4:52  pm  AHST 06/28/2022
    7:52 pm   PDT  06/28/2022

   10:52 pm   EDT  06/28/2022
    3:52 am  BST  06/29/2022

The planets and their symbology can be quite significant when one pays attention to their meanings. This New Moon in Cancer, which is the birth sign of the USA, highlights some very important transits to the USA chart. In addition, this New Moon has within it many important things to watch out for in this coming month’s cycle. It’s a pretty volatile time, and the astrology mirrors that, but it also shows us some clues as to how to navigate the difficulties and disappointments, and what to look out for, for a sense of support and ways to move forward from here.

This New Moon at 7˚ Cancer very tightly forms a right angle, or a square (90˚) to the planet Jupiter at 7˚ of Aries. When the Sun forms a challenging square to the planet representing expansion and optimism, we might feel as though someone has burst our balloon of confidence. Or we may go the opposite way and become high and mighty in our opinions and perhaps overdo our indignation or bravado. Either way, it’s a caution for a need to balance our actions (Aries) versus our feelings (Cancer) for the next month.

Mars in Aries (which is all action) is due on July 1^st to form a square (90˚ angle) to Pluto, which is its higher octave, or overseeing energy. When these two “square off” with each other, there is a conflict between one’s ego and the limiting forces of the outside world. One’s aggression might be overdone, or you might find that someone comes at you with aggression, holding that projection. In either case, we are subject to impulsivity, resentments, and the “might makes right” kinds of feelings. Mars is also conjoined with Eris, the goddess of strife and conflict, and the two together make for a strong energy of disruption of our “normal” order of things. Not surprising, given world events. This is by no means a “calm” New Moon.

Neptune, the planet of our dreams, imaginings, fantasies and the unconscious, has just stationed and retrograded at this New Moon, where it will be until December of this year. This can feel like a going backwards in time, intensifying our yearnings for better times, and our longing for the world to be a more civilized place to live in. If we consciously work to be more in touch with our dreams and fantasies, both waking and asleep, we can navigate this retrograde period without too much feeling of being “at sea”. There is vital information within each of us, held in the unconscious.

[This chart is a double wheel, with the USA birth chart on the inside and the New Moon chart on the outside.] 

The US is heading toward the second of three exact “hits” of its Pluto return, the first being February 20^th of this year. The second upcoming one is July 11^th. Though it is not yet exact, it is pretty close now, and the Supreme Court rulings are evidence of Pluto doing its “job” — to expose the shadow of this country, the shadow of democracy: Minority Rule. Though it is painful to see, Pluto is showing us the vulnerability of democracy to those who are only in it for control and power. Pluto does not punish us, it mirrors to us what we may have forgotten is lurking in the shadows of our lives, both personal and universal.

At this juncture, Saturn is also beginning to transit over the natal USA’s Moon, which signifies the people of a country. Saturn, karmic master, is showing us “reality” and how we’ve been defining it, while its transit over the US’s Moon challenges our sense of belonging to a larger population, to our essential connectedness, and our national identity. We start to question everything at this point. Who are we as a people? This questioning is not all bad, we need to search, update and redefine ourselves, but it can also lead to a sense of alienation from all that has gone before. This is a long term transit which will be exact in February of 2023.

As Neptune forms an opposition to the US’s Neptune (as it has all of 2021 and this year) our ideals as a nation are definitely getting torn asunder, and yet at the same time, this is a passage that is asking us to redefine our ideals, to codify them into law if necessary, to make it clear what “by and for the people” really means. We can see how the planets are showing us what cycles we are in, and what we need to pay attention to in order to navigate this paradigm shift.

So as you can see, there are a lot of influences happening that are asking us to redefine the very precepts and laws under which we govern ourselves. The New Moon in Cancer at this timing is asking us to examine our relationship to nurturing ourselves, each other, and our beliefs and attitudes toward those people and organizations that embody the Great Mother archetypal energies.

Interestingly, this New Moon is conjoined with a point in astrology called Black Moon Lilith, representing the archetype of the first wife of Adam, who was banished from Eden for not obeying his wishes. No matter what your beliefs around this, Lilith does represent a root dynamic of feminism, a story of the feminine energy that is not subservient, but instead is equal in power to its opposite, the masculine. Given our recent Supreme Court decision, it is fascinating that the planetary energies are also reflecting this to us at this timing. That they are now in the most primary of the feminine signs, Cancer, is also no accident.

With Eris and Mars stirring up the pot, right at a crucial moment of the US’s Pluto return, we must be cautious about how we expend our energy. We may have rage, anger, frustration and an assortment of strong, even irrational feelings, but the planets do urge us to take some caution around how we express ourselves and to whom. With sides now so polarized we need to choose our battles wisely and not waste our energy too quickly or needlessly.

With Vesta in Pisces, the keeper of the flame at the hearth of what is vital to us, forming the only harmonious trine (120˚ angle) to this New Moon, we are urged to light a candle on our altar, for our inner peace, and for our desire to follow the path with heart, and for the knowledge that we are on a spiritual journey of bringing in the light of understanding, even in difficult trying times.

There are an abundance of minor aspects called Quintiles, or 72˚, one-fifth of a circle, in this chart, from Mars to the New Moon, from Jupiter to Mercury, and from Neptune to Venus. Given that quintiles ask for us to use our innate talents to perceive the patterns around us in ways that are creative and useful, Mars asks us to use our physical energy creatively (make art not war), Jupiter/Mercury to creatively monitor our thoughts and look for spiritual connections to derive meaning, and Venus/Neptune asks us to remember that love is the essential glue that binds us all together, no matter what we are experiencing around us. Without love, we are nothing. If we forget that, we are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.