We have an total solar eclipse in Cancer at 10 degrees on 2nd July 2019 at 7.16 pm BST. This is the first of two eclipses this month and three lunations (there’s another New Moon at the end of July). This eclipse is the first since the Great American Eclipse in August 2017.
It forms a friendly sextile to Uranus, the planet of surprises and the unexpected.
A New Moon offers an opportunity to set our intentions for the lunar month. An eclipse adds a potency to the seeds that may be planted, since Solar eclipses act like a bottleneck of energy.
The light flowing from the Sun is temporarily blocked out, focusing attention on that interrupted point. As light is held back, something new and possibly fragile may enter the picture and create a birthing or opening.
This eclipse in Cancer gives us an opportunity to align with what’s important and core, and be authentic. Cancer is about birth, and here we can begin to start birthing more potentials and opportunities.
The seeds we plant might involve matters of emotional security, deep foundational, soul, concerns. Over the next 6 months we will be asking where is home? What are our soul roots? Where and with whom do we belong? How are we being nourished and nurtured? How are we nurturing others?
With Uranus involved, it brings an additional element of release, which will bring relief and help you find your direction. Perhaps there’s suddenly a sense of ‘finally’, the waiting is over. At least now I know. At least now I can make a decision.
With the Cancer Lunar North Node in cardinal water, it’s a decisive, initiatory time, It’s an active birthing process that we are now involved in, it’s more crashing flowing water, than the deep reservoirs of Scorpio or Pisces.
At its very essence, this eclipse is about remembering who you are and what’s at the root of your soul. It can also bring dramatic changes to house area that Cancer rules in your chart.
Nevertheless there will be some shocking or unexpected news. Some of that might mean endings, but all endings point to new directions and openings, births, especially in these accelerated times when we are all urgently being realigned to our purpose and planetary service.
Mercury is in it’s shadow phase preparing for retrograde and while not quite retrograde, its affect has started early. So Mercury spends a few more days in Leo, which gives us more outward expression, then he retreats back into protective, safe Cancer.
This puts communication on hold. Retrograde planets turns up the dial, making them louder, and this effectively shuts us down. The idea is to loosen up the internal energy so you begin to find a way to express the heightened, amped up energy.
Don’t get caught out by this, particularly as Mars (how we act) has been journeying with Mercury (how we think) in entitled, dramatic Leo, bringing out a more impulsive, hot headedness words.
So tune in, and to finely tune to the heightened vibration, you need a sense inwardness, of more reflection, time and slowness. You could say that Mercury retrograde is the background hum for the entirety of July.
On 1st July, Mars moves from Cancer into Leo for the entire month of July, so now he can project and assert himself forward. There’s a little less pulling in, waiting and protecting. It’s a fun position for Mars, he feels playful.
By the end of the month we are more ready for direct expression but until then note that Mercury and Mars are close in conjunction for the first half of July.
Together they are edging towards a square with Uranus, but interesting it doesn’t happen as Mercury turns retrograde just before becoming exact. That could feel quite frustrating, like something should come out into the open, but doesn’t.
But then on 11th, Mars squares Uranus, so we might have a show then. It might allow something to happen and come out. Mercury squares Uranus later in August.
Moving through Scorpio also on 11th, as Mars squares Uranus, (and somewhat taking off the pressure), is the Moon, which creates a grand trine with Neptune and the Sun. Yet it also forms a kite with Pluto and Saturn, creating a tug of war between that which we want to hold on to, and that which forces us to let go (Saturn-Pluto). This is big day.
The Sabian symbol for the Eclipse degree is ”a clown making grimaces”. Clowns show an exaggerated expression through a painted face. This Sabian symbol is about the need to cleverly camouflage ourselves.
It’s about working with appearances so that a point can be made emphatically, emphasised. “You can see the humour of a sad clown or the tears in a happy face.” (Blain Bovee). Its like we are learning to hold a spectrum of feelings simultaneously with a level of detachment.
This is about making an emphatic point effectively. Less direct expression. And say it in the way that brings a felt-sense to what you are saying.
Part of this is also about feeling the subtle awareness and edges of our consciousness. Staying with your refined sense of self, feelings, and with it the expanded sense of ourselves when we connect more deeply with more refinement.
With the ongoing square between Neptune and Jupiter, the elusiveness and potential illusion of reality, or figuring out what really is real or true for us, is the question we continue to ask. But these planets also expand our sense of not being able to hold on.
Not holding on, attaching or having expectations to reality, the tangible world or an idea of truth, is a pretty tall order. Letting something larger that your own agenda and will direct and guide your life. Let go into the trust and serendipity.
This is a powerful opportunity to grow and step into something larger and beyond yourself. To apply your trust in a situation. To slow things down and sit back, perhaps even wait. It’s less about surrender and more about opening new doors through shifting into a new identity.
This time is not without fear. But if you can really step into your trust and just know that things will work out then it will support the process.
In a way, what has been chosen has already been chosen, we just live through it. None of it is on our shoulders. To think otherwise is to be mistaken. This can ease the sense of it just being about us alone, in our little world, making our decisions separate to everyone else.
