Lion’s Gate Full Moon Lunar Eclipse -and- Jupiter Square Pluto

Tensions have been rising all week as Uranus comes to a total standstill, stationing retrograde at 28° Aries on August 3rd, and Jupiter in Libra completes his third and final square to Pluto in Capricorn on August 4th.  The motionless station of Uranus in the dangerous final degrees of Aries is explosive, and the conclusion of our Jupiter square Pluto experience of exploring power dynamics in interpersonal conflict is exposed and on the surface. On every level, we are all feeling it: Enough is Enough.

Jupiter’s first square to Pluto in November of 2016 exposed peak power struggles, most prominently experienced by us in America on a macro-level as the fallout of the presidential election.  But Pluto-Jupiter power struggles also affected personal relationships(Jupiter in Libra).  Jupiter’s 2nd retrograde square to Pluto on March 30th(during Sun conjunct Venus Retrograde) saw the next chapter unfolding, watching last November’s “winners” deal with the mess they got themselves into, on the macro-level as well as in our intimate spaces.  Weak egos struggling and fighting to come out on top at any cost will never find peace or satisfaction.  But for those of us who were consciously working through the first square last November, to identify what blockages we have inside of us that prevent us from feeling heard, the second square was associated with major breakthroughs in effective communication and getting needs met in our relationships.  Now during the 3rd and final square, we’re facing the unexpected ramifications of that breakthrough.  We made our bed, and now we’re laying in it.  For some, this is a deep relief.  Many others are inspired to literally or figuratively go on strike.  Looking forward, as Jupiter finishes his transit through Libra, clearing his retrograde shadow and opposing Eris and Uranus, our orientation towards conflict resolution will be completely transformed.

On the morning of August 4th, asteroid Persephone at 17° Leo is sextile Jupiter 17° Libra, and quincunx Pluto 17° Capricorn, with an orb of three arc-minutes.  This is another absolute power play by Persephone, who exuded strength and purpose during her opposition to Pluto last May.  The triangle formed by Persephone, Pluto and Jupiter also aspects the Sun and Moon during next week’s Aquarius lunar eclipse, and I will go more in depth about them on the eclipse chart.

But as the Jupiter-Pluto square becomes exact, the Moon is transiting Capricorn. Tucked in between Juno and Pluto, the Moon solidifies a bridge of oppositions to the quartet of goddesses transiting Cancer:  Juno opposite Venus, Moon opposite Sekhmet and Ceres, and Pluto opposite Hekate.  This is a bridge from our stoic, withholding, logical, boundary-setting selves, to our wide-open, receptive, creative, mother-lover selves. Ceres, mother of Persephone, is building a conjunction to Hekate, her guide through the underworld, and together they are building an opposition to Pluto, Persephone’s abductor.

If you are feeling like “Enough is Enough” right now, ask yourself is it primarily a feeling of anger, and/or the desire for separation? Or is it actually the desire to declare your worth, arising from a loving, grounded knowing?  Underneath all the frustration coming from the outer planets, our asteroids, along with Venus and the Moon, are arranged to illuminate the path forward with solutions of caring, wholeness, mutual support, and wise guidance.

 

On August 4th the Moon is also perfectly positioned to form a grand trine in earth signs.  At 9° Taurus we have the patient, focused, strategic wisdom of Athena in fixed earth.  At 8° Virgo we have Mercury conjunct Vesta, the fusion of our logical thoughts with the spirit of the Vestal Virgins, priestesses of the hearth-flame whose entire lives were ritualized in an extremely organized, scheduled, detail-oriented environment. And then at 9° Capricorn we have the Moon, transiting between Juno and Pluto, and opposite Hekate, Ceres, Sekhmet, and Venus.  This grand earth trine reminds us how to find the personal power in our center, and how to operate from that center when we feel like we’re under attack.

There is another epic set of trines from Taurus to Virgo, between two very meaningful asteroid conjunctions:  In Taurus, the illuminating, eternal lovelight of Isis is building towards conjunction with Sedna, the darkness at the bottom of the ocean; In Virgo, Eros is building conjunction to Psyche, the union of cosmic lovers.

Between August 4th and August 7th, the conjunctions between Sedna/Isis and Psyche/Eros- and the trine between them- grow closer, and so does the trine between Athena and Vesta/Mercury.  The channel between fixed earth and mutable earth allows for deep grounding: grounding the union between darkness and light, grounding the union between female and male, taking our personal fusion and integration of these opposites and returning them to the Earth, with the ritualized attention to detail of Vesta, the unwavering steadfastness of Athena.

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On August 7th, at 11:11am on the west coast, the Sun reaches 15° Leo, the midpoint between Zero Cancer (Summer Solstice) and Zero Libra (Fall Equinox), also known as the cross-quarter day Lammas, first harvest.  The Earth casts its eclipse shadow on the Moon at 15° Aquarius, the degree of the cross-quarter midpoint between Winter and Spring.

On one side, the Sun is still in close conjunction Mars and asteroid Prometheus, maximizing the impact of the sword of Yang, and on the other side, the Sun has joined Persephone, who is absolutely royal in this moment on the Lammas point, surrendered to the grain mysteries, ruled by her mother Ceres.  Together, the Sun and Persephone sextile Jupiter.  The Eclipse Moon trines Jupiter, but its closest aspect is an exact quincunx to Hekate.

Persephone’s building conjunction to the Sun, with sextile to Jupiter, creates a tool that helps us shift the power dynamic towards the Yin that is under assault from out-of-control Yang.  The discomfort of Pluto’s building quincunx to the Sun and semisextile to the Moon is silenced by the pointing hand of Hekate, Oracle and guide to the Underworld… she is exact on the MC of the 11:11 chart, which also features Jupiter in Libra rising.

 

The retrograde station of Uranus at 28° Aries, the conjunction of Sun-Prometheus-Mars, and the final square between Jupiter and Pluto overpower the themes of this eclipse with masculine conflict.  Where Yin is weak, Yang is deranged… fortunately, the earth trines between Taurus and Virgo, Persephone’s regal strength, and the stunning quadruple conjunction of goddesses in Cancer are creating a sturdy Yin presence that enables us to sculpt and direct the Yang energy to its highest divine masculine expression.  That being said, Apophis on the north node reminds us of the quantum chaos ensuring that every possible expression of these energies will manifest somewhere.  Some people will be able to tune in to the Yin aspects of this eclipse,  others will be completely driven by the frustration of imbalanced Yang.  All around me, people’s cars and motorcycles are getting stolen, bones are breaking, and people are standing their ground, saying “Enough is Enough.”  Be safe out there.  Seek out stillness and stay in your center.

 

art by glitchof2003

 

Learning to transform the deranged Yang that is glamorized by our violent culture, into a Yang that thrives in balance with Yin, is a true frontier of consciousness, it is an entirely new world for many of us.  Re-framing everything we’ve learned about the polarities of male-female energy to exclude concepts of domination and manipulation is shattering work.  We can’t just move forward with these structures still a part of us.  We have to do so much work to break these things apart, and then rebuild. The energy of eclipses lasts for six months and reverberates for years; this is a turning point in our ability to recognize these new worlds rising over the horizon, exposing the bleakness of the world that we are working to replace with something better.

And of course this is all only just the prelude to the Leo New Moon Solar Eclipse on August 21st, which happens within 24 hours of Ceres opposite Pluto, Black Moon Lilith conjunct Saturn, and Persephone conjunct the north node.

Stay tuned.