MONDAY - Mercury trines Saturn, Venus sextiles Jupiter, Mars square Neptune
WEDNESDAY - First Quarter Moon (Scorpio)
FRIDAY - Venus opposes Saturn
SATURDAY - Sun conjunct South Node/opposes North Node, Sun enters Virgo
SUNDAY - Sun trines Chiron
OK, so this is the week between our Leo Solar Eclipse (post HERE) and next week's Lunar Pisces Eclipse (when those bigger hands than ours take back the wheel for a bit).
So, where are we? Mercury and Jupiter have just met in Leo. BIG conversations, BIG words, BIG creativity, BIG fun, BIG plans, BIG EGO DRAMA. When planets meet/conjunct they start NEW stories and happening in Leo, home of the South Node now (and bringing up what we have probably overdone) this might not have felt as good as it used to, but we'll see. Let's unpack the week.
MONDAY - Mercury moves into a smooth trine (brakes off) with Saturn (things settle down, commitments are made, we speak mature/responsibly, words get real, structure comes through ideas and language, conversations with authority) and Jupiter moves into an opportunistic sextile with Venus. The Jupiter/Venus can be lovely. Venus in Libra and Jupiter in Leo are both all about what makes life worth living - pleasure, affection, creativity, beauty, connection, generosity, recognition. And because Jupiter is in Leo, he is still amplifying the territory of the eclipse. "what happens when I allow myself to value what is genuinely alive in me?" And Mercury/Saturn gives us something to hold onto so Venus/Jupiter doesn't run away with itself
What do I actually know? What was actually said? What actually happened? What am I inferring? What do I hope happens? What would I like to be true?
Mercury/Saturn - put language around what you know. Give your insight a structure. Take your own thoughts and ideas and words seriously. Venus/Jupiter - now notice what you want, notice what feels good, notice what feels alive
At the same time (always a fly in the pie), we have Mars squaring Neptune.
Confusion. Fatigue. Grief. Wait - am I actually seeing clearly? Or am I acting from longing, fear, exhaustion, projection or an idealized picture of what this could become? We are in the Eclipse spin cycle/life's plan to get back on track - something like this is NORMAL.
Mars/Neptune (I have this natally, very tight, and know it well) can be the exhaustion that comes from pushing against something that isn't yielding, but it can also be that strange emotional depletion that occurs when an old desire, fantasy, identity or course of action is dissolving before we know what replaces it. Mars/Neptune can produce (through tension and action) a beautiful intuitive knowing. BUT sometimes it produces something like, "I feel this so strongly that it must be true". Stay frosty and awake.
BOTTOM LINE - let's use the Mercury/Saturn clarity to not get swept into Mars/Neptune's fog and let Venus/Jupiter open our heart without inflating expectations Saturn is about to check on FRIDAY. And with Jupiter active there could be something here that is saying to us - yes, pay attention to this. This is bigger than you initially thought.
WEDNESDAY - now Luna hits the mid-point of her New Moon last week and Full Moon next week. From 27-degrees Scorpio she squares the Leo Sun. Squares are tension/frustration and require ACTION. The First Quarter Moon is the point where something has to move. Our New Moon intention encounters resistance, and we have to act rather than simply contemplate what was revealed. The "action" being demanded is emotional excavation.
And Scorpio is particularly good at asking - what the hell are we actually attached to here?
Not what we say we want. Not what we think we should want. What has emotional power over us? What did the eclipse expose that we're now being asked to do something about, particularly around control, merging and what we have not been willing to say out loud.
(general Scorpio themes include intimacy, merged finances, debts, taxes, inheritances - we inherit more than grandma's good china, folks - spouse's money/income, sex, reproduction, the stuff we have stuffed)
We have just come through a Leo solar eclipse, which can reveal something about identity, creative vitality, visibility, desire and the right we have to occupy our own center. Scorpio then asks what is ENTANGLED with that identity.
"What are you afraid to lose if you change? What are you afraid will happen if you stop playing the old role?"
FRIDAY - Venus, strong in Libra - the sign of relationship and balance/cooperation/diplomacy, opposes Saturn (not so strong and very much retrograde in Aries). Can Venus hold her center? Can we?
Venus/Saturn can speak of reality tests, limitation, disappointment, loneliness, rejection or having to confront what isn't working. BUT REALLY WHAT IS HAPPENING IS that Saturn is asking Venus to give form to value.
If the eclipse says, "this matters to me" then Venus/Saturn asks - "then what are you willing to do differently because it matters?" Saturn may not be at his best in Aries, but he's STILL Saturn, sort of. And retrograde means old situations are pulled into the current one. Old results. Old responsibilities. Old situations with authority - times we stepped into our own and when we didn't. Daddy issues. Husbands. Bosses. Old bosses. Exes.
And because this is Libra/Aries, there is an especially strong tension between RELATIONSHIP AND SELFHOOD.
With Saturn in Mars' sign and Mars being drained by Neptune - the net effect may be less "wise elder sets a firm limit" and more "the limit-setting itself is shaky, defensive or maybe coming from depletion". Maybe with Saturn's retrograde motion, we may be revisiting an agreement or boundary question that first surfaced back in February when Saturn and Neptune conjoined at 0-degrees Aries, now being re-tested under weaker footing than it appeared to have then. If we are holding a boundary is it coming from clarity or exhaustion?
SATURDAY - now the Sun moves over the South Node in Leo (opposes the North Node) and into Virgo - where he starts answering to Mercury in Leo which is the Sun's sign, so we get a nice mutual reception, but only for a couple days. Meaning the Sun can get back to his home sign of Leo through Virgo - so by being practical, discerning, more humble. And Mercury can get back to his/her home sign of Virgo through Leo - so be being more brave, outgoing and shiny.
Sun/South Node is our last karmic release before Virgo. SYMBOLICALLY whatever the eclipse asked us to release around ego-identity, being-witnessed, performing versus being, well, this is the closing bell. The opposition to the North Node in Aquarius simultaneously holds up the new eighteen-month evolutionary intention which is more collective belonging, detachment from personal drama and service to something larger than the self. And then, same day, Sun crosses into Virgo, so the culmination of the Leo karmic cycle and the beginning of the humbler, more discerning Virgo season happen almost in the same breath. There is no gap between "release the old identity" and "now go refine and serve".
SUNDAY - the good news is that immediately the Sun in earthy Virgo trines Chiron. This is Chiron's first contact with the Virgo Sun from Taurus. This is a soft, smooth and integrative aspect - Virgo's discernment and capacity for devoted REPAIR meeting Taurus Chiron's wound around worth, security and the body. We tend the wound PRACTICALLY rather than mythologize it. Virgo doesn't transcend the wound - it changes the dressing.
I hope something here is helpful. I will pop back this week to finish up that Leo Eclipse Part II - this will play out over the next 6 months until the next Eclipse season.
We have had the eclipse revealing where an old identity/role/agreement/way of belonging has "lost its life force" and this week is where we start to discover not just what has died, but what is worth building in its place. And keep in mind - because this is how life works - we don't discover what is worth building by knowing the answer in advance. Even with astrology. We discover it by testing what remains when the old life force ends/when we stop feeding the old thing ... life on planet Earth is not for sissies folks and this Age of Aquarius is going to be tricky. The good news - we are all truly in this together, even if you are way over there and I am way over here.
xo all
To bottom line this in another 500 words :) - if our old identity was built around being admired, needed, successful, accommodating, indispensable, entertaining, the one who holds everything together - whatever the particular Leo/South Node expression is for us personally - then when that source of validation loses its charge, there can initially be a feeling of emptiness.
And the temptation is to rush in and fill that emptiness.
That's where I think Mars/Neptune is so relevant. We can mistake the first thing that gives us a feeling of aliveness for the answer. This must be it. This feels exciting, so this must be what I'm supposed to do. I feel needed here, so this must be where I belong.
But the eclipse PROCESS may be asking us to tolerate the empty space long enough to discover what has genuine life in it, rather than immediately replacing one old source of life force with another.
That's why life gives us Mercury/Saturn. What do I actually know?
Because once the old story loses its authority, we have to distinguish what is alive from what is merely familiar.
That's why life gives us the Venus/Jupiter - what still has a pulse?
What do I still enjoy when I am not doing it for recognition? What do I genuinely value when nobody is watching? What makes me feel more like myself rather than more impressive? What relationship feels reciprocal rather than confirming an old role?
That's what I mean by testing what remains. We don't sit down and intellectually decide what our new life will be. We begin to notice what continues to generate energy.
That's why life gives us the Venus/Saturn.
Saturn's question isn't just - "can you make this work?" It's more like - "is there enough substance here/enough of what is REAL to build something around?"
Because sometimes when an old thing loses its life force, what remains is actually RELIEF. Sometimes it's grief. Sometimes it's a desire we had forgotten about. Sometimes it's a relationship that becomes more honest. Sometimes it's a creative impulse that doesn't need an audience.
BUT sometimes it's just nothing yet. And if you are feeling this, I think many, many people are right there with you.
And “nothing yet” is ALLOWED.
That's especially important in an eclipse spin cycle. We don't have to replace the ended thing immediately. We can let the absence tell us something.
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