THE SOLAR ECLIPSE

Sunday's solar eclipse in Cancer will be a powerful trigger for any changes to home and family that are in the offing - and that have maybe been brought to a head by the Lockdown. What it is that nourishes us (Cancer) is the question to ask. The eclipse is given extra power by the fact that it is occurring within hours of the summer solstice, when the Sun goes into Cancer and the world starts to shift on its axis, moving (in the northern hemisphere) towards shorter days and longer nights.

Outcomes are delayed by the number of retrograde planets in the sky - Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. Practically, that refers to the need to wait for lockdown conditions to ease more fully (when Saturn goes Direct in late September), as well as the need to think things through calmly, to which the pressure cooker effect of the lockdown may not easily lend itself. But changes are on their way.

The esoteric ruler of Cancer is Neptune, which will be conjunct Mars in Pisces. So a good time too for magical acts, in which the emphasis is on creating a space for the divine will, rather than your own will, to have effect.

THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY

If you are an astrologer, then you are inevitably thrown up against the ideas of Fate and Free Will, and their apparently contradictory nature. I don't think they are contradictory. Both are true. And it is a good exercise to sit with them, like it is always a good exercise to sit with contradictory ideas, without reaching after certainty - Negative Capability, as Keats called it. It enables us to sit with the Great Mystery that is behind everything, because really we know nothing. I wrote a blog on this subject some years ago.

Meanwhile, I have been re-reading a wonderful memoir "The World of Yesterday" by Stefan Zweig. He is a vivid and compelling writer, and this book is richly descriptive of Europe from a cultural point of view, from the end of the 19th century to the early 1940s.

And here is what he says about Fate: "Only in youth does coincidence seem the same as fate. Later, we know that the real course of our lives is decided within us; our paths may seem to diverge from our wishes in a confused and pointless way, but in the end the way always leads us to our invisible destination."

Or as Heraclitus said: "Character is Fate."

Or as Jung said, "Free Will is doing gladly and freely that which one must do."

SATURN-PLUTO and THE ENDING OF THE PANDEMIC

The lockdown restrictions started easing as Saturn changed direction in early May: it is the nature of retrograde motion to undertake a review. This phase will conclude at the end of September, when Saturn goes Direct. There may well be restrictions left at that point, but they are likely to be ongoing, such as a restriction on large gatherings of people where there is little space between them; and a requirement to wear masks on eg public transport.

Since the pandemic started under the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, we may not see 'normality' return until Saturn starts to put some serious distance between himself and Pluto. That will be mid-December this year, when Saturn will be 7 degrees from Pluto, and in a different sign. That, at any rate, seems like the earliest point at which Covid will no longer be the main point around which the world is revolving.

Indeed, with the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction occurring in Aquarius a few days later, on the 21st Dec, 12 hours after the winter solstice, that is likely to be the time when we seriously begin to discover, or re-imagine, what world we are living in post-Covid. This excites me :) Aquarius is the sign of the future, moving beyond the outworn traditions of Capricorn.

It is interesting that the 2 solstices this year are so powerful: the summer solstice on 21st June occurring on a solar eclipse, and the winter solstice so close to the new 20-year age of the Saturn-Jupiter cycle. This really is a year of turning points.

Mars in Pisces

Mars is in Pisces for another 3 weeks. Definitely a case of 'Not my will but thine'. And nicely descriptive of lockdown, when we can't do many of the things we would want to do. Add to this the retrograde movements of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto, with Mercury joining them on the 18th, and we do not have a time for moving life forward, but for going within and allowing the new to emerge when it is ready.