This Month: Notes On Eclipse Season * Astrological Trends * Nourishing Recommendations
Notes on Eclipse Season this Summer:
- Full Moon Eclipse in Sagittarius on June 5
- Cancer New Moon Solar Eclipse on June 21
- Capricorn Full Moon Lunar Eclipse July 4-5
“I want something I can eat with my hands. That I can hold in my hands.” My husband, who can’t get out of the car this year and maybe next year, too, because he’s pointedly vulnerable to Corona Virus, said at about 4 PM on June 21, the night of the last Cancer eclipse.
“What can I get you that you can eat with your hands? I don’t know. A taco? A slice of Pizza? I don’t know. I can’t think of any foods.”
I swerve to avoid the underground access cover that causes a huge bump if I drive directly over it and turn right to head to Starbucks and some deep, deep espresso. It seems weird to me that I’m out of ideas for food. I know myself to be a foodie.
“It’s not pizza season tonight.” Chuck comments.
We keep abstaining from junk food to try to stay healthy and on track—and self-regulated. So once every six months we joke to ourselves it is ‘Winter’ pizza season or ‘Summer’ pizza season and we pick the one night we’re going to enjoy the stylings of a Chicago style cheesy pie that we split. That inevitably lasts for several days on the leftover shelf.
Eclipses are like that. They fall on a certain day but they last for a season. For eighteen months, we anticipate the particular impacts and leftover events of eclipses based on the sign pairs involved. In 2020, the Cancer/Capricorn eclipse set is ending and the Gemini/Sagittarius eclipse set is beginning.
That means, this Summer, we’re shifting from the sign pairs of Cancer/Capricorn over to a few years of Gemini/Sagittarius.
“It’s definitely not pizza season,” I reply.
“Nope,” he answers. “We just had pizza less than a month ago.”
When we spontaneously decided it was pizza season, Chuck had regaled me with stories from his time living in Chicago as a young lad. The North Node still traveling through Cancer and Venus retrograde in Gemini put us straight into our history and storytelling situations. The eclipse season being on the axis of the signs of Cancer/Capricorn gave rise to our life review activities. Venus traveling back and forth through Gemini has had us looking and talking over and over about relationships and values, survival of the body and what is good for us. The Cancer influence is the foundation of our little creature selves as individuals and our safety and security. We need to build a shell like a crab—a home, protection–and realize we are vulnerable in the first place and have needs. Sometimes our word for this is “mother.”
The Capricorn influence during the eclipse season is to travel the mountains of our lives, and sometimes mountains include caverns and caves. Caves have pits you can fall into and dark places. If we don’t have the basis of our individual values balanced out, we’re likely to seek our protection in the groups and ideas generated by some dark dragons living and hoarding in those caverns. There is evolution as we climb the mountains of our lives and there is also devolution as we fall into the pits and burn at the center of the earth’s core. Old stories can also be recycled and replayed repeatedly as easily as heroes can be forged in fires.
Capricorn’s season this year is expanding our knowledge of either one of these things with the Corona virus appearing, and with Pluto and Jupiter’s meeting following Saturn’s traversal through the sign. With the South Node having traversed and leaving Capricorn as well, many other personal planets such as Mercury and Mars have additionally recently gone through the sign of the goat. The heavy messages from Capricorn are ringing and knocking heavily on the door of humanity and planet earth from this earth sign to let us know the humble approach is most realistic. Capricorn seems to be asking us to tell the truth together in our reckonings. We’ve made a lot of strip-mines of convenient interpretations but Capricorn keeps putting pins in situations like you would pin a fly down to a board. Doesn’t make the fly any different but keeps it in place until its heart stops beating and its wings stop flapping.
It sure sounds cruelly indifferent all-around—from the fly’s ignorant appetites to the Capricornian pin-in-the-fly of humanity’s harm. So, Capricorn’s earthy energy this eclipse season I suppose depends on how annoyingly you are buzzing about and what level of bite you carry. Try to be something other than the fly for nature to pin down. Try to understand that humans are not the top of the “food chain” even if we lie to ourselves and say we are.
Space and sky are vast, which is probably why Astrology exists, and why we humans look for systems such as religion and science and relationships to understand the parts of the world around us we can perceive and attempt to describe and define. Our ancestors observed cycles of the moon and built calendars and clocks, trying to transmit ideas for our safety and control. We probably need to learn more how to work together in small, intimate ways and large, even intergalactic ways.
Fighting ourselves and each other is only cavern logic, says nature. When our collective spelunking is over and we emerge into daylight mountain climbing again, and the sun and moon are no longer eclipsed from our view—let’s use the change that eclipses bring to gain perspective about how to manage resources over the long term and see one another with sustainable balance instead of mad and murderous intent.
The influence of the Cancer and Capricorn eclipses are activated and can be seen during the past few years and their ongoing effect will stay lit for the next six months as well.
As we ease into the Gemini/Sagittarius axis of signs this year, the energy will shift and change. Questioning will be the highest use of our energies and letting go of dogma and our assumed philosophies and shared understandings will be important. Take off your teacher’s hat and put on your student’s hat. Allow yourself to become teachable if you wish to survive and even thrive. Turn away from thinking you know things and thinking you have all the information you need. Keep asking questions.
Back to Capricorn: Dragons who hoard gold in caves are hunted forever and have to hide. Plus, they’re not real. They’re a fantasy.
“An impossible burger.” Chuck clucks, stirring me out of my reverie. “Yeah, an impossible burger sounds good. The less meat we eat, the less cows butchered and all the rest that’s unsustainable about meat packing plants where corona virus is spreading plus all the other environmental troubles that were there beforehand anyway…”
“Well, it’s what we can do, I suppose.”
“Or chicken wings. Where did you get those parmesan chicken wings the other day you wouldn’t share with me?!”
I laugh because I’m trying with my whole heart to only buy as much as I will eat and no more, while simultaneously attempting to learn to share in the places I have kept secret and hidden. Hoarding food is a mixture of Cancer/Capricorn. Buying only a little and trying two goals at once is a sign of Gemini/Sagittarius influence.
I ease on the brakes.
And say, “I’ll get you anything you want.”
What is eating at the corners and core of your life this eclipse season?
(See the July Astrology trends for information/description on the Sagittarius/Gemini eclipse influence.)
All 2020 Eclipse Dates:
- Friday, January 10: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Cancer
- Friday, June 5: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Sagittarius
- Sunday, June 21: Annular Solar Eclipse in Cancer
- Sunday, July 5: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn
- Monday, November 30: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in Gemini
- Monday, December 14: Total Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius
Continuing Influences
List of Continuing Aspects:
- Saturn conjunct Pluto in Capricorn (exact January 12, 2020), in orb until December 26 except May 8-17, even during Saturn retrograde (but never exact again)
- January 1-October 30 (exact February 20, July 27, October 12) Jupiter in Capricorn sextile Neptune in Pisces
- February 4-December 23 (Exact April 4, June 29, and November 12) Jupiter conjunct Pluto in Capricorn
- June 23-July 26 Mercury Retrograde in Cancer square Chiron in Aries (Exact July 1 and when it turns DIRECT again on July 21)
- June 24-July 6 (Exact June 30) Sun conjunct Mercury retrograde in Cancer
- June 27-July 6 (exact June 30) Sun in Cancer square Chiron in Aries
Saturn conjunct Pluto in Capricorn (exact January 12, 2020), in orb until December 26 except May 8-17, even during Saturn retrograde (but never exact again): This is one of the most powerful aspects of our lives, and a once in a lifetime occurrence. The opportunity to deconstruct and reconstruct a new world. A steady and consistent effort can provide a way to work within the world that will honor our values in a noble way. Nature is larger than man, and we need to align with a higher vision as we make a new world, culture, society, and systems. The idea that men are machines or the ideas that our parents and the world has transmitted are not aligned with higher values. Saturn is the lord of karma and Pluto is the great destroyer/transformer/re-maker. Together, they can embody some larger conversations among nature and mankind is part of nature.
January 1-October 30 (exact February 20, July 27, October 12) Jupiter in Capricorn sextile Neptune in Pisces: When the expansion of universal governance meets consciousness in the most active of supportive aspects, this can provide an interesting mix. This is a non-personal aspect but likey will affect us all in personal ways depending on how it touches our chart. With Venus integrating alongside Neptune, relationships and/or values will certainly be deeply activated. Business and financial relationships may shift to a deeper or more spiritual slant. What planets do you have located in water and earth signs in the middle degrees? They may be activated by this influence.
February 4-December 23 (Exact April 4, June 29, and November 12) Jupiter conjunct Pluto in Capricorn: This is the aspect that brings us the telescope and the microscope. How much more literal and down to earth could the fusion (conjunction) of the planet of expansion and size (Jupiter) conjunct transformation (Pluto) be? Now we’re looking into black holes, still looking at space in new and revolutionary ways… In conjunction also with Saturn I feel it does have something to do with time and “event horizons.” However, in spiritual and evolutionary terms, we can take that into examining the black holes in our own lives. Where are we losing power? What energy holes and vortices need to be “closed up?” That’s a revolution and transformation that can serve us if we telescope and microscope in and out within our lives and take a look at how we are doing.
June 18 (through July 12) Mercury turns retrograde in Cancer from 14 degrees back to 5 degrees cancer: Maybe you, like lots of souls, are needing to get out of a roundabout of guilt over things you have done—past life guilt or even this-life guilt. Shame or guilt you hold from collective trauma from either side—the victim or the perpetrator. Driving round and round at break-neck speed means you’re running out of fuel and it’s time to choose an exit and take the action to get off this round about and figure out how to release the shame or guilt as well as how to behave differently for your soul to heal. The information is within and without you. Why not take the road to correction and flexibility? At least it will be an adventure—if not pure magic.
June 24-July 6 (Exact June 30) Sun conjunct Mercury retrograde in Cancer: Cancer asks you to come into coherence with yourself and retreat for a while. Let yourself calm down and take time to protect your world. Taking a break for mind and body is advised.
June 27-July 6 (exact June 30) Sun in Cancer square Chiron in Aries: How do you embody courage? What new fierce actions will take you through the fire upward out of the muck? You need to deal with pain and dance with the areas that frighten you and now is the time when it is meaningful to stay in tune with being true to yourself.
June 23-July 26 (Exact July 1 and when it turns DIRECT again on July 21) Mercury Retrograde & later Direct in Cancer square Chiron in Aries: We study and wonder how to perceive suffering. Does suffering help to further our development—our individuation? How can we provide a better future for our families and loved ones? How do we “reparent” ourselves and the wounded places within and without, individually, as a group, and transpersonally, where we have been either abused or neglected? What patterns, ideals, and perceptions—what projections and other thought distortions—harm and which ones help? What thoughts/beliefs help and what thoughts/beliefs wound? We may learn our interpretations matter more than we understood up to now. Astrology points to the fact that there is a need for new language for healing.
June 23 to November 28, Neptune Retrograde: With the reversal, or retrograde, of Neptune’s motion, we have the chance to see how this planet has been operating on us from its home placement in Pisces. Neptune is in a powerful placement and yet it is in a sign that does not “do” power. Neptune itself is a dreamy planet. I experience it as a portal and a calling operator, unlike Mars or Saturn or Pluto. Those planets manifest in ways that are visible and Uranus can manifest, when triggered, in a lightning flash. Neptune slowly operates like water. In a water sign, that is even more so. We might see many signs of escapist activity occurring—and it needn’t be anything that hits us over the head. Virtual reality and living and perceiving more from our fantasies than from observable reality. Increased reliance on pharmaceuticals and difficulties accessing our own agency to get things accomplished. Then there are the usual suspects—alcohol and (mine) eating, harmful substances and sexual preoccupations. Neptune can cover the exploration into DNA alterations, fantasy, envisioning, our capacity for spirituality. On what I think is nowadays the more positive side of Neptune in a heavy time for the planet, Neptune can inspire our capacity for playful and fun activities, and the fascination for exploration about human consciousness itself. All humans may find themselves engaging in more meditation and sleeping more. It will likely be the cumulative effects of beauty causing the tipping point for change and awakening of the masses. This can happen in Incremental pushes, not lightning bolts—raising the group consciousness of humans the way water slowly raises the level of what is floating upon it. In retrograde, Neptune is a little less cloudy and we may be able to see the functions here slightly more clearly or attempt to support them with our heart’s intentions.
Pluto Remains Retrograde
Saturn Remains Retrograde
Jupiter Remains Retrograde
Mercury Remains Retrograde
Neptune Remains Retrograde
July 2020 Astrology Trends
July 1 Saturn Retrograde in Capricorn: We are at a time when tricksters are trying to tell us we can never win the future and the future is trying to teach us to mature and regulate ourselves based upon patience and learning to ask important questions. We need to be willing to learn and become respectful of our own actions, even if no one ever sees them. Bearing witness to ourselves and our own growth is Saturn’s gift to us even in isolation. We know we are isolated with millions and billions of others. We know we make choices based on social practicalities. Saturn returning to Capricorn for several months means revisiting how we meet reality—whether with mature self-discipline and patience or whether we crumple and give in to despair and pressure.
July 1-16 (exact July 10) Venus in Gemini Sextile Chiron in Aries: You can find new ways to energize relational issues that center on vulnerability and rejection. You may be able to phrase or ask questions that help you with a breakthrough for yourself or others to get beyond what you have been able to realize in the past. New information may flow to you. You have the chance to stop and learn a lot or grow a lot in relationships. Listening can provide lots of information. Maybe it’s you with the new ears.
July 3-23 (never exact) Venus in Gemini Sextile Mars in Aries: You can find new and supportive integration methodologies for relationships, creativity, and financial interests. If used positively, this can support your endeavors.
July 5-25 (exact July 14) Mars in Aries conjunct Chiron in Aries: Every forty years or so, Chiron offers Mars a four-year seminar on how to upgrade your reactions and actions to become more self-aware and a higher-skilled advocate, protector, warrior, explorer, pioneer, lover, sexual partner, athlete, inspirational leader, thought leader, and all-things-Aries. This aspect provides you the chance to re-synchronize your courage and your identity. If you’re ensconced in an evil karma path, you could hurt others horribly while you’re “learning.” Don’t be evil. (Didn’t Steve Jobs say that?) Mars will revisit Chiron a few times between now and 2024. This is the first visit.
July 4-5 (Around Midnight) Full Moon Capricorn Lunar Eclipse: The blood moon eclipse (when the earth’s umbra turns red) signifies it is time to slay some dragons and let go of the hoard underneath the dragon has been guarding. With a nice trine to Uranus in Taurus and the Sun conjunct Mercury in Cancer, letting go to evolve is highly supported. One of the methods required is that you put forth the conscious effort to move forward, however, because it will be your choice to do so. The skies say it is your right to do nothing, as well. Surrender / release / endings—free us, and letting go is an awesome experience when we go through it. It is also super hard to remember that.
We hold on because it seems rational to the dragon within us. However, breathing is vital to remaining alive and we can’t inhale forever—the exhale is an equally important part of it. The heart needs its chambers empty to keep circulating blood. This is only the human body.
What other parts of nature require an emptying-out process for healing and health? Allowing this emptying and our exhalation is a great way to envision our next step forward. Allocate resources differently—whether that be personally or on a grand scale. Jupiter’s influence in Capricorn this year can be centered on learning generosity and faith in the face of feeling isolated and fearful. Give things away, clear things out.
I recommend you sign up for Denise Linn’s Elemental Space Clearing course (and certification). I have benefited from it for years and followed her professional advice. This eclipse season is a period of time where you can see how the past is affecting you in tangible and material ways. Gift yourself with mentoring from a guide in how to consciously work with your environmental energy.
Saturn straddling the line between Capricorn and Aquarius is also providing us with a deep connection to the experience of time—the personal and cultural meaning of past, present, and future for us and our participation in the system of time. Uranus and Aquarius in relationship to Saturn changing signs is also hitting us at eclipse season to let us know that we can step into timelessness to redefine our relationship to every system—including time.
An eclipse’s influence lasts up to 6 months, so you can anticipate this clearing and letting go process being activated through the Summer and Fall.
July 5-31 (exact July 8 when Mercury is retrograde and July 27 when Mercury is direct) Mercury Retrograde / Direct in Cancer square Mars in Aries: We can be all over the place with this aspect during July. Mercury is willing to lie, to go back on commitments, to say one thing and do another. Mars can get frozen in fear or attack targets that are most vulnerable or not even relevant just for the sake of attacking something. “Hulk Smash?” I guess. If you fail to keep a cool head when you face your fears—you have some more existential work to do. You need to ask the right questions and understand the true target of righteous anger to make a difference with effective action. If you can’t do that—you can’t do much here. Instead your ego will implode into a sense of victim-hood or your ego will explode into waves of gutless and cowardly arrogant destruction. The question of whether you should have caution or courage is one of maturity and likely involves Saturn and Pluto.
July 12 Mercury in Cancer turns Direct.
July 11 to December 15 Chiron in Aries retrogrades: Chiron stays in Aries for a long time because of its retrograde motion. We are asked to think about identity issues and issues of existence. Yes, those existential wounds and issues and the very foundations of life/death/suffering.
July 10-17 (exact July 14) Sun in Cancer oppose Jupiter Retrograde in Capricorn: It’s time for our cards to be revealed in the poker game of life, and with Jupiter, it will reveal the state of our ego or how we’re doing with our self-view. When we turn the cards over, it will reveal if we are doing well and have a healthy level of ego—in which case we should have a solid feeling of quiet confidence without much problem. Alternatively, we could bounce between extremes—an over-inflated or underinflated ego. An over-inflated ego can bring out the trickster in a Sun-Jupiter opposition where a balance can’t be gained and our arrogance is made fully public. An under-inflated ego can be exposed when we experience the petty tyrants around us as irritants and find we’re unable to hide the resentment we project onto them.
July 11-19 (exact July 15) Sun in Cancer oppose Pluto Retrograde in Capricorn: When the Pluto card is revealed, we have a similar experience to see how we are faring in self-awareness of our own personal relationship to power and control issues. If we have failed to submit to a larger moral framework than our own interests, our preoccupation with personal power and control is likely to be called out by Pluto. We get put into situations larger than ourselves and see how we are bit players in intergenerational and cultural stories. We might shiver later to see how Pluto taught us we had a small part to play in a big, big picture.
July 18-22 (exact July 20) Sun in Cancer oppose Saturn Retrograde in Capricorn: Saturn is called the teacher in astrology, so let Saturn teach you now! Saturn’s card will show you how well you’re doing with patience, self-regulation, and maturity.
July 20 New Moon in Cancer: The New Moon is opposing Saturn Retrograde in Capricorn. The dark, Cancer Moon wants to look at safety and the basic needs you have for your nurture and nature. This is the most inward of the dark moon moons. The only place to go is deeper, is what I would say. Close your eyes and let radical acceptance of emptiness shine inside the center of your experience until you can birth new understanding of the ground you stand on. Or let go of the idea of ground at all and just float a while. The need to make sense can take a vacation and the only thing you need is the womb part of life. As long as you are safe, that’s some kind of miracle. If you did something spiritual—perceiving what you cannot perceive—would be along the lines of what I might imagine you doing. Going underneath or behind the scenes of the stage we call reality. I doubt the efficacy of contact sports and contact activities on a day such as today. If you were to plan a social media fast, the days surrounding July 20 would be optimal choices to take a break from the news and noise.
July 18-24 (exact July 22) Mercury in Cancer sextile Uranus in Taurus: The basic mind and higher mind are making music between the intuition and the body; between the nervous system and nature and stillness. Take a breather and relax.
July 22 Sun in Leo: Time for focus on the self and play for a month. Enjoy some fixed fire, slow burn, adorable Leo energy to re-spark you!
July 29 – December 20 Mars in Aries square Jupiter Retrograde in Capricorn (Exact August 4 – Mars Direct & Jupiter Retrograde and October 18—Mars Retrograde & Jupiter is Direct) (also exact January 21, 2021 – Jupiter in Aquarius square Mars in Taurus when both are direct): This aspect speaks to tension that can result in conflict between new action and expansion. It seems like the idea of reopening “the world” is challenged during the entire Mars in Aries traversal during the latter part of this Year. With Mars in Aries wanting lots of action and activity and Jupiter being the planet of making things bigger—the problems only grow bigger the more activity occurs. So the difficult conclusion one sees is that the best active initiation is to do as little as possible and let the transits work through until Jupiter and Mars can find new ways to be together. Purportedly, when Jupiter and Saturn move through Aquarius, innovations in new social methods will be created and/or offered. Mars is very initiatory. But its impulses need to be tempered now instead of expanded. Use physical activity in safe environments to burn off the Aries energy and self-regulate with Saturn’s help and wisdom. This is a time to develop maturity and support others as the Mars warrior, but not to put you or your loved ones at risk. The timing of this conflicting aspect set seems to put us well into 2021 before there is any easing of social restrictions, and I think it speaks to the astrological conversation about being patient while remaining physically distant and all the attendant needs for managing and the emotional, physical, financial, and social toll it takes on each of us. However, knowing it will be long-term can give us the ability to plan for it and plan for the inevitable inner and outer barriers we will need to navigate. We can do this! We have to, so let’s buckle up and develop backup plans for our own health like Mars in Aries wants us to do!
July 28-August 5 (exact July 31) Sun in Leo trine Chiron Retrograde in Aries: Chiron asks us to heal ourselves and in trine it gives us the power to do so. If we come up with a plan for moving forward through 2021, and put the plan into daily practice, we will be doing well! Remember, with Sun in Leo, to put a lot of fun and generosity of spirit into that plan.
July 28- August 1 (exact July 30) Mercury in Cancer oppose Jupiter Retrograde in Capricorn: This is the call to balance out any negative thinking with nurturing thinking.
July 30- August 3 (exact August 1) Mercury in Cancer oppose Pluto Retrograde in Capricorn: Look for the helpers around you and either help others or find some psychological support if needed.
July 31- August 6 (exact August 3) Mercury in Cancer oppose Saturn Retrograde in Capricorn: Teachers who show up can help you regain mental clarity and balance so you can nurture and care for yourself and others.
Contact Me!
Let me know what you think! Send an email to domikajama@gmail.com.
Nourishing Recommendations
You can learn so much about Tarot from Susyn Blair-Hunt, my wonderful mentor, in her book, Tarot Prediction & Divination, Unveiling 3 Layers of Meaning.
(Llewellyn also publishes the best selection of Tarot decks that I’ve discovered.)
Elise Hensley, LISW, an amazing healer, specializing in EMDR and Neurofeedback. Elise is one of only a few people trained in Neurofeedback in our area. She is someone who is a skilled and amazing mentor. Better yet, your insurance may cover your sessions. 505-270-8778.
Thank you for enjoying this month’s newsletter! You can contact me anytime via email: domikajama@gmail.com for consultations. Visit at Intuitivemoon.com.
Be well!
Blessings,
Dominique