July 2019 Eclipses and Mercury Retrograde

Astrology

Jun 29

The Sun and Moon Eclipsed

In Alexandria the new moon emerged
with the old moon in her arms.
Just like us, three friends
heading towards the Gate of the Sun
and into the heart's shadow.
-George Seferis, “Days of June ‘41”

July’s astrology brings us into liminal spaces where business as usual slows down and perhaps changes course altogether.

Let us first discuss the eclipses. The new moon in Cancer on July 2 is a solar eclipse, while July 16th's full moon brings a lunar eclipse. Eclipses are momentary phenomena where the ordinarily reliable light of our sun and moon succumb to an obscuring shadow.

This new moon is not a time of auspicious "new beginnings," it is a time of reckoning with old shadows. Such is the message of the opening stanza of George Seferis' poem "Days of '41" written at the height of World War II. The figures in this poem are walking towards the Gate of the Sun, or one of two ancient gates to the city of Alexandria (the other was the Gate of the Moon). The Gate of the Sun's location was aligned so that on the day of the summer solstice, the sun and the star Regulus would be at azimuth in order to honor the birthday of Alexander the Great. Yet in ancient times, the gate of the sun is also known as the entry point to Hades, or the underworld, since it was a term for the location where the sun sets over the horizon.

Enter The Heart's Shadow

July's eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn bring us face-to-face with who we were when we were young and who we are now. There is an unearthing process happening, a sometimes overtly jarring and sometimes subtle unconscious processing of all our many moons, our past selves. This process really got underway when Mars entered Cancer in mid-May and then Mercury followed in early June.

These eclipses ask us to enter our heart's shadow, specifically our basic human need for secure and unconditional acceptance and love. This need is intrinsic to our existence, but it can be thwarted and denied by the external world-- our parents, our family systems, the social groups and communities we inhabit.

At the solar eclipse (July 2) dark and angry feelings may surface (if you are not working with them already). The first two weeks of July have a very "why me?" feeling. By the time we get to the lunar eclipse (July 16) we will be in the deepest part of our heart's shadow. Connection, light, and perspective may feel inaccessible. We will need to "dig deep" to find the means to connect with others.

Mercury Retrograde

If this sounds like entering a labyrinth of thoughts, feelings, and unresolved questions, it is!

All that is released during the eclipses in the first half of July will be up for review during the second half of the month's Mercury retrograde. Use the second half of July— peak summer vacation beach time— to sift through your past and present emotions and acknowledge their origins with kindness and compassion for yourself. 2019 is all about a re-evaluation of our life's foundations from a place of greater compassion. Before you seek compassion from others, know that you can find it for yourself within. Self-compassion will be your light through the recesses of the heart's shadow.

July's Mercury retrograde will bring to the surface what you need to acknowledge to yourself so that you can better express it to others and receive external acknowledgement once Mercury goes direct and moves into Leo in August.

Yielding to the Internal Dialogue

The call to confront our selves reminds me of another great modernist poet and mystic, W.B. Yeats. In his poem “Ego Dominus Tuus,” a meditation on the self and not-self, he wrote:

I call to the mysterious one who yet
Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream
And look most like me, being indeed my double,
And prove of all imaginable things
The most unlike, being my anti-self,
And standing by these characters disclose
All that I seek;

May we all find ourselves again this July through self-contemplation and compassion.