A clear vision,
backed by definite plans,
gives you a tremendous feeling
of confidence and personal power.
Brian Tracy
The Full Moon on July 3, 2023, at 11 Capricorn gives us the means to regroup and make adjustments to our plans for what we want to achieve by the end of 2023.
It is an opportune time to make shifts in our priorities and in how we will approach the near future so that we can hold our commitments and responsibilities with joy and strength. Taking the time to assess what is working for us and what is not, we can re-identify with what we love and become re-invigorated in our dedication to its further growth and well-being.
Moon oppose Mercury
Jupiter trine the Capricorn Moon
Chiron square the Full Moon
Full Moon Ruler: Saturn sextile Moon/trine Sun
Venus and Mars square Uranus and trine Chiron
A Summer filled with Retrogrades
This is a Super Moon, meaning the Moon is as close at it comes in its orbit with the earth. Full Moons mark a time when the tides and our feeling natures run high. This is even more so with a Super Moon. Full Moons seek to bring culmination and resolution to some area of our life that has been preoccupying our thoughts and time. Issues around how to hold our responsibilities and how to relate to power are amplified with the Capricorn Full Moon.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree
and I will spend the first four
sharpening the axe.
Abraham Lincoln
The Capricorn Full Moon marks the halfway point of the year. Consciously or subconsciously, we make New Year’s resolutions around the Capricorn New Moon at the beginning of each year. Intentions takes shape about what we want the coming year to be about and what we hope to accomplish. Now, six months into the year, The Full Moon invites us to assess how the year is going. We are to take an honest look at our efforts in relation to what gives our life meaning. It is an opportune time to make course corrections or alterations to plans.
The Goat is Capricorn’s constellation. The Goat demonstrates great tenacity and focus as it scales the side of a mountain to reach the summit. Capricorn brings out our ambition and the subsequent determination, commitment and sense of responsibility to fulfill a designated goal. To date, we have been scaling our personal mountain and it is time to return to base camp and regroup. We are to take some time to reassess our approach, which will afford us a new awareness of details or information we have overlooked or downplayed. Having a plan and a map is one thing, but the experience of walking the terrain gives us more information that can have us adjust our strategy for how to meet the mountain - the goal - in the weeks and months to come.
The prototypical Capricorn looks to scale the corporate ladder or be publicly recognized for some arena where they have demonstrated excellence. But, in truth, we each determine the mountain we wish to climb. It can be a desire to restore our health, have a vegetable garden, find a new job, or undertake a home renovation. Beyond setting the intention, we need a concrete plan that will guide us step by step to realize the goal.
Sun and Mercury are in Cancer, opposing the Moon. We look to balance the commitments we have made to ourselves with what feels good. If we have been quieting feelings of discomfort, exhaustion or agitation in order to stick with a plan, this is an opportune time to adjust our plan and timeline so that our personal wellbeing is not compromised in the name of some project or goal. There is a desire to spend more time at home or with family and tend what best nurtures us. We can have insight now into how to approach our responsibilities where attention is paid in how to achieve a better work/life balance.
Capricorn is the strategist, the pragmatist, the realist. Capricorn inspires maturity and a readiness to assume authority. While Cancer represents the child, Capricorn is the adult. We are to step into life with integrity and accountability with a design on how we will take responsibility for what we want to create long-term. If we abdicate the authorship, the authority of our life, we than experience ourself as a victim or become subject to another’s authority. We are encouraged to make our dreams concrete - meaning that if we have an idea, a vision for our life, then it needs a plan with clear action steps that we are prepared to take. The Full Moon supports us in giving further shape to our strategy of what we hope, dream, and want to have happen.
Jupiter trine the Capricorn Moon. Confidence is strengthened. We are supported in having greater faith in ourselves to build and focus on what we want to see fulfilled. There is a greater capacity at this time to see the big picture and to align with our soul path. In Taurus, Jupiter helps us in discovering beneficial ways to invest our resources, financial and otherwise, as we shape the plan that carries us towards a desirable future.
Chiron square the Full Moon. Through the evaluation process and the reshaping of plans that the Full Moon inspires, there is potential for healing as we move with integrity and accountability. We can move beyond feelings of being a victim or martyr as we more assuredly take the reins of our life. There is potential to repattern our relationship to responsibility and with having authority. Within this process, we are to identify with the most nurturing thing we can do for ourselves and embrace the commitment to give this to ourselves. We can find a new balance between feeling safe and being an adult in the world, to becoming more independent and less dependent on someone else to save or validate us.
If you can’t figure out your purpose,
figure out your passion.
For your passion will lead you
right into your purpose.
Essence and Form
Full Moon Ruler: Saturn
Saturn, planet of time, boundaries and responsibility has recently turned Retrograde in the sign of Pisces - a sign known for limitlessness, surrender and timelessness. The two make strange bedfellows. Saturn in Pisces invites us to recognize that our life is a spiritual journey and not to get overly identified with the form, and what takes shape or dissolves in time and space. Events may occur which have us realize the temporal nature of everything around us, meaning that people or things that we thought would last, come to an end.
While retrograde, Saturn slows down the momentum of the fulfilment of plans. Things may not happen in the time and way we envisioned. Rather than giving way to frustration, we can be curious about why certain timelines we have set need to be pushed back. We are to exercise patience and to pay attention to what we may have missed, or how new information can better shape the overall plan. It is to our advantage to take things slowly. By doing this, we can adjust to new circumstances and adjust the next steps we are to take so that what we wish to build is assured to have substance and meaning. With Saturn in Pisces, what we may be nurturing is our inner garden, our inner life and may be less about what we are wanting to create in the world.
Saturn’s placement in Pisces calls us to shape plans around the essence of what we wish to bring into our lives and the world, and to be flexible around the form it takes. We may wish to be more loving or to feel more supported or to be more creative. A plan can set us in a good direction, but life may want to deliver the shape, the form of it in a new, different or unexpected way. For instance, we may want to have a commitment partnership, but it may not serve us to require that this be fulfilled with a particular person we have selected. We need to remain open and surrender to how the essence of the plan will be fulfilled, trusting that what is unfolding is for our greatest benefit.
Saturn while retrograde is going back over territory it has already covered since the beginning of March. Likewise, we may be reviewing, re-evaluating and revisiting our plans, commitments and responsibilities that took shape during recent months. In this, we can recognize how our plans dovetail and are interwoven with our soul journey to grow, learn and become fulfilled through the course of our life. One way to look at this is to imagine ourselves at the end of our life saying what we are most proud of having done in this life. Whatever our answer to this question may be, we are to adjust our priorities and plans so we are giving it adequate attention and focus in our life now.
A river needs good riverbanks to flow well. Saturn is the riverbanks, the boundaries that allow life, love, and creativity to flow. Some of us may feel ambivalent about restraining or disciplining the flow of our life, but good boundaries, like good riverbanks allow for maximum flow. I once had a dance teacher who said again and again: there is no flow without form. During this time, we can look at where our personal boundaries are weak allowing our life energy to dissipate. There may be places where we need to say 'no' or hold our ground so that we are not unwittingly distracted or diverted from the commitments that need our full focus. We are discerning where we want to say 'yes' and then to fully dedicate ourselves to the care, validation and amplification of that 'yes.'
Saturn Sextile the Moon and Trine the Sun. Saturn reinforces the Full Moon potentiality. We can see how holding responsibility and rededicating ourselves to our commitments is empowering and can re-invigorate our life.
Your work is your love made visible.
Khalil Gibran
Love Made Visible
Venus and Mars in Leo square Uranus square Chiron
Venus has entered her shadow phase for her retrograde in Leo from July 22 to September 3. With both Venus and Mars currently in Leo, we feel an increasing desire to be courageous and creative. The desire can propel us to move beyond patterns that have reinforced an impulse to remain hidden and anonymous. While Venus is in her shadow phase, we may be alerted to issues that will be contemplated more fully during her retrograde. Her retrograde will provide an exploration and breakthrough around the circumstances and the fear we have around being seen, being joyful and spontaneous. The house where 28 - 12 Leo is in our charts, will indicate what area of life will be most impacted.
With the Leo Full Moon, Venus and Mars in Leo remind us that our commitments and relationships are vehicles to express our passion and our joy. As we look to embrace authority (authorship) of our lives, we will want to shape a plan that allows for play and spontaneity, where our feeling nature has room to express and be part of the plan that wishes to be fulfilled. By creating healthy boundaries, we can dissolve the blocks that have dammed up the flow of our innately joyful nature. The impulse to protect our heart can give way to a greater desire: to let down our guard and give more fully of ourselves and unashamedly offer ourselves to what lights us up.
The next newsletter will explore the Venus Retrograde more in depth, but what is notable to mention here about her upcoming Retrograde is that it will square Uranus three times. Uranus seeks freedom and can bring unexpected events. We may experience some jolts and surprises that help clear away the barriers we have built to protect ourselves from life and love. A new relationship can emerge that is exciting and enlivening, though not necessarily predictable or stable. With Venus as the ruler of finances, there may be some fluctuation or volatility with financial currencies and markets. The underlying impetus is to get the energy moving and to free us up to feel more alive. The Full Moon reminds us that freedom and responsibility work best together to generate an empowered and fulfilling life.
Purpose is the reason you journey.
Passion is the fire that lights the way.
Unknown
Planets moving Retrograde
All outer planets are in the process of turning retrograde. The retrograde cycles of these the slow moving planets last many months. Pluto turned Retrograde May 1 and Saturn on June 17. Neptune turns Retrograde on June 30 and then Uranus on August 28. Later this summer, we have two of the personal planets, Venus and Mercury, also turning Retrograde.
The Summer is marked by multiple planets in retrograde, which serve to slow us down and have us turn inward. We are to review decisions, revisit conversations and re-evaluate ideas. We are encouraged to be introspective and to take a step back from engaging in lots of activity.
With these retrogrades, we will mull over what gives us power and what renders us powerless. We will realize truths that were previously obscure. Part of this process is to connect with our intuitive nature and become aware of how we are part of something larger than our individual lives and the times we live in. If we try to move too fast or race past what we are feeling, we may suddenly become hyper-sensitive or easily overwhelmed in response to a given circumstance.
The outer planets are each in process of moving from earth and water signs to fire and air signs. It is a remarkable transition that will ultimately lead to us feeling lighter and able to move forward with more agility and ease. To ready for this, we need to take time this summer to integrate the lessons and experiences of recent years and make adjustments and alterations that correlate to who we are becoming (and not just acting out from how we have identified ourselves in the past).
Pluto is hanging out at the last degree of Capricorn and will not return to Aquarius until the beginning of 2024. The 29th degree of any sign is the shadow degree, where the shadow nature of a zodiac sign is stimulated. The shadow of Capricorn is the urge for power and control.
Pluto at Capricorn's shadow degree, we can anticipate governments, institutions and corporations to take added measures to further consolidate their power and to exert control - especially in the areas of communication and information. Pluto will return to Aquarius the beginning of 2024.
Pluto is re-invigorating the U.S. Pluto Return, reflecting the breakdown and potential breakthrough process that the U.S is undergoing as it continues to move through an identity crisis that focuses on shared agreements around the foundational values that define the country. Democracy is on the line. Either democracy will experience a rebirth in the coming years, or it may be lost all together. Much depends on how we engage this crisis while Pluto is completing its time in Capricorn.
Through the rest of 2023 with Pluto revisiting Capricorn, we can expect a further crumbling of infrastructures, further instability with financial systems, and further crisis surrounding the laws that govern the country. Pluto will not fully leave Capricorn until just after the 2024 Presidential Election. So, until then there will continuing pressure on structures that make up the status quo. Corporate, judicial and government leaders will look to bolster their power and control. Leaders and systems that are corrupted will continue to be exposed and held accountable.
Our minds are bombarded with new information, and we are grappling with how things we thought would last may not. We are opening to a future that promises to be a radical departure from what we have known (Pluto straddling Capricorn and Aquarius and square the nodal axis). The Capricorn Full Moon invites us to be accountable to our own life, to take responsibility for what we want to bring into the world, and to shape a plan of action that we can feel passionate about dedicating ourselves to fulfilling.