The Gasoline and the Brake

Jupiter’s sextile to Saturn this week (June 19, 2023, 8:53 am PDT) is their first main facet because the 2020 Winter Solstice conjunction at 0º Aquarius. Elements between these planetary opposites forge an uneasy alliance between expansiveness and restraint. Once they come collectively in a conjunction, it’s like having one foot on the gasoline and the opposite on the brake: it’s laborious to maneuver ahead in any respect.  However the sextile suggests a extra cooperative, higher coordinated mixing of the planets’ strengths.

For the primary time on this present Jupiter-Saturn cycle, the sunshine is starting to daybreak on the complete potential of the mixture, and the way these two planets working collectively might help transfer society ahead. When two planets are collectively in a conjunction, it’s laborious to get a grasp of the highway forward; it’s not till the opening sextile varieties that we start to know the panorama just a little bit higher.

There was such highly effective promise in that Jupiter-Saturn conjunction. It was so stunning within the evening sky, and its placement in Aquarius felt so thrilling after an extended, Capricorn-heavy 12 months. Perhaps, we thought, this heralded a brand new age of coming collectively to do nice work. However as Pluto entered Aquarius in late March 2023 and spent a few months parked at that magical 0 diploma, we started to glimpse the potential draw back of the Aquarian imaginative and prescient.

However this sextile gives an invite to work collectively extra cooperatively than society has proven lately and to make some fairly severe adjustments. Below this Jupiter- Saturn affect, we’re driving with one foot on the gasoline and then the opposite foot on the brake – which gives a significantly better likelihood of getting someplace!

Midyear Analysis

Halfway by the calendar 12 months, my planner is trying a bit tattered, with corners curling up and untidy pencil smudges and scrawls. Let’s name it a metaphor for the best way our New Yr’s plans start to look just a little extra chaotic by the point June rolls round. On the Capricorn Solstice in late December, crammed with dedication and hope, we draft daring resolutions for a 12 months of success and prosperity. Then, the Most cancers Solstice (June 21, 2023, 7:58 am PDT) marks the 12 months’s halfway reevaluation level. Even when we’ve been underachievers within the first half of the 12 months, there should still be time to succeed in our targets.

However we are able to’t pace our approach by this transition. Simply because the Solar on the summer time solstice seems to face nonetheless in its relentless climb to noon heights, then pauses for a second earlier than it strikes the opposite approach, that is our job at midyear: to face nonetheless for a second, go searching, and take inventory of the place we’re. It’s normally too late within the 12 months to begin from scratch in a completely new path and hope to realize something by 12 months’s finish. But when we take the time to look again over our shoulders and reevaluate our progress, we are able to then refine our targets to suit the six months which are left, reviewing our plans and filling within the lacking gaps.

Use Your Phrases

When she was very younger, a tiny relative of mine was vulnerable to the occasional mood tantrum, particularly when she was overtired. As little children are apt to do in such conditions, she’d yell and stamp her toes, till her mom firmly insisted, “Use your phrases.”

Mars is shifting by dramatic, passionate Leo now. Largely, this transit – which focuses our high-energy Mars operate on self-expression and play – could be a number of enjoyable. However identical to just a little child who will get drained, annoyed, or hangry from an excessive amount of enjoying and working round, our tempers may get the higher of us once in a while.

That’s when it’s time to “use your phrases.” As rational Mercury sextiles Mars (June 21, 2023, 8:23 am PDT), name for a day trip. Seize a juice field or a snack, discover a cool spot, and attempt to have interaction your mind to suppose or speak by no matter has set you off – as an alternative of stomping your toes and yelling.

Into the Storm

On June twenty third at 8:55 am PDT, the Solar makes a sextile to the North Node of the Moon at 1°56’ Most cancers and Taurus. The Sabian image for the Solar at this sextile is 2 Most cancers, A person on a magic carpet hovers over a big space of land. It jogs my memory of being on an airplane starting its descent simply exterior an city space, over plots of land organized in a neat grid, like a quilt. It actually does really feel a bit like being on a magic carpet. It actually does really feel a bit like being on a magic carpet.

With the Solar contemporary into its Most cancers season, it’s a very good time to take a seat nonetheless and overview the 12 months thus far. However the Sabian image for the North Node is 2 Taurus, {An electrical} storm. One thing is unquestionably going to shake up this languid, Solar in Most cancers season.

The place I grew up within the Midwest, thrilling lightning storms and even tornadoes commonly shook us out of our summer time somnambulance. One minute, you have been hovering excessive above and gazing peacefully on the world under, and the following, you have been woke up and introduced right down to earth by a bristling, sudden storm.

A sextile facet represents a possibility, an invite, or a thought that involves thoughts. However its potential advantages require us to simply accept the invitation or act on the concept. If we don’t, nothing horrible occurs; however on this case particularly, because the Solar connects with the North Node, an emblem of progress, declining the invitation could make it more durable to maneuver ahead in a constructive path.

Writing and pictures © 2017-23 by April Elliott Kent

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