Way back when the first decade of this century was transitioning into the next 10-year span, something exceptional took place. During a period of only about three years, the outer sign-ruling planets re-arranged themselves in relative unison. It started with Pluto, and with one exception (Neptune), the focus was cardinal signs.

When the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn), the season changes. It is now just barely a week after the Cancer solstice — enough time for you to have witnessed for yourself a substantial shift in its early stages.

You may have seen changes in the sky or the weather. Perhaps something eventful or new has gotten underway in your personal life. Maybe an accustomed routine has run its course, and another practice has emerged. Unless you are somehow exceptional for the time being, it would not be unusual if last Tuesday somehow seems more than seven days in the past. Such is the depth of our involvement in the system we call solar.

When planets ingress a cardinal sign, they tend to emulate the Sun — in effect, initiating a new season for any corresponding earthly manifestations of the object in question. Looking back now, nearly everybody should be able to see how things shifted after Pluto entered Capricorn for the very long run in late 2008 (interestingly, just as Jupiter was departing the same sign).

In late 2009 Saturn made its first ingress to Libra, adding substance to intimations initiated by Pluto nearly a year before. In the year to follow, Saturn settled into Libra for the long term, and Uranus made its first crossing into Aries. With the coming of 2011, Uranus entered Aries a second time, on Jupiter’s heels. It was the height of what was frequently called the cardinal T-square, which led directly to Uranus being in what was essentially three continuous (and eventful) years in square aspect to Pluto in Capricorn.

All during those years of outer planets in cardinal aspects to each other, the sign Cancer was the wild card. Whenever a faster-moving object (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus or Mars) moved through to complete the ‘cardinal cross’, it would briefly add its own cachet to a longer-term tableau, which symbolically implied the initiation of a seasonal turnover on an epochal scale. Now, you are in their place.

With the Sun, Mercury and Mars all in Cancer at once, this is an appropriate time to review the progress of this decade in astrological terms. Pluto is now more than halfway through its tenure in Capricorn. Saturn is less than six months away from its own ingress to Capricorn (one of its two dominions, along with Aquarius). Jupiter is on the home stretch of its term in Libra. On the whole, the image is one of outer planets beginning to wind up a combined process, taking years upon years, analogous to what the Sun completes in three months.

This week, faster-moving Mercury might very well bring to mind how much the many environments you occupy have changed since our current decade got underway. Going into next month, the Sun’s progress will follow in Mercury’s figurative footsteps to shed the light of consciousness on those thoughts.

Then, as July winds down, Mars will at least somewhat anticipate what Saturn will be doing in December, by immediately preceding the Sun into a new sign. As all of that takes place, it would implicitly be worth your while to occasionally look up from more immediate concerns to make a longer temporal assessment.

Just as Earth has its seasons, so do relationships, and so does history. During these days of the Sun, Mars and Mercury in Cancer, it would not be unusual or untoward for personal (or, what in the long term are ephemeral) matters to dominate your attention. After all, Cancer is ruled by the fast-moving and rapidly changing Moon. Unlike many other conquerable stretches, however, some detached contemplation would be more than usually in order.

Beneath the familiar and relatively rapid rhythms of life represented by the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars is a slower counterpoint. Underlying the undeniably eventful nature of living in this decade has been an emblematic intersection and exchange with longer stages of your development as a person, those of your relationships, and even of our kind.

If you will but assume (as astrology indicates) that you are living in a period when the rotation of seasonal cycles as you experience them in your body is still meshing with the gears of much larger metaphorical wheels, you will have the perspective you need over the next several weeks. This is no ordinary time. You are not the same as those whose lives have preceded yours.

In spite of temptations to believe otherwise, life is worth living as much or more now than at any time before. Now are the days to appreciate not only yourself and your relationships, but also how tending to them is likewise contributing to what the world will be for a long time to come. Just as your body is essentially the dust of ancient suns, how you take care of yourself (and others with whom you are privileged to mesh) in these days will be the stuff from which the future is made.

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There are times when it is legitimate to question whether we astrologers know what we are talking about. The season just initiated when the Sun entered the cardinal sign Cancer this week could well be one of those times. Not because there is anything wrong with astrology or astrologers, but because the subject matter is so big.

To be specific, just describing what the Sun and Moon will be doing in relation to each other over the course of our nascent season is going to be challenge. To only begin with, it will be difficult to separate the topic from the language accounting for it — especially when the theme is beginnings.

When the Sun entered the cardinal sign of Cancer on Wednesday (or Tuesday, depending on where you live), time zones were the only real complication when it came to recounting it. Resolving that one hitch requires anybody, regardless of location, to realize that the moment in question transcends artificial human constructs.

It is an indisputable fact that the moment of solstice is simultaneously shared by every being in the world. When the Sun stands poised overhead at the Tropic of Cancer is when it enters the sign Cancer. In that instant time zones cease to have meaning, and we are one under a Sun that is at the point of rising and setting as far north as it ever will, no matter where you live.

The beginning of a season is thus both simple and profound if you can manage to rise above the unnecessarily illusory (and political) artifact that is a time zone. Once you begin contemplating the next most obvious and essential celestial phenomenon — lunar cycles — both apprehension and description rapidly begin to get both more subtle and complex. That’s because lunations (the period during which the Moon completes a full cycle of phases) require you to think of both the Moon and Sun as a unit.

The backbone of the 12-sign tropical zodiac used by astrologers is the motion of the Sun as seen from the Earth. For that reason, solstices or equinoxes take place precisely and without fail every time the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn). The civil calendar most of us use is also, when considered as an annual whole, fundamentally solar. That’s how the date of solstices and equinoxes will vary by no more than a day or so from one year to the next.

The Moon, however, keeps its own schedule in relationship to the Sun, and hence in relation to both the zodiac and the common calendar. Observe over a long enough period of time, and you will eventually see a given phase of the Moon take place on every calendar date and zodiac degree. During the course of the season we all just started together, the disparity between the solar and lunar schedules will come into play.

The initiation of a lunar cycle is when the luminaries (Sun and Moon) come together to share the same degree of the same sign for what is called a New Moon. Based on that idea, events correlated with a New Moon are thought (and often proven) to represent a beginning, after which developments proceed to a climax as the the Moon waxes to fullness. This is subsequently followed by a period of denouement after the Full Moon and before the next conjunction of the two luminaries

Because the Cancer New Moon taking place later today (or early tomorrow — once again depending on your time zone) is so soon after the solstice, the solar and lunar cycles are currently closely synchronized. The next New Moon (on July 23 for nearly all of us) will perfect the pattern of both the luminaries operating and developing on the same time scale, when the Sun and Moon meet in the very first degree of Leo.

After that, with the New Moon and total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, the Sun and Moon begin a temporal divergence from their spatial relationship. That will be the second time they come together in Leo this year — at the penultimate degree. This is when the job of astrologers will get more complicated at the most fundamental level.

If anything represents a point of departure greater than either the Sun changing signs or a New Moon, it’s a solar eclipse. The fact that the Sun will move on to Virgo less than 28 hours after the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21 will raise important questions astrologers will be challenged to answer. It’s easy to anticipate that what starts after a New Moon will develop and express over the course of an entire lunation, when cycles of the Sun and Moon are as closely coordinated as they will be this month and next.

But what of the lunation initiating just as the Sun is finishing its 2017 tenure in Leo? Will correlations to lunar development after the second of two Leo New Moons be somehow abbreviated or attenuated? Will earthly events corresponding to the Sun and those related with the Moon somehow proceed to diverge in their timing?

Or (as suggested by the exceptional nature of a total eclipse that will be visible to tens of millions) will it be appropriate to transcend customary perceptual canon in a way reminiscent of how our recent solstice at least momentarily obviated human conventions of time? In all probability, at least some astrologers will rise to the occasion, but only after coming to terms with the fact that the conceptual breadth of our field is as big as it gets.

Indeed, the same principle will implicitly apply to you, regardless of whether (or to what extent) you are an astrologer. If there is anything to astrology, what the Sun and Moon will be doing in relationship to each other over the next three months or so will somehow apply to everybody, each in their own way.

After all, if there is anything big enough to both contain and exceed the field of astrology, it must certainly be the profound privilege of life itself in a body made of stardust. Regardless of what happens either before or after the Great American Eclipse, have no doubt that you have what it takes to rise to any occasion life has to offer.

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By Amanda Painter

The sea is one of nature’s embodied paradoxes: though it is in one sense constant in its vastness and depth, it is also constantly changing — such as with the tides. True, storms and certain types of currents can seem to come up suddenly on the ocean, but the tides offer a cycle of continual shift that is dependable, and which fosters many kinds of life.

Solstice sunrise meditation, June 21, 2017; photo by Amanda Painter.

On Friday — just two days after yesterday’s solstice (when the Sun entered Cancer to begin the summer season) — the Sun and Moon will conjoin for a New Moon.

This Cancer New Moon, exact at 10:31 pm EDT on June 23 (2:31 UTC June 24), seems to emphasize the ocean’s particular flavor of constant change. I realize that “change” is kind of a trigger-word for some people. Not for everyone; there are those who thrive on continually reinventing themselves and their immediate environments.

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When the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn), a new season begins. About half-past midnight EDT (04:24 UTC) tomorrow morning the solar ingress to Cancer will mark the second seasonal change of 2017. What the Sun will be doing at the time will make it an inherently percipient point.

If you are favored by cloudless skies, it takes only a small amount of diligent patience to see the meaning of seasonal changes with your own eyes. When the Sun moved into Aries back on March 20, it was rising precisely in the east and setting exactly in the west regardless of your location on Earth.

After a few days, a trend became evident. Since the week of the Aries equinox, the Sun has risen and set farther and farther to the north with every passing day. Now, the pattern is about to turn around. After this week’s Cancer solstice, the arc of the solar motion across the sky will be moving gradually south.

When we reach the Libra equinox on Sept. 22, solar risings and settings will emulate those of six months before with one important exception: the southern progress will continue. Finally, after the week of the Capricorn solstice on Dec. 21, the Sun will begin trending north again. So it goes every year. What you see of the Sun when it enters a cardinal sign anticipates a lot of what you will get in the months to come.

Every seasonal change this year, however, is being accompanied by something more. It is almost as if the equinoxes and solstices of 2017 are being astrologically underlined for greater emphasis. It all started subtly with the Moon in March.

Back on March 20, the Moon moved into Capricorn only hours after the Sun entered Aries. The result was a lunar last quarter phase (a ‘closing square’ aspect between the Sun and Moon) with the two luminaries located in the very first degree of their respective cardinal signs. That does not happen every year. When you consider how fast the Moon moves around the zodiac (proceeding at an average rate of about one degree every two hours), its timing with the Sun was amazing.

Even so, astrologers are seldom astonished by one isolated event, no matter how notable. With the solstice this week, however, things begin to add up.

Tomorrow, Mercury follows the Sun into Cancer by just hours. Shortly thereafter, the two meet up for what is called a ‘superior’ conjunction (a once-a-year event) in the very first degree of Cardinal water. When you consider how Mercury is presently moving at about two degrees per day, that’s a second piece of significant timing.

Looking ahead, the Sun entering Libra this year will be immediately followed by a complex celestial event that takes place only rarely. In spite of how the description of that alignment is not friendly to astrology, one fact is clear: a pattern will be making itself evident with the next equinox.

There is an old saying that goes something like this: “Once a fluke, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern.” If you ascribe to that aphorism even a little bit, you could very well be left at a loss for words when the Capricorn solstice of 2017 comes around.

On Dec. 20, Saturn will enter Capricorn to stay after more than two continuous years in Sagittarius. The next day, the Sun will ingress Capricorn, and make its annual conjunction with Saturn at precisely the same time. When you take into account how slowly Saturn moves, such timing is breathtaking enough. When you consider how every other season this year is also initiating with uncannily precise alignments to the Sun, one cannot help but wonder if all of 2017 is itself a turning point of its own; one in which the seasonal change motif is intrinsically implied all the way through.

In all probability, only the passage of years to follow will determine whether or not this year is somehow an extrapolation of the theme being repeated once again by the Sun this week. In the meantime, however, you could do far worse than to behave as if every day were indeed special by acting to make it so. If you want an example to follow, take it from the Sun. Rise to bring your light. Set to integrate any darkness. Do your best to shine as only you can. Be and make the rest of us grateful you are here.

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Every year, several days before the Cancer solstice, the Gemini Sun opposes the center of our galaxy in Sagittarius. This is no small event. Earth orbits the Sun. Our Sun orbits the Galactic Core. When that set of relations comes into its annual alignment it is a subtle, yet significant, moment of the year.

Science, as well as astrology, is based in part on pattern recognition. When Galileo sighted Jupiter orbited by its moons, he deduced that planets in our solar system cycled around the Sun in much the same way. With the perspective of time, Galileo was proven to be essentially correct.

The first model for a divisible atom was, in turn, based on the example set by the solar system. As it turns out, atomic structure is not so simple. Even so, the initial assumption of a Sun-like nucleus orbited by planet-like electrons was close enough to be workable in the early stages of both modern chemistry and subatomic physics.

When it comes to astrology, we are still in the early stages of working with the Galactic Core. Nobody (neither astronomers nor astrologers) figured out what a galaxy was (or that we were part of one) until less than three centuries ago. Subsequent discoveries of uncounted other galaxies in an unmeasured universe are even more recent.

All that being said, astrologers do have a proven model to interpret the Gemini Sun’s opposition to the center of our galaxy this weekend. It is the Full Moon.

The most commonly used definition of an opposition for both astronomers and astrologers is the Earth moving between two other objects or points. That’s what happens during a Full Moon.

On a zodiac chart, a Full Moon is portrayed by the Sun and Moon being in the same degree of opposite signs. With your own eyes, you see the same phenomenon as the Moon rising in the East just as the Sun is setting in the West. It is the halfway point of the (roughly) monthly lunar cycle of phases, symbolizing the end of waxing and the beginning of waning. Any child knows what it looks like. Everybody knows how it feels.

From the very beginning, astrologers have employed pattern recognition in much the same way Galileo did. Whenever two objects are opposed on a zodiac chart, the template for interpreting that aspect is the Full Moon.

Hence, you might say that we will have a Full Galactic Core (GC) this weekend. Just as with a Full Moon, Earth will be moving between the two. At the same time the Sun and GC will be opposing across the zodiac and across the sky. Yet, there will be one major difference from the Full Moon prototype.

The Sun and Moon are not alike — they are complements. The Sun emanates light. The Moon does not. Instead, the Moon reflects. When you see a Full Moon, it is only because it is illuminated by the Sun.

The Sun and GC, on the other hand, are essentially two different versions of the same thing. Both are centers of gravity around which other things orbit. Both are sources (not reflectors) of profound energy. The major differences are size and familiarity.

Human beings are so familiar with the Sun, it is a factor in our DNA. When exposed to sunlight, your body changes in a predictable, programmed manner. There is so far no evidence of a similar physical familiarity with the GC. The relationship between you and the center of our galaxy is a visual and conceptual one.

Nearly as familiar as the Full Moon is the tableau of what many call the “Milky Way” — the side-on view of our galaxy (which, depending on your location and time of year, includes the area of the sky where the GC is located). Realizing that every point of light in that vast swath of stars is basically a Sun (and that every star visible to your unaided eye is part of our galaxy) puts things into perspective.

Yet, the perspective of our galaxy as a much bigger version of our solar system is much more recent — and that’s a reasonable interpretation of the Sun opposing the GC this weekend.

On the one side of Earth (and in Gemini) will be the Sun — something we have always known. Something that is demonstrably part of you. Something you instinctively (and correctly) know you cannot live without. On the other side (in Sagittarius) is a phenomenon that has been there much longer than the Sun, but which has only recently been perceived for what it most fundamentally is by our kind.

Like Galileo, we can deduce that the GC is very much like the Sun, but on a scale beyond what your experience (or indeed, the entire experience of life on Earth) equips you to understand. In that interpretation we could also be fundamentally correct.

On the other hand, our relationship with the GC could (at this stage of life on Earth) be very much like early ideas of a divisible atom. What we postulate of the GC could be only a beginning: enough to be workable for now, but only a prelude to something much more sophisticated and involved that will usher in an unanticipated level of awareness, ultimately leading to changes we cannot possibly anticipate at this time.

This year’s passage between the Sun and Galactic Core is thus significant largely because of you. For your not-too-distant ancestors, it was an event nobody was fully conscious of. With recent generations leading up to yours, awareness gradually grew. Now, the Sun opposing the center of our galaxy is something you can keep track of and follow, much as with Full Moons. The question is, what are you (and we) going to do with that information? The answer, at least in part, is yours to provide.

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By Amanda Painter

Within a week, summer here in the Northern Hemisphere will begin, signaled by the Sun’s entrance into the sign Cancer on June 21. We’re almost at the solstice: that time of maximum daylight, when you may experience a sense of extending your energy out into the world more than usual as a result of the longer (and warmer) days. If you tend to be a natural extravert, it probably feels great to get out there and go, go, go from sunup to sundown, drinking it all in.

An example of mind-mapping, on the theme of health.

If you’re more of an energetic introvert it could be a little tougher to balance the desire to fully use these long days with a need to stay grounded, slow down, or in some other way nourish yourself.

Speaking to those themes as we approach the solstice are aspects involving the Sun, Mercury and Ceres in Gemini. Today, the Gemini Sun opposes Saturn and the centaur planet Ixion in Sagittarius (exact beginning with Saturn at 6:18 am EDT / 10:18 UTC). Tomorrow, Mercury makes a conjunction to Ceres in Gemini (exact at 4:55 pm EDT / 20:55 UTC), still square Neptune in Pisces.

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With the waning gibbous Moon now in Aquarius until early Thursday, we are entering the final seven days of our current season. By this time next week, astrology’s focus will be on the Sun leaving Gemini behind to ingress the sign Cancer, precipitating a solstice. It is thus fitting to take stock of all that has happened since the Aries equinox back on March 20.

Another appropriate way to spend the final days of Gemini is to discuss what’s on your mind. No conversation worthy of the name is one-sided. Hence, listening to others and encouraging their participation is essential if you are going to do anything other than converse with yourself.

Indeed, you might want to go the extra mile when it comes to exchanging ideas with others this week. Be aware there is likely to be a polarity of inclinations, and an appropriate way of responding to either.

Given how both solar and lunar cycles are presently winding down very nearly together, a lot of people may be prone to introspection. It would therefore be a good idea to let those who evoke still waters take the lead when it comes to sharing thoughts. Rather than pressing, do what you can to make the restrained feel comfortable and safe in your presence if you want them to open up.

Those of an extroverted persuasion, on the other hand, will likely find restraint difficult this week, given what Mercury is doing. Right now, the innermost planet is also in Gemini (one of the two signs it rules, along with Virgo), moving at nearly top speed — about two degrees per day.

To make your interactions with the verbally profuse both constructive and productive during what remains of this season, entertain a two-pronged approach. First, be gentle but firm with regards to asserting your boundaries. After all, you need not indulge others to the extent of making yourself uncomfortable.

Before you throw up any walls, however, consider allowing patience take the lead. Those who feel a pressing need to express their thoughts might actually have something important (or at least interesting) to offer. The key to your own satisfactory resolution of the current solar and lunar cycles may very well be found in uninvited words.

Additionally, enthusiasm at its best can be both contagious and transformative in the best possible sense.

In a very real way, this is a special week. What you do with it will set the tone for both the next season and a new lunation soon to come. Take care of yourself, to be sure. But also remember that we are undeniably and unavoidably here to take care of each other.

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