Astrology of June 2011 by Henry Seltzer (www.astrograph.com)

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The Astrology of June focuses on the powerful summer eclipses plus once again the important T-square of outer planets Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, along with a stationing Neptune in the first degree of its sign.

These next three months will see the closest square yet between Uranus and Pluto. Beginning with the Solar Eclipse of June 1st and through to the very end of August, the pressures of the times that we are already seeing will build dramatically. As Uranus and Pluto – and Saturn also – continue to form the arms of a vice or the pot and lid of a giant pressure cooker, they enable us to squeeze through the narrow passage of a birth canal that we would otherwise be unable to pass. In another way of looking at it, there are necessary changes that we must make in our own lives and in the life of the society around us that will not be made without the dire extremity that renders these changes, if not palatable, at least possible to digest. The radical transformative pressures of Pluto, in combination with Saturn and Uranus, are catalyzing changes that we all know are needed but which we might have trouble springing for if times were flowing more easily.

The presence of Neptune in Pisces, stationing early this month and aspected by both Uranus and Jupiter, lends a spiritual quality to the proceedings. This configuration also makes for a large degree of confusion surrounding what exactly is happening. The June 1st and July 1st Solar Eclipses aspect Saturn as well as Pluto, so that the conservative backlash to revolutionary change that we have been seeing from the public squares of the Middle East to the halls of congress will continue as well, and in intensified form, over a politically heated summer.

The Solar Eclipse of June 1st closely trines Saturn and forms an inconjunct to Pluto, bringing their square into far greater prominence. We are likely to see conservative elements greatly intensified. Since Saturn is at this moment in a biquintile yod with Mars and Chiron, the difficulties and painful qualities of this situation are also likely to become apparent. Meanwhile Uranus lurks only a few degrees away from its forming square with Pluto; the motivation for necessary revolutionary change becomes more intensified over the course of June and then on into July.

The Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse of Wednesday, June 15th, might make for a more peaceful resting place between the Solar Eclipses, since Neptune in Pisces, now retrograde, is triggered by Jupiter and Uranus. This goes for the Summer Solstice of June 21st as well, which will be a particularly spiritually enlivened moment in time. There is a joyful quality to the middle of the month as we concentrate on positive solutions rather than the obvious problems that plague us.

Then the last week of the month once again brings the Uranus-Pluto square into sharp prominence. This week culminates in the Solar Eclipse and New Moon of Friday, July 1st. The long hot summer that follows, the first of several more hot summers still to come, might have similarities to the season of the Watts riots of 1965, the season that was a kick-off to the revolutionary ardor of the late sixties. In all this we must remember that the chaos that we are seeing in the society at large, and potentially in our own lives as well, is but the prelude to an unknown birth. We have the opportunity now to move in either direction, to a higher or to a lower state of consciousness and choice. With the grace of Spirit and with our own best efforts we can try to make this special time that we are living through count for the highest.

June 1st New Moon
The potent energy of this eclipse and New Moon continues the series of powerful New Moons that we have been seeing lately. The pattern is what master astrologer Dane Rudhyar called a Funnel – whereby the energy of the configuration is focalized on one planet across the zodiac from all the others, and that planet is Saturn, residing in Libra while the others rest from Capricorn to Gemini. Since the New Moon in Gemini also exactly trines Saturn, there is a great deal of polarization that is released. The competing forces represented by Uranus and Pluto are factors that militate for radical changes, while Saturn tries to hold on and maintain the status quo. Mars and Chiron are also constellated with Saturn now, meaning that old patterns of knee-jerk reaction are really up for us, and are ripe for acknowledgement and moving past them. The confusing influence of Neptune is also prominent, conjunct Chiron in its own sign. We need, as always, to keep our heads on straight if we are to successfully negotiate these tricky waters; but if we do not get it this time around there is always another chance. As Abraham says, if you ignore a problem, don't worry, it will get worse, and pretty soon you won't be able to ignore it any longer.

June 8th First Quarter Moon
This Quarter Moon is square the nodal axis – and this is fitting since it follows the June 1st Solar Eclipse and represents the opening square of the Moon to the Sun from the time of that earlier configuration. This phase is traditionally a time when the going gets tougher and the tougher ones get going, so to speak, a time of relative difficulty and trial when our mettle is tested and we get to see just which factors of the glorious schemes that we concocted at the time of the New Moon is truly viable.

In this instance we have also the very strong influence of Saturn holding us back even more, making for something of a struggle currently to surmount drawbacks and move ahead with our plans. Saturn is actually stationing in a few days, to direct motion, and once it resumes its forward direction things might begin to flow a little more easily. In beginning its forward motion Saturn is also leaving behind it the close square to Pluto that has been symbolically echoed recently by conservative backlash, so that over the next few months we will see the wind go out of the sails of these reactionary outbursts. With the world situation as dire as it is, most would agree that we simply do not any longer have the luxury for nay-saying.

In our personal situations also, we might begin to feel like there is no time like the present for moving on with our lives and taking the changes that are coming down upon us as positive indications that we need to evolve. These days Mercury is also closing in on the Sun making for an intellectually stimulating time, when we might be able to think our way out of our troubles. Jupiter coming into Taurus with this Quarter Moon and closely aspecting Neptune gives a sense of spiritual optimism, and a connection to Spirit, which also might be somewhat confusing. But we are getting a truer sense of reality since taking into account that unseen world corresponds more directly to the larger picture of our earthly existence.

June 15th Full Moon
This Full Moon, taking place on Wednesday, June 15th, at 1:14 PM PDT, is caught in Earth’s shadow, an eclipse that can be seen in Asia and Australia where the Sun has gone to bed, although not in sunny mid-day California, nor for that matter anywhere in North America. Because this eclipse is part of the same cycle as the one that occurred 19 years ago, on June 14, 1992, it might be fruitful to review the changes in your life since then. If any issue was prominent at that time, it could return now in a different way, as appropriate to a different level of evolution and the accumulated insights gained.

The Moon at 24 + degrees of Sagittarius is closely conjunct its North Node, and also aspects Chiron, bringing old patterns of behavior and reactivity more fully into our emotional field and our consciousness. Painful parts of ourselves might potentially be revealed. The goal is acceptance of these dark places within our psyches and moving past them. Note that this is not by ignoring them or pretending that they are not there, but in moving on with life by honoring these wounded places and allowing them a place at the table of our conscious awareness. Pluto aspects Chiron, and Mars as well, while the Sun is conjunct Mercury as the Moon opposes it, so that our understanding is increased of our most secret urges. Anger could get out of hand if we do not consciously check it. Neptune is also prominent in this configuration, with Jupiter, so that it is also indicated that we might yet have an ultimately spiritual and peaceful take on our experience.

These planetary energies merely remind us of what is inside of each one of us for good or for ill. It is currently quite difficult to get along and even to rise above, amidst the swirling energetic factors that lead to clashes everywhere we look; and yet we have the basic wisdom to do so. These days of polarization sometime bring out the worst side of humanity and yet in the heat of these fractious times we have also the great potential for bringing out our best. It’s a choice that when made carries reverberations to all corners of the planet and reinforces the choices made by others out of of our common kinship.

June 23rd Last Quarter Moon
The Last Quarter of this Gemini New Moon cycle is on Thursday, June 23rd, with the Sun newly entered into Cancer and the Moon at the beginning of Aries. This is an important time of gathering information and of finding a meditative space within to prepare for the coming New Moon – another intense eclipse, the last in this series – which takes place a little more than a week away on Friday, July 1st. Currently, this Last Quarter Moon follows the extremely powerful Summer Solstice of Tuesday, June 21st, and echoes it in its symbolism. That is because the Sun now in the second degree of Cancer is squared by the Moon practically on the Aries Point and conjunct Uranus, while the square between Uranus and Pluto remains extremely close. The Sun also trines the Neptune - Chiron conjunction in early Pisces with Neptune at the 0 degree mark of its own sign. Mars in close aspect to the Sun and Moon in the second degree of Gemini squares Neptune. This is an extremely compelling combination of energies in which all three outer planets are strongly constellated. Neptune in Pisces is a potent influence in any case and now doubly or even triply so with the Sun, Moon and Mars in close aspect to it. As we meditate on the direction that our life is taking lately we can perhaps begin to see the soul-level changes within that are inevitably coming down.

What does this particular combination of outer planet energies imply for us now, and for the times that we are living through? These archetypal energies of transformation that Dane Rudhyar spoke of as “the ambassadors of the galaxy” are educational in the deepest possible sense, as humankind prepares for the massive changes of this decade that will take us collectively into the Aquarian Age. The fundamental societal transformation presaged by the Uranus-Pluto square will have the effect of pruning away whatever is no longer functional, and there is much that will need to be discarded and outgrown before a truly viable civilization will begin to emerge. It is important also to remember that the coming change involves each one of us on the individual level as well, and in much the same way, as there are undoubtedly dysfunctional parts of our behavior patterns that will undergo drastic and necessary modifications before the collective can actually shift. It is definitely a confusing time, and one that requires a strong dose of Spirit to get us through.

Uranus and Pluto in combination make a strong promise: our lives are being turned along the lines that the evolutionary forces of the cosmos are directing us in; and until we go with these deep promptings we will suffer an increasingly manifest disconnect from our true selves. And this is where Neptune comes in; by letting us know that Spirit is on our side and that we are all in this together. The understanding and acceptance catalyzed by Neptune’s empathy provides what we all will need. When we can take the time to tune in to our inner depths we are able to find the wisdom that we need to keep up our courage in the face of our struggle. This archetype of otherworldly compassion is an indication of grace in action, a dawning recognition that, as the Tao Te Ching explains, all of mankind is part of each of us, quite literally. As John Donne put it so well, writing in the seventeenth century and yet speaking clearly to us now in the twenty-first, “Do not seek to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”