July Newsletter

By 1st July 2016newsletter

(Photo courtesy of iosphere at freedigitalphotos.net)

“One of the functions of the outer planets is that they crack the shell of conventional morality, in order to allow a different and deeper kind of morality to emerge.  Or… they push a person into discovering what his real morality is, rather than what he thought it was.”  LIZ GREENE (from ‘The Outer Planets & Their Cycles: The Astrology of the Collective’)

Pluto is currently retrograde in Capricorn (16degrees23 as I write), with Neptune retrograde in Pisces (11degrees58) squaring Saturn (the last planet that can be seen with the naked eye) retrograde in Sagittarius (in the same degree).  Uranus goes retrograde at the end of July, 2016 and is presently at 24Aries10.

If you have planets (or angles) in the cardinal signs around 16 degrees or in the mutable signs around 11 degrees, you’re currently experiencing a challenging outer planet transit (add to this, Chiron in Pisces which has recently turned retrograde and is affecting the mutable signs around 25 degrees)!  The outer planets spend a lot of time going backwards and forwards over the same degrees, so their transits can last for anything up to two years (and, more than that at times, if you have planets over several degrees which aspect each other in the chart).

Pluto is the bringer of deep transformation, Neptune of dissolution and refinement, Uranus of sudden, unexpected and often shocking events – with Chiron reminding us of the woundedness of our humanity.

There was a yod formation (two planets 60 degrees apart pointing to a third planet 150 degrees from both) between Uranus, Venus and Mars (Mars at the apex) during the week from 12th June, 2016 (the week that began with news of the Orlando massacre and included the murder of Jo Cox).  The quincunx (150 degrees) between Uranus and Mars goes on for most of July (quincunx suggesting a need for adjustment or compromise, and Mars/Uranus being a particularly volatile combination), but the yod has dissipated now that the sun and Venus have moved into Cancer.

According to Karen Hamaker-Zondag, some of the qualities of a yod formation are about plans falling apart and a lack of control over circumstances, feeling like we’re ‘manoeuvring in incomprehensible circumstance’ and having to make ‘impossible choices’.  The presence of a stationing Mars (getting ready to turn direct, which it did on 29th June, 2016) at the apex of the yod likely reemphasised the energy swings and general frustration of this position – and hooked into some of the deeply buried feelings of the sign of Scorpio (where Mars is just now).

For me, the Uranus/Mars combination managed to form a transiting yod with the sun/Chiron aspect in my own chart – and I’ve been going nowhere fast for the past few weeks, due to an injury to my left foot!

We can work on ourselves (and I believe we need to in order to stay centred enough to navigate this thing called life on earth), but it’s more difficult with a country.  Liz Greene was talking about the natal chart of the country of Russia in the quotation below (ibid), but feel free to substitute something much closer to home 😉 ):

“If this were a person, I would send him into analysis immediately.”

Love and blessings in these chaotic times,

Helen x

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