.
They want to stay in power, more than they want the American people to know the truth. It seems like they don’t want to create a better world for everyone – that they want to hold onto their power regardless of what people need and want. (In some ways, I feel sorry for them because we always need villeins to come up against. I guess they chose to be that.) We see it in the willingness to fight and kill rather than to create peace. We see it in world religions that are still persecuting ‘non-believers’. That’s the OLD.
The New isn’t quite clear yet. We need a more sustainable world. We need to limit the power of social media. We want freedom and equality (Uranus!) as well as a stable structure. We want an equitable economy, one where everyone has their basic needs met at the same time as people can go out into the world and make more money.
Saturn will build the structure when we know what new options are viable. Whatever we end up with, we need to put people, family, community in the center – not the ECONOMY, STUPID! The economy is only a tool to help us move toward our need/goal for ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. So far, our economy hasn’t been all that great for most of us. If we put it in its place as just a tool for society’s betterment, it leaves so many ways open to viable possibilities for it to work for all people and for the Earth.
Personally, we’ll be re-configuring our own habits, our vision of life, our physical health and well being. Uranus, even when he shakes the ground we stand on, wants us to stay grounded in Taurus. After all, his potency gave rise to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and of Wisdom, locating us in our senses and so awake to the world around us.
(If we really were living in our senses, we’d never want the crazy American lifestyle we’re enmeshed in. It’s too intense for fully opened senses and often too ugly to bear.)
Saturn asks us what our ideals (very Aquarian) are really doing for us. Are we living up to them? We each will be playing out the struggle of old vs new. Instead of a battle, why not a dance? Dance with what’s still good and wholesome and dance those aspects that need to die into the dirt.
Neptune & Jupiter in Pisces
With Neptune and Jupiter, both rulers of Pisces, being for a while this summer and all of 2022, we are being given an opening, an opening into many dimensions of reality. We’re entering a more fluid time, where we can connect with our imaginations and our spiritual and artistic sides. But it can lead to religious fanaticism as well, since Jupiter expands what he touches. The collective unconscious of humanity is stirring. There be monsters there! As well as angels.
How and where we go through those openings is up to us. We can awaken other parts of our brain which can interact with these other dimensions. We can get lost in illusion and delude ourselves about the Truth of Life.
Humanity is undergoing a reset. I heard Steven Forest say, we’ve all been in a spiritual retreat/psychotherapy this past year and for many of us, we’re finally looking at our Shadows, both individually and collectively, and some of it isn’t pretty. But if we look in Truth, the light and darkness can dance together and create something new. There can and probably will be religious fanaticism and demonizing. But to balance that, more people will awaken to their spiritual center.
Will you be the light in the darkness? Will you lead by example to help people free their inner light so they can shine out?
It is all what we make it of.
As always, look to your own chart to see where these energies are activated for you. The house will tell you what area of life it’s effecting.
The background Cosmic Story so far is this: we are living in a time of tremendous societal change, change on a global scale. (In many ways, it is the end of the old age and the beginning of the new. We have to learn to live sustainably and peacefully. Otherwise we are in danger of falling into dictatorships and world shattering wars. It is up to us to come up with ingenious methods to mitigate climate change, income equality and individual freedom. In the coming years, when we complete America’s first Pluto cycle, we will have the blessings of the spiritual realm available to us, if we use it wisely. What kind of society are we intending to create? Each of us has a part to play in that creation. Each of us has to take responsibility for bringing that creation to fruition.
Now for the more immediate energies of this Eclipse season.
Sagittarius Full Blood/Flower Moon Lunar Eclipse
The Lunar eclipse occurs on Wednesday, May 26 at 3:14am Alaska time/ 4:14 am PDT/ 7:14am EDT/ 12:14pm GMT. This month’s Moon is called the Flower Full Moon.
This is the closest Super Moon this year – meaning that the Moon is at its closest distance to Earth. The Blood Moon occurs when the Moon reflects the Earth’s atmosphere and colors the Moon’s surface. That, along with the total Lunar Eclipse, should make this Full Moon spectacular.
This total lunar eclipse will be visible from southern and eastern Asia, South America, Australia, and the western half of North America. The eclipse is expected to begin at 1:46 a.m. PDT and the Moon will enter the darkest part of the Earth's shadow around 2:45 a.m. PDT. If you want to catch totality—which is the period when all of the Moon's surface is blanketed by the Earth's umbra—look up at the sky between 4:11 a.m. and 4:26 a.m. PDT.
On the East Coast, look to the West as the Full Moon will be setting a bit after sunrise to see a partial covering of the Moon. In Rhode Island and the Northeast coast, the Sun rises at 5:18 am and the Moon sets at 6:07 am. Perhaps you’ll see some of it.
A lunar eclipse brings things to light from deep within. Sagittarius is concerned with freedom, truth, law and belief systems. What do we need to release to cleanse our beliefs, live in truth and freedom, and create laws that give equality to all people? Lunar eclipses bring things to a culmination point. It’s like a reboot for the computer. It’s time to let it all go.
In the US Sibly progressed chart, this lunar eclipse hits the MC/IC – perhaps meaning that we’ll get to see some secrets reveals and some beliefs let go of.
The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 6* Sagittarius is: A cricket match. Dane Rudhyar says this symbolizes the development of skills in group situations, testing collective goals. I’m reading a great book called The One by Nora Roberts about a pandemic that kills more than ½ the world’s population at the same time as it releases the magic within some of us – for good or evil. With this end-of-the-world scenario, people have to band together, adding their skills to create a different society. While we’re nowhere near that kind of world, we still have to develop our skills and then see how we can work with others as we create a new society.
The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 6* Gemini is: Workmen drilling for oil. Dane Rudhyar says that this symbolize digging deeper into the collective unconscious to re-awaken the powers that once flourished in humanity. Our Magic! Our unconscious abilities. (read the books – a trilogy)
Total Lunar eclipses occur when the Sun and Moon are within about 15 degrees of the Lunar Nodes, which are presently in Gemini and Sagittarius. This lunar eclipse is conjunct the karmic South Node in Sagittarius – the things we need to shed so we can move forward in life. With the South Node in Sagittarius, we’re asked to take stock of the dark shadows around our beliefs and our ability to know the Truth.
Our beliefs develop as young children, and so they are the bedrock of how we see and live life. These beliefs might no longer serve who we have become, and this past year we’ve all been challenged to understand those beliefs and the truths we hold dear. You can’t carry them into the future. There is no place for them.
Since 2016, when Saturn in Sagittarius squared Neptune in Pisces, we’ve been caught up in the delusion of so-called ‘fake news’. Yes, the media doesn’t tell us the whole truth, but it really is up to us individually to understand what our truth is and how it connects to the Cosmic Truth of life. This is another major initiation. Have we developed our spiritual consciousness enough to know our own truth.
In America, many people are still caught up in a man-made illusion (that they need to be angry, that they aren’t free, that they’ve been cheated, that ‘the others’ are evil) because they would rather believe a leader’s delusions than discover truth for themselves. That’s our initiation. How do we judge people – by their words or by their actions? Hypocrisy is always a sign of guilt. Hopefully, this eclipse will break that delusion and reveal some real truths.
The Sun is in Gemini along with the Gemini North Node. This nodal axis calls us to open our minds to new ideas, to learn new things, meet new people and have conversations about our differences so we can let go of our old beliefs (Sagittarius South Node).
Gemini is so interesting. It’s explores how we use our minds. Dane Rudhyar describes Gemini beautifully: ...Gemini has basically the meaning of insatiable curiosity and avidity for knowledge; it is logically a ‘human’ sign (the Twins). One of the Twins tends to seek power and knowledge from the ancient past, the other to discover a living source of strength and wisdom which is forever being replenished by the celestial downpour of Spiritual Consciousness and Love.
These are our two brains – our left brain which explores the past logically and our right brain which tunes into the Now and picks up what IS and what needs to be. Our right brain, feminine brain is our connection to Lady Wisdom, Mother Earth’s world soul.
Gemini is all about communication – what words we use, how we say them. So watch how you speak to yourself and to others. Thoughts and words have electromagnetic energy attached to them. They can create calm or chaos, connection or disruption. Once again, the choice is ours.
So our present destiny (NN in Gemini) is to develop beginner’s mind – the mind that is open and curious, willing to learn and see things in a new way. So let this lunar eclipse drain away those old beliefs that no longer serve the life you want to live moving forward into the mysterious, new future we have waiting for us.
This lunar eclipse is also squaring Jupiter in Pisces – the ruler of Sagittarius and therefore of this eclipse. Jupiter expands whatever it touches, so if you want to release something, ask Jupiter to take all of it so you can start fresh. Jupiter in Pisces also calls on us to use our compassion and kindness to change things in our lives and in the world.
Jupiter turns retrograde on June 20th at 3* Pisces. The Sabian symbol is: Petrified tree trunks lie broken in desert sands. We will always preserve what is important to human life and culture, but it might not be complete. Humans build on what came before, but we can’t depend on just the past. We have to make our own way forward into the future and discover new knowledge and new vision.
Venus and Mercury in Gemini are squaring Neptune in Pisces, another sign for us to open up our spiritual imaginations when we communicate, learn and enjoy each other. It also indicates that we need to look at where we’re deluding ourselves, especially about how we treat loved ones.
With Venus and Mercury out of bounds and together, it’s time to unite heart and head. Listen to your heart and let your head figure out how to do what it needs to do.
Mars, out-of-bounds in Cancer, is in a disruptive aspect to this Full Moon and coming up to his opposition to Pluto in Capricorn. Mars can get sulky here if he doesn’t get his way, so find ways to smooth over the temper and moods and give Mars something to do to work off the steam.
Mercury Retrograde – May 29th – June 22nd
Mercury goes retrograde in his own sign of Gemini, just after his conjunction to Venus. So he goes into this retrograde with Venus’ energy of love, connection and wisdom. Mercury and Venus are both still out-of-bounds, meaning they aren’t following the rules anymore!
The Messenger God
Mercury OOB is a genius trickster who is willing to look deeply into things. And also delight in stirring up trouble. So watch for lots of news, lots of communications, lots of information coming to light during this time. Mercury retrograde will conjunct the June 10th Gemini total solar eclipse – which is right on Donald Trump’s Sun/Uranus/NN. It should be interesting to see what’s up for him in the news about his criminal investigation in New York.
Mercury goes retrograde at 25* Gemini and the Sabian symbol is: A gardener trimming large palm trees. I guess this retrograde is about pruning any unnecessary expansion, such delusional thoughts and ideas. All ideas can be valid if they are logical as well as intuitive. Facts help too.
The Sabian symbol for Mercury direct on June 22nd at 17* Gemini is: The head of a robust youth changes into that of a mature thinker. Will we really grow up?
Other Astrological Happenings in June
Gemini Annular (Ring of Fire) Solar Eclipse on June 10th:
This solar eclipse can be seen in northern North America – and for those of you in the North East, if you get up at Sunrise you’ll be able to see some of it as the Sun rises. Don’t forget your eclipse glasses! Check it out at:
https://eclipse.aas.org/eclipse-america-2021
The Sabian symbol for the Sun and Moon at 20* Gemini is: A modern cafeteria displays an abundance of food, products of various regions. Many kinds of information are available to us now. Make sure you eat healthy!
Summer/Winter Solstice - June 20th
The Sun is at it’s highest point North in the year. After a 3-day standstill, it begins its journey back South. The Longest Day of the Year. Go out and celebrate!
Mercury Direct – June 22nd
Full Moon in Capricorn on June 24th
Neptune retrograde on June 25th
Neptune turns retrograde at 24* Pisces. The Sabian symbol is: On a small island surrounded by a vast expanse of water, people are seen living in close interaction. It seems to me that this could be an image of Mother Earth, floating in space. Isn’t it time we realize we’re all one family, we’re all in this together, and we need each other?
Blessings for the remainder of the Spring!
Cathy
A Morning Offering
I
bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of
longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to
harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.
All
that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The
field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To
arise and illuminate.
I
place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The
tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore
to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May
my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That
invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of
yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May
I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To
postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here
for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
~ John O'Donohue ~
(To Bless the Space Between Us)
