9:44 pm PDT July 4, 2020

4:44 am UTC July 5, 2020

Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn

There’s a lot going on in this chart of the July 4^th Lunar Eclipse. Looking at the stress lines in the chart (red lines) you can see there is what’s called a Grand Cross of planets, each at 90˚ angles to the others. 90˚ angles or squares in astrology terms, denote a lot of energy charging through the cosmic archetypal patterns, so much energy in fact, that a lot of things get shaken up, as tempers flare, misunderstandings happen (Mercury is still retro) and tensions and violence build.

Eclipses, first of all, are cosmic exposers of whatever is hidden, they charge and activate our shadow contents. This one falls on the 13˚mark, that same degree as the Sun in the birth chart of the US. (See double wheel). The Sun indicates the identity in a person’s or a country’s birth chart. With an eclipse coming at a “Solar Return” this indicates a year in which the direction and definition of this country falls into deep questioning, an identity crisis. Certainly anyone looking at what’s happening now in the US would confirm this diagnosis, but for this to be the signature of the coming year, it augurs a year ahead, which has only just begun, of deep questioning of the stability and our essential integrity as a nation.

Looking a bit further, we can see the Sun in Cancer is exactly by 2 minutes of a degree conjoined with Vesta, the asteroid concerning one’s focus, one’s hearth and the center of one’s integrity. Where do we operate from, what’re our organizing principles? This is true individually, but for the US, it certainly begs a sad, deep look at the racism which runs deep in the veins of its beginnings and its politics for the last 250 years.

The tension levers that are activating and potentiating this eclipse are the oppositions between the asteroid Juno and almost exactly opposing it, Chiron, the wounded healer. Both form right angles to the Sun/Moon opposition, making the Grand Cross. Right next to Chiron is Mars, just now beginning its unusual 6 month long journey in its home sign of Aries. Mars’s proximity is energizing Chiron’s representation of the awareness of our wounded past, which are the most negative aspects of Aries: domination and egomania, while Juno in Libra pulls in the opposite direction to bring the healing aspect into play: Libra being the relatedness we need to build in order to heal, with Juno representing the marriage of male and female aspects. Without relationship, without mirroring, we can’t bridge those broken gaps in our synapses that were split by trauma, either in our own lives, or in the generations previous to us which still hum and vibrate in our DNA, and affect our actions, either consciously or not. In our relationships, in our daily lives we continually re-enact the dramas of these ancient wrongs, until we become conscious of the narratives within us that propel our actions.

The major Capricorn stellium which was the Big Omen for all this activation this year is back in full force with Saturn now retrograding back into Capricorn, joining forces with Jupiter and Pluto, the severe judges of our past history. And in the mix is also Athena, asteroid goddess of feminine warrior intelligence, conjoined with Jupiter to bring us out of our daze of patriotism and into the reality of humility and grief. Ceres, on the other hand, forms a harmonious trine to the Sun and sextile to the eclipsed Moon. She’s the Great Mother archetype, reminding us that nothing is achieved unless we find a way to “eat our shadow,” to find nourishment in even the most bitter aspects of our history, and that our fixed judgements harden our hearts rather than opening them toward healing. Also, much of the domination and egomania of our age and ages past could not have taken place without the subjugation and denigration of the nourishing feminine energies in both men and women. The goddess of agriculture as well, Ceres energy is asking us to come back to the dirt under our feet, to revere its fecundity, the source bed of our life force.

Given that Pluto is the underlying force behind all of this revolutionary movement on our planet now, the global pandemic asks us to face the ultimate truth of our existence. Death, of which Pluto is the emblematic god, is our ultimate lesson in humility. Awareness of it brings presence and authenticity to our lives, not only fear. To be humble is to be of the Earth, to take care of it and honor it, for the gift it is giving us of our brief period here, to experience the miracle of Creation in such powerful polarities of dark and light.