Entering the Water

6.2.13


Rinse off the recent frazzle. If need be, cry it out. The triad of perspective-flipping eclipses is behind us. Habits die hard, both the good and the bad.

Now, submerge yourself in the nourishing broth of boundless human co-understanding: Though we often don't speak it aloud to each other, we hold wordless recognition that we all wade through these same emotional seas, one time or another, by shipwreck or in solitary soul-savoring swim.

Bathe cathartically in this, letting your pores steam themselves clean. Sip it as a sacred tea, absorbing its restorative juices from the inside out, a supplement-salve for your existential aches-and-pains. Feel… not figuratively, but in full embodiment. Rinse your identifying robes, your magic tools, your throbbing heart, all, in the flowing stream: Everything needs a refreshening dip every so often, to dissolve the residual crusts.

Through this, you will emerge clearer, bare and wet, baptized to deceptive simplicity. Not much left to justify, or negotiate about. Washed of mental attachments, there's only the always-immediate emotional experience to judge it all according to. What helps you feel more caring? Better cared for? Fully fed, rather than famished, starving for attention? That's your answer right there. Veer that way.

As you will notice, the language shifts from straight-line dictates to a more poetic tone as Mercury (May 31) and Venus (Jun 2) have now moved into Cancer. This is but a beginning in the leaving-behind of the cerebral freneticness we often associate with Gemini. The Sun will follow into Cancer a couple weeks from now (Jun 20). However, the bigger news comes with Jupiter's arrival to Cancer on Jun 25, after a full year in Gemini.

What we'll observe from these quick shifts of Mercury and Venus during these couple weeks ahead, therefore, hold early predictive glimpses into both (1) where reside our most promising opportunities for improving how we feel about our life-circumstances and (2) how we must rely on our feelings to navigate us through the continuing bumps on this road to revolution.

Cancer is the sign of nurturance and nourishment, at its best when using its emotional investments in others' well-being to inspire actions that promote comfort and caring. Despite the stereotypes, not all Cancerians are in the kitchen baking pies for their loved ones or standing by, bedside, ready to wipe your snotty nose or rub your back until you fall asleep again. Yet, there is an undeniable extension of sensitive presence from the Cancer soul… an intuitive responsiveness, an instinctive willingness to act from the heart to convey tenderness and protective love to those who need it. A soft touch, a meaningfully empathetic gaze, a token of kindness: beautiful symbols of prioritizing human connection as what's most important.

Cancer most often goes wrong, alas, in a couple ways: (1) presumptuously pushing 'care' onto those who don't want it in quite the manner it's being offered, if at all, in catering instead to one's own need to be needed; and (2) forgetting to also take care of one's own self, as if part of the charm of playing caregiver involves a certain amount of self-deprivation.

Under this increasingly Cancerian astro-climate, then, we must be aware not to deploy our care in unwanted and/or unconsciously manipulative ways. Nor will we win any Mother Teresa awards by sacrificing our personal comfort so we may cater to others as a household servant would.

Mercury in Cancer often struggles to explain itself in distinct, direct terms… though it is a master at evoking a mood, weaving a tapestry of suggestive images and ideas to convey its message. This Mercury finds it more important to communicate its emotional drift than to provide inarguable facts. Under Mercury in Cancer, we're invited to soften our attachment to the concrete language being used—and instead to listen to the feelings someone may be trying to share, perhaps with inelegance or a tangled tongue. We connect by feeling into what they say, hearing also what isn't being fully articulated but which floats alongside the words. Intuitive fillings-in of any blanks becomes easier than usual… though, to be fair, we ought to explicitly confirm we are reading a situation right before acting on our unspoken interpretations. The heightened presence of palpable vibes may work for us in help us discern how we feel, but can also cause interpersonal problems if we imprecisely analyze what we're picking up off someone else. When in doubt, ask for clarity.

Mercury remains in Cancer through the first week of August, a full two months, thanks to a retrograde kicking off a few weeks from now (Jun 26-Jul 20). We must acclimate ourselves to this watery mode of processing and transmitting data, if we seek to at all understand what'll be going on in the weeks to come. [Review how 'water logic' works.]

Venus in Cancer appreciates the warm consideration and comfort that come along with emotional connectios… and she may, therefore, choose to channel her social energies mostly toward those folks she already feels some degree of comfortable affinity with. In the sign of the skittish and shell-covered crab, Venus becomes a bit shier as her sweetness expands. Please don't mistake her seemingly fluctuating attentions for a fickle heart: She is just naturally moody, and sometimes is actually too sensitive to put herself out there. If she disappears for a moment (presumably while the Moon is moving through a personally vulnerable spot), she'll likely reappear soon enough… with a small gift or display of affection to appropriately compensate.

As long as Venus is in Cancer (through Jun 27), sentimental or nostalgic inclinations run high. We will seek relational satisfaction through that familiar 'home'-like sensation, even if we experience it through someone we haven't known that long. We want our treasured people to hold us safe in their love, nestled in the great bosom of our interdependence. If a relationship doesn't foster that feeling, we cannot pretend not to know so.

This week, both Mercury and Venus create a grand water trine (an equilateral triangle between three points) with Saturn in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces, an aspect-configuration with great synergistic flow, to further accentuate the qualities associated with the water element: emotional awareness, intuition, compassion, romance, inspiration, sensitivity, symbolic knowledge.

Saturn and Neptune are a pair who, when in a supportive aspect such a trine (which they've been in, the two for them, for several months already), bring structure and real-world applicability (Saturn) to our dreams and spiritual aspirations (Neptune). They assist us in making productive life-adjustments wherever our day-to-day mundane goings-on have grown devoid of higher meaning… and they motivate us to root our idealistic yearnings into actual practice.

Of course, Saturn-in-Scorpio's recipe for such improvements often requires us to confront a demon, grapple with an interpersonal snarl, or otherwise engage some complication that just cannot be circumvented if progress is desired. Think of it as having to temporarily 'make things harder' on yourself (i.e., engage with the inherent difficulties of psychological evolution) in order to ultimately make them much much easier. Neptune in Pisces may offer no precise identifying view of the end-goal, but is nonetheless pretty clear about the fact that we are all here to share universal love with each other. Any life-circumstances that block our ability to participate in this highest of callings—for instance, giving too much of ourselves to a single person or project that isn't a worthy or appreciative recipient, and/or that doesn't sufficiently return the favor by replenishing our stores—should be seen as suspect and put under review. How would a Great Divine Mind most want us to serve the Greatest Divine Good?

Take careful notice of the expressly emotional tone of this week ahead: Who/what leaves you feeling supported, appreciated, and/or aligned with purposeful world-nurturing? Who/what drains your enthusiasms, feeds your cynicism, and/or promotes self-doubt? With Mars still in Gemini, the day-to-day action will expose you to lots of examples of both.

What you learn from this noticing will serve you especially well once Jupiter, exalted in Cancer, moves into its own grand trine with Saturn and Neptune, later in July. This is your intuitive guidebook to the facets of your life that are calling for either an increase or decrease in how significantly you invest in them, so you may maximize your genuine ability to give and receive caring reassurance… and eliminate anything that lacks that certain feeling.