Starry Eyed
by Spyrit
Those living through their first Northwest winter can cut back on the Prozac, the sun has returned!!
It’s that time of year when the mold turns that beautiful bright green in the NW. The sun moves into cancer and we get to wallow in the long days. Picnics can happen outdoors, brave gardeners plant wishes and seeds, hoping for food and flowers. Those living through their first Northwest winter can cut back on the Prozac, the sun has returned!! Cancer is the ocean, the mother providing and containing all, ruled by the moon, the cardinal of the water signs. In dry math, it’s zero degrees cancer at 7:03 am PDT, June 21st, father’s day in the USA.
Solstice is enhanced by the impending square of Saturn and Neptune, exact on June 25th. This square sets the tone for the summer. Locking up Aquarius and Taurus. Idealistic, mystical, if not a bit befuddled.
Neptune is in the “new concept” sign of Aquarius. Saturn, the balloon popper, the one that always places reality over fun, is comfy in Taurus. But don’t get too comfy yourself—all that status quo reality is definitely going to get some shaking. The last time Saturn was in Taurus, the Vietnam War was in full swing. Before that, it was World War Deuce. Before that, the build-up to WW Uno. Even so, I’m not donning the doom and gloom robes. Each of these periods had an equally expansive cultural/artistic response; Summer of Love, civil rights movement, suffrage organizing, birth of the atom bomb . . . no, no, wait, I said it’s not gloomy!
If you came onto the planet in 1940-’42, ’68-’71 or ’11-’13, this transit may toll for thee. Saturn returns have a bad reputation. Visions come. The pillars of your life may quake. You can find yourself going into hermitage or spontaneous vagabond behavior. Prepare.
Saturn in Taurus will highlight resources, from their most basic elements to their most complex uses. Financial markets are just the most obvious smoke blowing in the wind. Political creatures in the forest smell this, and things get messy—and entertaining. The basics of food and water will come to the front. That includes everything from what we call and label the food we eat, all the way up to the question “can we even produce nutritionally dense food anymore?” The veneer of denial (“i don’t even want to know where this water came from, it’s in a clear bottle, isn’t it?”) —that is gone!
Socially we will have to face the fact in blunt terms. We’ve collectively pushed reality around on our plate for quite awhile, now it’s time to take a big bite. How’s your appetite?
This summer’s trio of new moons can be a sensitive and progressive time internally. Cancer hooks us up to what we are feeling in our depths, our ancient feelings. Leo pulls it up into the heart, shapes and plays around with it. Virgo offers us the chance to bring it to the mercury level and communicate it. Some interpreters would place this progression in the lunar calendar as the path from the 3rd to the 5th chakras. Using the openness of being outside can make the depth of cancer enjoyable. Don’t put off those spontaneous journeys to places off the grid. Make a vow to carve out at least a couple days away from the hum of civilization.
To make any sense of this shift, we need to feel the vibration of changes pure from the earth, not just our human media frequency. Blessings to all the gardens and gardeners!
Stephen Spyrit is a writer and teaches yoga at the Yoga College of India in Portland. He can be reached by email.
