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| "Remember all at once the things you forgot to imagine..." |
“What I want is a mythology so
huge
That settling on its grassy
bank
(Which may at first seem
ordinary)
You catch sight of the frog,
the stone,
The dead minnow jeweled with
flies,
And remember all at once
The things you had forgotten to
imagine.”
--Rebecca Elson, A Responsibility to Awe
We should all be
lazing on a grassy bank, appreciating Nature’s more subtle charms and nourishing
our souls and imaginations in these steamy summer days that are now officially—and cosmically—upon us, with today’s
(June 21) solar eclipse, perfected at about 2:40 this morning. Unfortunately,
world and national events press upon us, highlighting how excruciatingly
significant the approaching presidential election will be.
But that’s not the focus of this post—today, I
choose to be selectively oblivious to all that because the Cosmos is telling us it’s time
to slow down, to stop bypassing or ignoring our inner needs, and—as one
astrologer put it, “to feel our feels”—to focus on nourishing our bodies and
spirits and reconnecting with “the things you forgot to imagine.” To all dads
who need an excuse to unwind on the grassy bank of their choice on this Father’s
Day, the Cosmos just delivered!
The chart for the
solar eclipse marking this day confirms my certainty that it’s time to take a
pause, so we’ll consider that below—with a special focus on the convergence of
several retrograde planets it
contains. Because eclipses tend to signal the overriding tone we will encounter
in society and collective events for an extended period, some of the
retrogrades hold more weight than they might otherwise. This is a so-called “Dragon’s
Head” eclipse, with the North Node closely conjunct
the 0°+Cancer eclipse point, so we should expect a rush of new energy and, as expert Celeste Teal
puts it, “an enticement toward participation in earthly matters and material
acquisition.”[1] We're not being given permission to hide, but to engage from a deeper place within ourselves.
Obviously, this eclipse
closely follows on the heels of the summer solstice—the Sun’s ingress into Cancer
that perfected at 5:43 p.m. last night (6/20), but the key here is that
an eclipse falling at the zero-point of
any cardinal sign (as Cancer
is), magnifies, according to
Teal, the overall potency of an eclipse. She says,
“These zero degrees,
sometimes called Aries Point degrees, are always indicative of important world
matters at hand, where one event has a domino effect that leads to
ramifications in many areas and around the globe.”[2]
Yet, as we’ll see,
several of the planets in this eclipse chart are retrograde, perhaps reflecting
just how introspective the course of world affairs still needs to be in the
wake of COVID-19. There’s a “wait-and-see” flavor to the overall picture that
suggests to me that the world will continue holding its breath while we
Americans work out our differences and decide which path we want to pursue in
2021.
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| Learning to relax and be vigilant is something to learn from this eclipse! |
But let’s just get
right to it and consider the eclipse chart so that we can then stretch back out
on that grassy bank to strengthen our spirits for the path ahead.
Chart 1: Solar
eclipse, June 21, 2020, 2:41:19 a.m. DST, Washington, D.C. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node.[3]
First, notice all the
retrograde energy: Mercury (Cancer), Venus (Gemini), Saturn (Aquarius), Pallas, Jupiter,
Pluto (all Capricorn). Of these, the ones we feel most directly are
clearly Mercury and Venus, and there’s reason to wonder
with these two if we’ll experience more fall-out in the economy and perhaps
even with our relationships during this period. Being able to communicate clearly
and understanding each other’s perspectives is key, of course, so this
retrograde duo could be challenging without some conscious efforts to do both.
I think it’s also
significant that both Jupiter and Saturn are retrograde at
the same time—we’ve spoken often about how they will be coming together for a
momentous “Great Mutation” conjunction and new cycle in air-sign Aquarius
in December, but clearly they have some “inner work” of their own to do
in the interim. This will happen through their “agents,” if you will, in the
finance sector and in our national institutions, and with both still within orb
of Pluto,
we might find that the power brokers on Wall Street will be stressed and
looking for shelter when what the country probably needs for them to do is to
rethink their basic assumptions about capitalism in this country. Who is Wall
Street meant to serve? Who actually profits and benefits, and at whose expense?
What relationship does Wall Street have to our everyday economy? (perhaps Venus
Rx can help us better understand this), and what should the government’s
role (Jupiter-Saturn) be?
We’ve seen a halting
recovery in progress from the worst COVID-inspired plunges in the past months,
but I suspect that we’ll come to appreciate (perhaps the hard way) that undulating
numbers don’t tell the whole story. Something about the narrative from on high
that counsels re-opening our economies, even at the risk of our health and
lives, simply doesn’t sound sustainable.
In fact, feeding the
pandemic with more victims (denying all the way what’s going on) will simply prolong
the disruption—notice that Mars conjoins Neptune (Pisces) and
they’re not retrograde, so no signs
of slowing down the spread, or the misinformation
that has accompanied it, especially as Mars-Neptune squares the
all-important Nodal axis (Gemini-Sagittarius) here. In this context, it’s
concerning that the North Node is so tightly conjunct the Eclipse point – that “inflowing
energy” will probably include a rush of new COVID cases if we let down our
guard.
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| Trump's Tulsa rally defied all CDC guidelines for COVID safety. |
Trump's Tulsa rally last night was unremarkable except to point out how it violated all CDC guidelines for COVID safety. A better takeaway from this eclipse is that we need to use good common sense to take care of our families (Cancer eclipse), and those who are acting as if they have some “magical defense” against the virus should stop. As
one commentator put it, “We’re riding this tiger…not taming it.” The only thing
“magical” about all this is Neptune’s ability to delude people
into thinking the pandemic it
rules is not calling the shots!
There’s no sense
sugar-coating this—indeed, if anything, with the Eclipse point inconjunct Saturn (Rx,
Aquarius), and with dispositor Uranus square Saturn and rising at
the chart’s Taurus ASC, it’s to our advantage to deal with the facts, as
frustrating and restrictive as they may seem. Saturn rules the Capricorn
MC here, which sextiles that Mars-Neptune conjunction,
so institutional restraints (the rule of Law, even) have an opportunity to
intervene in this rolling disaster to slow it down and perhaps even to rein it
in, but we’re far from out of the woods.
The interesting thing
about the two views of the matter showing up in sextile, rather than a more tense configuration is that the
administration has basically produced (as
one does a TV show) this divisive drama for prime time—if the matter were left
up to individual common sense, there may be some
dissent, but not nearly the drama we’re seeing.
 |
| A Sofia Varano illustration |
Final thoughts
So, while it’s true that
this powerful Cardinal zero-point eclipse could have ramifications on the world
stage that are difficult to discern from the grassy bank I’m lounging on today,
I will leave this broader analysis for another day. Clearly, the release of
John Bolton’s tell-all book against Trump will
resonate abroad and perhaps inspire a blowback, however on this lazy Sunday
afternoon, under the sway of a lovely, nurturing Cancer New Moon, are we
really looking for such drama?
Happy Father's day, y'all!
Happy Father's day, y'all!
Raye
Robertson is a practicing astrologer, writer and former educator. A graduate of
the Faculty of Astrological Studies (U.K.), Raye focuses on mundane,
collective-oriented astrology, with a particular interest in current affairs,
culture and media, the astrology of generations, and public concerns such as
education and health. Several of her articles on these topics have been
featured in The Mountain Astrologer and other publications over the years. She
invites you to check out her first E-book publication, now available on
Amazon.com, at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/
Raye
is also available to read
individual natal, solar return and progressed charts—contact her at: robertsonraye@gmail.com.
© Raye Robertson 2020. All
rights reserved.
