Summer Solstice 2012

When the Sun moves into the sign of Cancer, summer officially begins in the Northern Hemisphere. Cancer, along with Aries, Libra & Capricorn are initiatory in nature and so our drive to act is stimulated at the change of season. Yet each season has it’s elemental flavor and effects the motivations behind the action. In the spring when the Sun enters Aries we have the drive to be, to exist, to act from an instinctual level. In Libra our motivation is to relate, in Capricorn our motivation is to utilize. Cancer’s motivation is to feel. So when the Sun enters Cancer our feeling nature is highlighted. Cancer also deals with the idea of nurturing, family, clan & survival through the creation of family.

Cancer is concerned with emotional and physical security. That is why people with a heavy Cancer emphasis in their charts can be both highly self-protective & rabidly protective of their loved ones and their ‘home’. When feeling secure Cancer can be the most generous of signs yet when stressed they can be manipulated through fear to shut down and fight to the death for ‘family & country’ as it where.

Generally the chart for the Summer Solstice can give us the flavor of the Summer and this chart is no different. Summer 2012 is quite the flavorful mélange. As always the movement of the Sun into Cancer puts us in an introspective frame of mind. Feelings around the past, especially those concerning family can rise up into our consciousness. The fact that in the chart for this Summer Solstice, the Moon & Mercury are also in Cancer further emphasizes that tendency.

Venus still retrograde in the sign of Gemini continues to require us to re-evaluate our values especially what we think, the actual mental constructs that determine what we deem as essential in our lives and our relationships. Are there ‘thought forms’ that no longer serve us. Instead of looking for answers from a solely mental perspective we are being asked to compare how our ideas line up with our feelings. We can no longer go along unconsciously. We must take each of our mental ‘sacred cows’ and see if in fact they are in alignment with what our heart dictates. Venus is the planet of Love after all. And in this chart she makes an opportunistic sextile to Uranus: opening up to new ideas coming from a more self-empowered place. And she makes in irritating in conjunct to Pluto in Capricorn, requiring us to make mental adjustments concerning our needs and the needs of others. We must come to understand that its not just about us, it’s about everyone. We all deserve love, we all deserve our essential needs met, food, shelter, clothing, peace, opportunity to expand our minds, yet with the system as it stands (although perhaps not for long!) only relatively few get to experience that.

The Planet Neptune continues to square the nodes of the Moon, as it has been doing since the spring. Neptune helps to dissolve the boundaries so no matter how hard we attempt to keep the walls up, they will come down. Our shared humanity, our shared feelings, our shared experiences. We will be feeling it all. We can no longer separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters or from the other creatures that inhabit this planet. Charity surely does start at home, and hat home is our heart. This Neptune aspect can also create a lot of confusion and escapist tendencies. It is important that we give ourselves some rest from the onslaught of feelings that swirl around us, yet we cannot stay there, we must participate in this great shift we find ourselves in. The Sun in Cancer will make that obvious to us, moving in to figure out our feelings, then moving out to express and live our new understanding.

The other two transpersonal planets Pluto and Uranus are within minutes of their exact first quarter square which is exact on June 24th. Often the energy of any aspect is most potent when it is getting close to exact, or what is called ‘applying’. First quarter squares (90 degrees) are call ‘crisis in action’ squares, so we are feeling the need to act. This need is subconscious & it feels as if our lives depend on it and in point of fact it does. We can no longer live unconsciously. Most people who read these type of articles already know that we co-create this world. We have awakened to that fact, yet the majority of people remain sleeping. This Uranus/Pluto square (the first of 7 that run from 2012-2015 is the alarm clock for the slumbering masses. With that in mind we must get our own house in order and become lights on the path for others, for our brothers and sisters. For we are them and they are we. We’re all in this together, lets create something beautiful.