Way marker—Full Moon in Capricorn—June 22nd.
How beautiful to finally understand that solitude is a mark of self-worth… to truly accept that you, alone, are worthy of your own company—April Green.
A striking full moon in the sign of the Sea-Goat stares into the heart of the sun tonight.
On June 22nd a rare lunistice, or lunar standstill, occurs once every 18 years when the moon is at the most extreme point in her cycle. We have reached a place of pause where we can rest in this moment, reflect on how far we have come, maybe allow ourselves to turn instinctively to what nourishes our soul. This is a time to take some time alone. Perhaps to set an intention, be clear and conscious of what it is that we long for. Capricorn accompanies a steady quality that we draw upon when we set healthy boundaries, focus on goals, harness the self-discipline to put in the hard work required. Yet, this unusual moon, warmed by the intense light of the midsummer sun, carries with her a trace of something out of the ordinary. She’s just entered the sign of Capricorn, a sign inbued with the qualities of integrity and responsibility on good days; steely ambition and calculating opportunism on days when the Devil Wears Prada. As the moon moves through Capricorn in our own birth chart, she is a steady reminder of the need to stay true to qualities like maturity, integrity, and discernment, in a world where the clapping hands of social media or a hunger for worldly power can rip us from our roots, shred our self-respect.
The moon is in her “detriment” in Capricorn. When a planet is in its detriment, also called “in exile”, it journeys circumspectly across a foreign landscape. It functions in ways that might seem strange or unexpected. It can be extremely creative and innovative as it seeks new ways to be in the world, to find its highest expression. This full moon is also “out of bounds”, another technical term that conveys a quality of energy that often correlates with feelings of being an outsider, of not fitting in, of behaving unconventionally. This lunation reminds us of the ancient archetype of the exile, the outsider who behaves differently and is a stranger in a foreign land, a feeling we may experience in situations where we feel our aloneness or differentness, when we feel unheard, ignored or misunderstood. We may feel exiled in our communities, cast “out of bounds” by the choices we have made to experience a life that does not conform to what is deemed to be “normal,” or lost and adrift in frantic activities that untether us from our faith, our values.
The astrological tempo changes, at this high-point of the year. The mid-summer solstice on June 20th or 21st (depending on where in the world you live) marks the sun’s still point in its passage through the heavens, the nadir of mid-winter in the south, a celebration of light here in the north. The sun, Venus, and Mercury are now moving through self-protective Cancer, a sign that contains a reservoir of emotion and vulnerability. A sign that reminds us of the comforts of home and belonging in a world where so many are displaced from the comfort of home and community by famine or war, where mass migration now has become a contentious political and moral issue.
We are halfway through this year, a year of 80 elections as more than half the world’s population go to the polls. In some countries, fragile hopes for change have already been crushed by authoritarian governments; in others, pacts have been made by opposing parties to work together in cautious coalitions; while “snap elections” deliver a cacophany of harsh rhetoric devoid of fact-checking.
As Jupiter races through loquacious Gemini, and the Nodes move through Aries (self) and Libra (other) calcified ideologies are cut and reshaped by compromise. In South Africa, a collective psychological watershed has been reached. South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa (transiting Uranus opposing his Scorpio Sun) and the former liberation movement, the African National Congress have agreed to form a government of national unity with the pro-business Democratic Alliance. In France, Emmanuel Macron’s gamble on the dissolution of parliament has provoked a political crisis that may send France moving Eurosceptic hard right. Under a confusing transiting Neptune square to Macron’s Sagittarius Mercury and sun, the astrology suggests that Macron’s flutter may not end well. Here in the UK, transiting wild-card Uranus conjunct Sunak’s sun prompted another snap election punt with an election on the symbolic day of Independence, July 4th.
“After the ecstasy, the laundry,” author Jack Kornfield reminds us as governments turn to the daily task of translating the collective hope for change into an imperfect political system. Saturn, the ruler of this moon, turns Retrograde on June 29th, a collective ebb of the tide, an invitation to slow down to allow something new to seed and gestate over the next nine months. As Saturn moves Retrograde, it’s energy turns inward prompting us to reassess, to perhaps to respond to outer events with more maturity, more caution. Typically, the last passage of Saturn over this degree point will quite tangibly manifest what was seeded and has grown very gradually over the slow months of Saturn’s slow retrogression, so it will be in our Pisces house that we may encounter a necessary delay, an internalisation, or a phase of withdrawal. Saturn begins to form a tense square to Jupiter from 17th to 23rd August and again in December 23rd to early January, requiring us all to temper our hopes with a good dollop of reality, to think clearly before adding more fuel to the narrative delivered by political performers who shock and dazzle the punters with their sociopathic rudeness and preposterously impossible promises.
Tonight, as this unusual full moon casts her light over a noisy, colourful, glittering world, she reminds us that solitude is a balm for fried and frazzled nerves. May our innate integrity steady us as we take stock of what truly matters. May we move with discernment amongst the babble of voices calling for freedom and for change. May we find the courage to question our beliefs and the beliefs that were never ours to begin with—with clarity and compassion. If we allow ourselves to be still tonight, we might hear change approaching, and if we’re hesitating at the threshold, still holding tightly to a situation that is stunting our evolution, now might be the time to step over, let go and begin again.
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“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope,” wrote Emily Brontë.
It’s not the conscious changes made in their lives by men and women which really shape them… but a long, slow mutation of emotion, hidden all-penetrative—Nadine Gordimer.
This Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus coincided with a slow economic recovery after the longest and deepest depression in the US which lasted more than a decade.
Courage is found in unlikely places—J.R. R Tolkien. 
The stars are in blossom, the moon is in flower and bright are the windows of night in her tower―J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Equinox is a reminder that a perpetual state of balance is impossible to achieve, as we continually re-create ourselves amidst the complexities of our relationships and metastasise the events that are unfolding in the world right now. Balance is as capricious as the patterns of neuronal firing in our brains, as fleeting as our emotionally charged perceptions of the world around us. This gracious Libran full moon offers the sweet promise of compromise and peace if we have the courage to step back into balance and find that still point of peace that nestles in the centre of our heart. It will be the small gestures of love and kindness, the careful harnessing of our untamed thoughts, the brave reimagining of how this world could be that keep us open-hearted and soul-directed at this moment in time.