by Silvianne K. Delmars | July 26, 2024 |
This week’s astro update begins on Saturday, July 27, with the Last Quarter Moon in beauty-loving Taurus, and ends on Saturday, August 4, with a regal Leo New Moon. Here are the highlights (all times in PDT).
Saturday, July 27
The beauty-loving Taurus last quarter Moon, exact at 05 Taurus 32 late this evening, squares the Sun in Leo. We have arrived at the final decision point in this lunation cycle that began with the New Moon in Cancer three weeks ago. This is the monthly time for harvest and celebration of what has grown from the intentions we seeded at the beginning of the cycle, as we let the rest fall away, to serve as compost for the brand new lunation beginning next week.
With Pluto in Aquarius still opposite to the Sun in Leo and completing a powerful T-square with this 4th Quarter Moon, we continue to be forcefully pointed back into our own depths, uncomfortably confronted with what may be holding us back at the deepest level.
Startlingly innovative, extraordinarily expansive, awesomely original solutions for clearing the most intractable obstructions are right here, so close, just waiting to be pulled into the orbit of our awareness and wrestled into reality. But they can be hard to recognize while looking through the murky lens of our old perceptions. Time to be brave and let go of the old worn out blueprint and negative self-talk that may be the only thing still standing in the way of the full, creative, most joyful expression of our essential natures.
Sunday, July 28
Venus in Leo is currently squaring asteroid Pallas Athena, goddess of inspired vision, exact today around midday. Newly risen from her death and rebirth experience on the other side of the Sun, Leo Overstory Venus has now entered back into the sign where she began this current 19-months synodic cycle journey last August. She is here to remind us, personally and collectively, of our essential nature as exuberantly sovereign beings, destined to co-create with Great Mystery at the threshold of a whole new way of being.
This continues to be a very vulnerable moment in Venus’s sojourn, as she fiercely protects her tender new expression of creative sovereignty, still pursued by the underworld furies who long to drag her back down into unconsciousness. Today’s square from Pallas Athena in visceral Scorpio invokes the need to assimilate deeply the essential inner patterning of what she has learned through her death and rebirth experience, ensuring that the renewed Leo Sacred Feminine embodiment continues to show up with depth as well as heart.
Remember to keep an eye out in the early evening for Venus and Mercury, hanging low on the western horizon after sunset. Although faint and hard to spot, they are there and are always available for us to tune in to, even if we can’t perceive them with our physical senses.
Monday, July 29
The Moon goes out of bounds today, until August 4, rising and setting farther north on the horizon than the Sun (part of a once-in-19-years cycle culminating 2024-2025). A reminder for us to allow ourselves to step “outside the bounds” as well, challenging the inner and outer narratives that keep us imprisoned in the mad reality of a dysfunctional world. This message is enthusiastically highlighted as the Moon makes its monthly pass over Uranus in Taurus early this morning. A good time to invoke the unpredictable genius of the cosmic forces of change, rather than squander our energies in futile resistance to them, as we navigate these perilously volatile times.
Tuesday, July 30
Mars and Jupiter in Gemini continue to be visible in the early morning sky looking east this week, along with the Pleiades and Aldebaran, the Royal Star known as the Eye of the Bull constellation. On Monday and Tuesday mornings they are joined by the waning Moon.
On Monday morning, the Moon will lie close to the Pleiades star cluster, with Mars and Jupiter below. And on Tuesday the Moon will have moved even closer along the ecliptic to form a spectacular rectangle with Jupiter, Mars, and fiery red Aldebaran.
This is a powerful activation of this beautiful star, associated with Archangel Michael in many traditions and invoking courage, responsibility, leadership, and intelligence. With the Moon in effervescent Gemini passing both assertive Mars and expansive Jupiter today, presaging their exact conjunction in a couple of weeks, there is a strong invitation to explore our own leadership abilities.
How and where are we being invited to shine our light and bring our unique intelligence to the service of our deepest, heart-centered vision?
The ancients associated this Behenian star with the gemstones ruby and garnet. Invoking the essence of either, by wearing or meditating on them, can help us to embody and unfold the energy of this star.
The stars move through the zodiac signs very slowly, from our point of view, at a rate of one degree every 72 years. Back in 2016, due to this precessional movement, the Sabian Symbol for Aldebaran changed from Gemini 10 to Gemini 11, “Newly opened lands offer the pioneer new opportunities for experience.” Dane Rudhyar’s commentary invokes the joy and power of new beginnings. He also suggests that, having become relatively separate from our past, we are able to rise to the occasion as we face an unknown future.
Today’s potent planetary activation of magical Aldebaran is a cosmically orchestrated opportunity to bring the excitement and energy of new beginnings to bear in our own lives, free from past limitations, trusting in our ability to meet what comes with joy and courage, in service to a New Earth.
Thursday, August 1
Saturn continues to be visible in the southern sky, rising before 9:00 pm, hanging out in the faint constellation of the Water Bearer. Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the Fish constellation, shines not far away. Saturn has been traversing the watery zodiac sign of compassionate Pisces since March of 2023, where it will stay until February of 2026, urging us to ground our spirituality into everyday reality, by creating new structures and systems based in the wisdom of our hearts.
If you go out under the night sky to commune with grandmother Saturn, be sure to also look for the large Summer Triangle to the east, composed of three bright stars from different constellations. Deneb in Cygnus constellation is to the left, with brightest Vega in Lyra to the right and above, and Altair in Aquila to the far right. It is a wonderful asterism that frames a portion of the Milky Way (if you have skies dark enough to discern this starry heart of our galaxy). Even here in the rainy, damp, tree-rich rain forest of western North Carolina I have been able to spot the Summer Triangle as it emerges from the among the frequent cloud cover, and am deeply enjoying the view.
Friday, August 2
The Moon reaches its extreme northern out of bounds position today, with Venus in Leo squaring Uranus in Taurus in the early morning. Another amped up indicator of eccentric transformation, as evolutionary change agent Uranus continues in its unrelenting message to “expect the unexpected” under the light of a delightfully deviant Moon.
An irresistible force meets with an unmovable object as Uranus squares off with newly risen Venus, challenging her to make sure her unique creative expression takes into consideration the current realities of deep change coming from within the Earth herself. In what ways are we being asked to hold true to our own unwavering essence, while attempting to dance with unpredictable events beyond our control? How can we find creative solutions that allow us to be flexible enough not to break, without bending completely out of shape?
Sunday, August 4
The New Moon is conjunct the Sun today, exact at 4:13 am PDT, at 12 Leo 34. Venus is in late degrees of Leo as well, moving into Virgo just a few hours later. New Moons always represent the beginning of another cycle, but this month seems to hold a particularly strong signature of initiation and action, resonant with the Leo mysteries of radical creativity sourced in authentic self-love.
Venus is bringing to fullness her journey through Leo today, as she moves from this sign that began her current overstory, on into Virgo late in the evening. She will be meeting with the sliver of the new Moon tomorrow evening, as Mercury stations retrograde earlier in the day, marking the beginning of a new 4-month Virgo overstory synodic cycle for this speedy planet of communication and connection.
Added all together, this is a timing very resonant with the urge to bring together the highest qualities of two very different archetypes long associated with the Sacred Feminine. Time to wield the Leo creative will, with its undaunted enthusiasm for life, as we channel the earth-connected wisdom of renunciate Virgo. A powerful combination to midwife the imminent birth of a transformational, ancient and future, blueprint for humanity.