Insights for Cancer

These insights, are meant as contemplations. Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

June 20:
Sun enters Cancer: 10:42 PM EDT
What are we mere humans to make of all the needless suffering which human beings are enacting upon one another? It’s not what we want, what we believe should be happening and yet we are bombarded with it day after day. During the month of Cancer we honor The Mother; the Great Bond which allows us to nourish and be nourished by Her: To enjoy along with all creatures, the warmth of the sun and the miracle of how light becomes food: To see what we can grow: To watch nature, miraculously, abundantly and without preference burgeon into our world. Not so easy in these days when the bond with our mothers and our Mother, although not broken has been ruptured. Our attachment has become disordered. What has troubled Paradise? There are too many answers to this question, answers which span too many centuries. Whichever one you subscribe to won’t be wrong.
As the Sun enters Cancer it will join forces with Jupiter and Mercury and we will continue to struggle with issues of who eats and who doesn’t; how we might secure what we need for ourselves and our loved ones; what we might grow and why, why is it like this? Ask your Mother. Stay connected. Remember who you nourish and how. Do your best. We don’t have to understand to feel. We don’t have to starve to appreciate the hunger of others. Cancer, like all archetypal images has many faces. The one we need at the moment is likely the Great Mother of All: the Allmother. Let her find you. Make yourself available to Her in as many ways as you can. Even if things are scarce, do not believe this to be the way of things. 
Make offerings to the memory of her unbounded generosity. Cakes for the Queen of Heaven.   

The Sun in Cancer will square Saturn, Neptune and Chiron, conjunct Mercury and, Jupiter and sextile Mars. As always it will conjunct the Moon and at the opposition, when the Moon is full, it will remind us that deep in heart of summer we can and should remember winter. Follow along below.  

June 22
Mars sextile Jupiter
Sun square Saturn
Imagine an artisan, a gardener, a technician at their bench which is arrayed with all manner of tools. Choosing the right tool to use in a given situation is a big part of doing the work.

June 24
Mercury square Chiron 
Sun conjunct Jupiter
The wisdom living at the heart of your will – call it your essential goodness – seeks to be strengthened for the good of all. It’s one of those innate gifts that increases, the more you give it away.

June 25
New Moon: 04* Cancer: 06:31 AM EDT   
Giving with the awareness that it serves me for you to eat, to have a home, to love yourself, enables a truly generous spirit to arise. Having and needing are not at odds with each other. No shame; no self-aggrandizement.

June 26
Mercury sextile Uranus
Sun sextile Mars
Mercury enters Leo
Embracing chaos isn’t as easy as it sounds but it is possible to accept change and imagine your path through it. Maybe an umbrella won’t protect you from falling branches. Look up, pay attention and dance your way on. We are all fools with one foot on the rainbow bridge to the future. New beginnings and possibilities are on the wind. Step in to creative problem solving.

June 27
Mercury trine Saturn                      
Mercury is quite busy from the 26th – 29th. And on the 30th it will enter the shadow of the upcoming retrograde period (starting July 18th). Positive reflection on what works and what doesn’t sets the tone. When ‘practical’ combines with ‘creative’ just about anything can and does happen.   

June 28
Mercury trine Neptune
Creative genius is a gift. Divine inspiration happens in its own time. Be bold not stupid about taking risks. Everything teaches us something. And it’s also possible to choose which school of life will give you the education you are looking to have.

June 29
Mercury opposite Pluto
Question all of it: All of It. You are the One whose questions are most important for your creative projects. These kinds of questions generally lead to more questions rather than answers. Be warned!

June 30
Mercury enters shadow of retrograde
Get aligned here

And so we begin the countdown to another Mercury retrograde period, one in which we are asked to consider our particular creative genius. Yeah, you. Shadows are not the same as the actual retrograde. They are times that hint at the specific issues and events the retrograde period will bring. Be curious, observant, willing. 

July 4 
Venus conjunct Uranus
Venus enters Gemini
Neptune stationary retrograde
The cost of everything has changed. Underlying such a transformation are our values. Not only what things cost but also what is worth paying for. The planets reflect this. There is no returning to the way it was. Truth to tell, we never lived in a world that stood still. But the radical changes that we are experiencing do indeed feel quite destabilizing. It is useful to remember: Shift happens.  

July 6 
Venus sextile Saturn
Venus sextile Neptune
If we stay relaxed enough, awake enough, as we step into the swirl of change we can’t help but notice opportunities. The very first encounters Venus has on her journey through the shape-shifting world of Gemini are today with Saturn and Neptune asking her to use imagination to believe that she can figure out what she needs to wend her way through. Venus is us.

July 7 
Uranus enters Gemini
Venus trine Pluto
Big News! Tectonic shift (as if there wasn’t enough already…). Over and through the last 7 years Uranus in Taurus has been like a wrecking ball for the economy. Smashing idols all over the place. Inviting scams and schemes as it went. Now it’s time for a change of perspective. In Gemini, Uranus is clever as clever can be. We might marvel at the ingenuity of our species to figure out just about everything. The problem, if and when there is one, will be that Gemini is not a sign that is concerned with ethics, with morality or with long term effects. It’s not meant for those things. It is unbridled curiosity and the ability to adapt faster than the wind changes direction. Good news is that while in Gemini, at least for the first year or two it will make favorable aspects to Neptune, Pluto and Saturn. Bad news is that it’s up for grabs in terms of whose innovations will prevail and for what purpose. We all have seen the danger when psychopaths are in charge. Prometheus has arrived on the scene. Stealing fire from the gods. Offering it to humans. Will we just do it the way we have always done it? There must be another way to use our ingenuity and our technologies aside from destruction of the planet and ourselves.
Uranus will only be in Gemini until November when it will slip back into Taurus for a while. Saturn and Neptune in Aries are also just ‘trying on’ their time in Aries. Whatever these planets suggest will be much stronger in 2026. For now it is the shape of things to come.

In the light of such radical shifting, on a more immediate note, we might stay attuned and aware of the cost and the value of the things we must pay for.

July 10
Full Moon:  18* Capricorn: 04:36 PM EDT
The Sun in Cancer and the Moon in Capricorn light up the night. It’s our watch. The mandate is akin to that of the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table. We must heal the Wasteland. It’s a big job. More than any one person can do. Time to reflect and then act upon your ability to support those in need: including yourself, your family and all the families of the world including every mother’s child. We all need to eat. We all need shelter from the elements. And it seems some of us need protection from each other these days. It is and has always been, all relatives.   

July 13
Saturn stationary retrograde
What have we forgotten? Saturn, still in Aries, turns around and heads back for its last stint in Pisces (September 1- February 15). Are we fostering the kind of stability that will shore us up in these unsettling times? If you’re out in nature, do you have the right equipment if a storm or some other misadventure arises? If you’re tending a garden, is there a way to catch water in a barrel for the dry times? What about emotional resilience? Are you prepared? Saturn in Aries reminds us to prepare for the worst even as we live our best.

July 18
Mercury stationary retrograde
Venus sextile Mercury
Mercury and Venus just wanna have fun. Be creative. Live with heart. All good. The next few weeks foster consideration of how we used to have fun and express ourselves and how we might be changing and doing it differently. Travel destinations, purchasing powers, self-expression all need to adapt to a world that seems to offer less of what we’re used to. To be human is to be creative. So be it. Come from the heart, not the image of the heart.

July 19
Sun square Chiron
We need one another despite our differences and projections. This need is more than human. It is Nature’s way of strengthening the massive interconnected web of relationships and conditions - within and between all living things.

image by the grace of ‘Beauty for You’ Ava Darling