It’s currently the opening week of Les Rencontres de la Photographie, the annual photo festival in Arles, France. My accomplice was sent down, with a broom, a bucket and a map, to paste images from my series Chronic Echo in the sunny streets.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
Time it was and what a time it was, it was…
— Paul Simon
You probably always knew. Since you were old enough to think about the future and connect with the past, you knew that you would be part of something unlike any before. Along the way you have wondered what you would do, and at times been forced to decide what to do. Those decisions have in turn brought you here to be a part of it all. To be like a bridge. As though your life by itself were writing books.
In spite of, and also because of, all you have been through to get here, you now know being here makes you both fortunate and responsible somehow. That awareness alone sets you apart from so many in the past, and prepares you to better decide the future.
Somewhere along the way, perhaps you realized that being here made your decisions part of something greater. Better, then, to decide consciously. Better to be among those stepping up to take a conscious and active place in the system we call solar.
It is no coincidence that the earthly system of which you are a part has created a robot that is even now approaching Pluto, at the outer edges of the solar system. You are a part of that. Everything you did or did not do contributed somehow to put that spacecraft way out there so that you could be here to witness what it sends back. The same principle holds true for all that is happening on Earth as it is in the sky.
Which is part of what led you here to Planet Waves. To better understand what astrology can convey to you about the solar system, and your choices as part of it. The better to be aware. To better decide. To not only witness but to more consciously and fully participate in this moment you probably always knew about.
You have thus served as part of a bridge from what was to what is. Hence, like a bridge, you will continue to hold the tension and span the distance from what was to what will be. You have also served to write the story, filling the span as if with books in which your service can and will yet be found.
You have served well and artfully somehow. Otherwise you would not be here reading yourself into these words. Otherwise you would not have been part of what this month has held, and will hold.
July has also been a month artfully served by astrology’s emblem of consciousness — the Sun — and its encounters with the outer solar system. From the sign of cardinal Cancer, the Sun started July with an emotional, flowing water trine (a separation of 120 degrees) to Neptune in the depths of Pisces. Could be that trine aspect coincided with a feeling that your time to do your thing as part of something bigger — a time you always knew about, a time you served to bring about — has come.
Then, on July 6, came a solar opposition (a separation of 180 degrees) to Pluto in the midst of its long trek through Capricorn. No doubt that opposition aspect somehow correlated with your consciousness facing and reflecting on the outer edges of possibility, and decisions to come.
As for what’s to come, when Sunday segues into Monday, the Cancer Sun will have separated from Uranus in Aries (and from last season) by three full signs — 90 degrees — which is a square aspect. In doing so, the Sun will have served to complete a bridge of its own, having moved across the slowly growing chasm that was (and in many ways still is) the long continuum of Uranus and Pluto in square aspect. The same square aspect Eric has characterized as defining our era.
From the other side of the bridge that next week’s square aspect from the Sun to Uranus represents, you will be presented with an opportunity to note (and feel) how much has happened so far in July, and how you might serve to help write the book of what will happen hence.
It is no coincidence that Planet Waves initiated its Art of Service membership drive with the beginning of this eventful month. Not to distract you from events. Rather, to make you more the author of your own life and a part of something greater than your life, in a world where bridges are being built and volumes are being written. You can choose.
A recent poster making the rounds in the Paris streets this summer.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
We’ve all met that one person who’s always talking about all the cool, adventurous things they’re going to do “someday,” but who never takes even the smallest step toward writing the blockbuster screenplay, or saving up for the trip to Antarctica, or what have you. The same is true for ‘spirituality’ — it’s one thing to talk about it, another thing to live it.
Children: the original perpetual motion machines. These two were playing during an Indian tourism festival near Times Square in Manhattan last September. Photo by Amanda Painter.
Right now, the astrology is suggesting it’s a perfect time to bring your inner awareness and vision into some tangible, external expression. That is, to harness the energy you feel moving within you by actually doing something with it. You have to claim it through action to ‘own’ it.
The astrological pattern conveying this message is called a grand fire trine. On a chart, it looks like an equilateral triangle, where each of the points aligns with planets in signs of the same element.
In this case, that element is fire, and the action is happening late in the three signs involved. We have: Uranus and Eris in Aries; Venus and Jupiter in Leo; and Pholus and the Galactic Center (not a planet, but a very important point — the center of our galaxy) in Sagittarius. The Aries Moon is also part of the pattern until Thursday afternoon, when it ingresses Taurus at 3:49 EDT / 19:49 UTC.
Fire signs imply a lot of active energy, and trines represent harmony and flow. But the thing about a grand trine is that it’s a closed circuit: the energy is flowing continuously through the three points, but without an outlet — unless you give it one.
Can you tell me the difference between the 9th house and the 12th house? I have three planets — Mars, Uranus and Neptune — in the 12th and one planet in the 9th, and I was told I needed to ‘get away’ during the upcoming Venus retrograde.
I’ve been looking up what this means, based on these houses, and I’m a little confused now. Retreat sounds like ‘defeat’. My 12th house planets are in Capricorn, so I don’t give up easily. Is this right?
— Attack Cap!
Dear Cap Attack,
Your 12th house challenge reminds me of the great American philosopher, George Carlin, who once described the essential problem of getting out of the Vietnam quagmire: “Pull out?! Doesn’t sound manly to me!”
As a Cap Sun, I sympathize. But you early ‘90s babies have Capricorn in spades. You all chugged in here with a cosmic directive for Building Significance. Any suggestion you should be bolting for Bali to discover your inner guru needs a practical directive, and possibly a business plan, too. Tough to embrace the spiritual ‘whim’ with this combination.
Let’s personalize this a bit. Let’s assume that ‘retreat’ isn’t a challenge to your manhood. But it might be a challenge to your personal planet, Mars.
With Mars exalted in Capricorn, that dude doesn’t give up easily. Unlike the new recruit we find in Mars in Aries, Mars in Capricorn is like a career soldier, a grizzled, cigar-chomping, low-ranking general — all guts, but rarely handy with the glory, and totally lost without a campaign. “Pull out?!” Would be the last thing on his mind.
Now. With The Little General in your native 12th house, this is a guy who never knows when the war is over. There’s always another battle to win, another ‘enemy’ behind that tree over there to investigate. Disconnected from the main action, he can be like a soldier sent deep into hostile territory, fighting on when the rest of the world’s celebrating armistice. Or confined to a hospital bed, champing at the bit to get back in the field.
Great for barking ‘motivational’ orders at your backside: “Get up! Get to work! Wars aren’t won while you snooze!” But challenging if retreat’s the directive from High Command.
You have to tell him. “Dude! Chill! Down tools!”
As for the difference between retreats, it depends on what you’re retreating from. Which is needed, a 9th house sojourn or a 12th house sabbatical? Only you know.
Retreat in the 9th house is, in it’s most essential definition, a pull away from the regular routine and daily commute. Anything that feels ‘foreign’ feels right here. You needn’t fly to Milan to get away. If you live in a large metropolis, staying at a B’n’B and exploring an area of town unfamiliar to you is all it may take to refresh your perspective.
You learn something new from people you’ve never met before. Throw a tour of religious relics and significant historical sites into that mix, or get cozy with the philosophical society at the local pub, and you get the full 9th house experience on the physical plane without even stamping your passport.
The 12 house is different. Rather that Outward Bound, it’s Inward, Yo. Sabbatical season. Time out from the madding crowd. It’s the acolyte who needs a long night of the soul away from the world, who seeks spiritual shelter. The one who longs for separation and solitude — somewhere the clanging Great Debates of civilization can’t intrude on his meditations of humanity. World weary and longing for a mental health break? That’s the 12th house, too. It’s the scene of hospitals, retreat centers, and substance abuse recovery programs.
Only you can decide what The Little General needs. If the 9th house calls, give him a specific itinerary that includes non-negotiable periods of reflection and observation. Keep him from making a martial campaign of the vacation: keep him occupied with a specific strategy for capturing higher-minded pursuits. Intelligence reconnaissance?
However, if it’s the 12th house that’s needed, why is that? Your drive and your motivation, symbolized by Mars in Capricorn, already sits in the 12th House. If the impulse to retreat doesn’t feel right, are you doing your 12th house right? Are you striving too much? What’s so scary about the word “surrender”? These are questions to ask if the 12th House calls.
Imagine: what would a low-ranking officer gain from two weeks with the Benedictines chanting, “Alma Redemptorus Mater”? Or chanting mantra for a month every morning on his back porch in the sun?
Attack Cap, if retreat’s what you need, I suggest you may be in need of a different mountain to conquer, and this is your opportunity to scope out the right one. Tell your main man, Mars, you hear him, and it’s okay. And then plan something together.
Photographing “The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine on December 2, 1804,” at the Louvre in 2015. Jacques Louis David, the painter of this oeuvre, attended the actual coronation which took place in the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
You’re an untamed youth, that’s the truth with your cloak full of eagles…
— Marc Bolan
Mercury enters tropical Cancer in direct motion tomorrow shortly before 2:52 pm EDT (18:51:33 UTC). Normally, it is little noted nor long remembered when swift Mercury changes signs. This particular ingress, however, is bound to resonate like a gong with notable correlations given how Mercury has been in Gemini since the last day of April (or first day of May, depending on your time zone).
Hence, you would do well to serve up a little resonance yourself. More than two months is a long time for Mercury to reside in one sign, and that unusual tenure has undoubtedly corresponded with something being cooped up inside of you.
Of course, it was a retrograde that resulted in Mercury spending more than two months in Gemini, one of the two signs (along with Virgo) where it rules the roost. Nor was it just any retrograde.
More than three weeks of Mercury’s residence in Gemini was spent in laboriously slow apparent reversal over an narrow arc of less than 10 degrees. That’s a distance Mercury is now about to cover in one week, with further acceleration to follow. Hence, you can probably relate in some way to Mercury springing forth unbound from where it has been so inordinately confined (even though those confines were of home). So why not show it a little?
No matter how old you are, why not revive and express a little of your untamed and inscrutably awesome youth? No matter where you are, why not do a little dance if you feel so moved? You might even venture to sing a rollicking bit of song long forgotten. After all, those who would mind a bit of honest and overdue exuberance probably don’t matter, and any who would matter almost certainly would not mind.
As Amy Elliott inferred yesterday, it would serve nothing to “allow self-doubt to dampen your courage.” So get it on. If it means being (or getting) a little dirty, add a little sweet to make Mercury’s tour of fecund Cancer more palatable. After so long in an intellectual air sign, it’s time to think wet, and get that way.
Please keep in mind that getting wet need not require alcohol. Indeed, with Mercury about to speed through a water trine with Neptune in Pisces, you would be well advised to say “no thanks” to anything that would slow you down. Rather, quicken yourself with the nourishing refreshment pure water affords and save a little to pour on your head — just to show those who are still self-confined how to have a little fun.
Get it on. Bang a gong. Mercury is about to set itself free. You could do far worse than to do a little of the same for yourself. By way of doing the same for others, please remember that a sliding-scale gift subscription to Planet Waves provides those that matter with more than just serious journalism, photography and astrology.
In case you haven’t noticed, Planet Waves also knows that Art In Service means serving up a little fun, too. If you have a little extra scratch to spread around, share the ride and let your friends see that (in addition to being a rock of advertising-free sanity in an often crazy world) Planet Waves also serves to rock your world with refreshing exuberance.
Romans and tourists hanging out at Piazza del Popolo on a summer afternoon in Rome, Italy.
Paris-based photographer Danielle Voirin travels the world and documents her experiences in photographs. She takes street photography and photojournalism a shade beyond even art, to the level of mysticism. You may see more of her work on her website DanielleVoirin.com, or her alt website, DaniVoirin.com.
