Carole Taylor joins Alejo Lopez to chat about Cancer Season and the month ahead. Includes a look at classic Cancers Frida Kahlo, Herman Hesse, and Marcel Proust. PLUS the monthly lunations, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Lilith in Leo square Uranus, Mercury in the superior conjunction to the Sun, and the nodal axis moving into Aries-Libra.
About Our Guest: Carole Taylor is a full-time astrological consultant and educator, informed by a deep love of mythology, symbolism and the power of astrology to speak to the felt depths of human experience. She is a former President and Director of Studies at the Faculty of Astrological Studies, founder of it online classes programme and an extensive contributor to its course material. She is co-director of Asteria Teaching and of the Centre for Astrology, Myth and Symbol. She holds an MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred, and is a tutor on the Sophia MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David.
Carole is the author of Astrology: Using the Wisdom of the Stars in Your Everyday Life and co-author of Journey Through Astrology.
Time Stamps for the topics covered in this episode:
0:00-4:12 Introduction to Cancer Season
4:12-12:36 Classic Cancer: Frida Kalho, Hermann Hesse, Marcel Proust
12:36-20:08 Things to do in Cancer Season
20:08-1:03:28 Astrology of Cancer Season
1:03:28-1:11:13 Monthly Mantra & Wrap Up
Transcript for The Cosmic Eye — Cancer Season Episode
Tony Howard: Welcome to the Astrology University podcast, helping you find insight, inspiration in meaning through the study of astrology. And now, on to the show.
Alejo Lopez: Welcome to The Cosmic Eye, the Astrology University podcast. We will look at the month ahead and the upcoming challenges and opportunities. This is the podcast for the Cancer season. I am Alejo Lopez, your host. And today with me is Carole Taylor, astrologer, tutor and writer. Carole has published a fantastic book called Astrology: Using the Wisdom of the Stars in Your Everyday Life, and is one of the founders of a London based school of astrology called Asteria. Hi Carole, nice to have you here.
Carole Taylor: Hi Alejo, thanks very much for inviting me. I’m delighted to be here.
Alejo: Great, thank you. Now before we move into Cancer season, I would like to mention, as usual, that if you like the podcast, the best thing you can do to support us is to share it with friends and people interested. And we would also love to hear your feedback, or if you want to share some thoughts or reflections you can email us at [email protected]. Great. So when I think of Cancer, I think of motherhood, of course. I think of, I have the image of a cave and being inside of a cave, or being in a protected place. And I also have the image of the egg and the little nestling wanting to go out. And this always reminds me of Hermann Hesse’s book, Demian, where he says the bird finds its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. To be born, he must first destroy the world. I think now I’m saying this, I think it’s more about the passage between Cancer and Leo. The idea to be born you must first destroy the world. But I do think about the idea of the cave and the egg and the nestling when I think of Cancer. What do you think about Carole? What the images do you get when you think of Cancer?
Carole: Well, I think this is a very evocative image for Cancer, Alejo. And I think it expresses something of the double bind of this sign. So anyone with personal planets in Cancer needs that idea of being held within the protective space or to hold someone or something within a protective space. And we associate Cancer with babyhood and birth and mothering, you know, archetypally speaking. And it’s difficult for Cancer to break out of that safe amniotic space in order to fly. So yes, the transition between Cancer and Leo, or perhaps the opposition between Cancer and its opposite sign of Capricorn. So breaking that shell means losing ones sense of safety and belonging. So yes, of course, one has to first destroy a world. The hermit crab, you know, we have this image of the crab. The hermit crab is fine when it’s in its old shell. And it’s fine too when it’s found the newer and bigger shell that it arrives in, but it’s that unprotected place of transit in between which is really just so terrifying for anyone with personal planets in Cancer.
Alejo: Yeah, it’s true. There’s a lot of like sensitivity in this. It’s the first water sign. I mean, if we start in Aries it’s the first water sign. It’s a cardinal water sign, so there’s this sense of being very sensitive, being exposed to danger in some ways. So the need for protection.
Carole: Yes, absolutely. It’s the first water sign. I guess it’s the first iteration or first symbolic example of water. So all three of the water signs, of course, are represented by animals rather than objects or personifications. And so you get the idea of a very primal creature at work, and perhaps particularly so with Cancer. Although it has other associations too, of course, mythically and as the constellation. But it reminds me of the painting also, the quote from Hesse there reminds me of the painting by Frida Kahlo. I don’t know if you know it, Kahlo also had the Sun in Cancer. And she painted a painting called The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego, and Señor Xólotl. I think Señor Xólotl was the dog, their pet dog. And if you’re not familiar with the painting, it’s really worth having a look at it because it has this very Cancerian quality to it. And it shows all of the above in the title in these layers of embrace, with Frida in the center holding a naked Diego like a baby, and then both of them are held within the protective embrace, the protective arms of the of the earth which is envisaged as Mexico. And it’s interesting that she seems to define Mexico in that painting as the Earth and depicting it kind of as like the cosmos itself. And so Kahlo had her Sun in Cancer in the 11th house, and so for her, perhaps, Mexico was the whole universe. And she like kind of Mother Mexico. So we see that with the field of Cancer, which is protective and binding, and protects its own space very, very, very fiercely.
Alejo: Yeah, nice, beautiful. I was thinking, you know, when you’re saying this about Mexico being the whole world for her. I was thinking that Hermann Hesse is also Sun in Cancer. And I was looking for some quotes that could kind of represent that. And I found this one from Siddhartha. He explains the whole history of Siddhartha, and at some point he says, “Your soul is the whole world.” So again, this idea, it’s interesting, right? How Cancer can have so many different layers. Because in some perspective it could be the idea of belonging, so it becomes like very attached to just one’s own family. Or it can grow and the idea of belonging, perhaps, to a country or a nation. And then it can expand even more and more and then the idea of belonging to the human race, and perhaps the whole cosmos. So it’s interesting how Cancer, which is, it reminds me of this idea that you said about the hermit crab, that it has to change houses to a bigger house. So I guess at some level we know if you have a lot of Cancer in your chart, you start with a more restricted, perhaps, sense of belonging. And perhaps as life goes on, it expands and you start to see that you belong to many different places and not to just one, right. So it can expand. And just like the crab, it goes from one small house to a bigger house. And how to do that process, I guess it sometimes feels a bit of a challenge, a bit of a little crisis, because belonging is so important for Cancer. So to question where you belong might feel a bit threatening at some point. But in the end, you get to this point, your soul is the whole world, you’re connected to the whole of the earth, the whole of the cosmos. I mean, it’s not the way that people should do if it’s Cancer, but I find this image interesting, I don’t know.
Carole: Yes, absolutely. It is. And I think the danger for Cancer is to see the world as being too small. Because the rest of it out there is too scary. So as soon as you realize that in order to grow you have to break through those bonds, and that’s perfectly shown in that original quote about the bird and the egg from Hesse. Yes, you get the sense with Cancer that the Cancerian mind often places the boundary quite close to them. And so their family is their family and outside of that everybody is a stranger. And so to try and embrace that, to encompass that. It’s very different to the kind of community that Aquarius creates, which is welcoming all comers. Cancer doesn’t do that. Cancer identifies the people that it feels comfortable with. And those are the family, come hell or high water, even if they hurt you that come hell or high water, you will defend those people because they’re your basic ground. And so to try and move beyond that, that’s part of the growing up process.
Alejo: Nice. And you had a some other classic examples. Would you like to name another one?
Carole: Yes, well apart from Kahlo, of course, one of the examples that I very often use in teaching and presentations is that Marcel Proust, the French writer whose major work, well he only really wrote one major work, which was the very long novel À La Recherche du Temps Perdu, In Search of Lost Time. And Proust’s chart is quite a singular chart, perhaps all charts are, but he had Aries rising with the Moon on the ascendant conjunct Neptune, and he was born at the Neptune-Uranus square with Uranus in Cancer down there in the fourth house. And he had the Sun in Cancer also conjunct Mercury in Cancer, and conjunct Jupiter in Cancer. And all of that is on the IC. And just the name of the book is very evocative of the Cancerian concern with memory and recording events, and he records events in very fine detail. Reading it, it’s very difficult book to read. There are sentences that go on for pages and pages, you never get to the end of it. But you have to just release yourself into the language. And once you do that, it’s like being in a boat on the ocean. And you just allow yourself to be in the experience. So you know you’re in the presence of someone with several planets in Cancer because because of that lilting, rhythmic, melodic quality to the language.
Alejo: I’ve only managed to read the first two, I didn’t manage to read the others. I got stuck there. But also, psychologists sometimes they talk about this ‘la madeleine de Proust’, because I think it was that he was eating a madeleine, and it’s not just that you have a memory but you get completely transported back to that time in past and you’re not just remembering, you live it over again with your body. Which I think could be something of the way Cancer registers events and the way memory works for Cancer. It’s not a saving of facts, it’s more like saving feelings, emotions, and perhaps sensations even. But it’s more like a very subjective way of recording what happened. And this effect, the madeleine de Proust, is like that. Like you go back to a feeling, to a moment, not so much to data or information. So I think it is really Cancerian. Yeah, it’s an excellent example.
Carole: Yes. And of course, there’s a thing called ‘Proustian memory’ in honor of this, which is exactly that. That we hold in memory something that may, as an event, be quite unimportant from an objective point of view but from the subjective point of view, is everything. It has become the whole world. And yes, it’s held in the memory. Until then, it’s re-evoked by the drinking of cup of tizane or the eating of a Madeleine cake, or whatever else evokes that memory. So that was really strong for Proust. And of course, he spent a lot of his life after his parents died, he lived at home and he retreated into his bedroom and wrote from his bedroom at night and slept during the day. He had his bedroom cork lined to reduce the noise and the sound of the outside world. And that’s where he did his work. He created a womb in which to do his work.
Alejo: Yes, exactly. This idea again of being protected. Nice, fantastic examples. So then we also usually look at things we can do in this season. And the first thing I listed here is kind of in a funny way, call your mom. Of course, I’m kind of joking. But I do think like, well, Cancer is this time of remembering, of going into the past. Maybe it’s not your mom you’re going to call, it may be some other figure that you had that nurtured you, protected you. Because of course, motherhood is not always a healthy for everyone. It’s not for everyone that it was an easy and healthy experience. But this idea of going back perhaps to that person, that place, that environment, that nurtured you, that took care of you, that made you feel safe. And it doesn’t mean going back literally, calling this person literally. But like within yourself, this idea of this subjective world, right? So within yourself, going back to that place, maybe to thank them, maybe to say something. But it’s kind of, I think it’s a good time to, The Search for Lost Time, like the book. To go back to the past and revisit our memories and see what they mean for each one of us. And maybe from that, to come back to the present and see, well, what is it that I need now to feel nurtured? Why do I need these things? If it’s coming up from a wound, let’s say, or if it’s coming up from more of something that was healed. And yeah, to focus on what do I need to feel nurtured. And I like the idea of the Ayurvedic medicine, you know, they say that food is not only what you eat, it’s everything that comes through the senses. So it’s what you watch, what you listen to, what you read, the way your house looks, the smells you receive, everything that comes from the senses. So this idea of perhaps focusing on how we are being nurtured, our soul, let’s say, if we are talking about Cancer, is being nurtured in so many different ways. And it’s not just the food that nurtures us. And to kind of assess what we feel we need to grow, yes.
Carole: Yes, absolutely. And you’re right, that not everybody has a good memory of parenting, mothering from the past. And ultimately I think, perhaps this is so for anybody with planets in Cancer. And indeed if even if you haven’t, where Cancer is in your chart, where it is on the cusp, and we can think about this during this upcoming month when the Sun goes through Cancer very particularly, just that idea that we all have to parent ourselves on some level. And Cancer can move out into the world and be strong and connect to that wider cosmos, that wider universe, step beyond its self-imposed boundaries. If it feels that the ground is safe in order to be able to go out, if you feel confident in that sense of how you can self nurture. And sometimes that can just come down to very small things. I do like that, the Ayurvedic idea that we can connect to a particular substance. To food, you know, food has this symbolic quality. The first thing that you do when somebody visits your house is you offer them, hospitality, you offer them in the form of some food and drink. So it’s the basic form of nourishment. And that’s a basic place for self care. What is it in the form of food that you actually need. And although that’s a very tiny example, it seems superficial, actually I think it’s totally fundamental. I speak as somebody with the Moon in Cancer, of course, so I’m very much attuned to that. But I think also the key ground of Cancer is its feeling and mood and tidal rhythms. And recognizing those inside of ourselves and our own interior world, and in the outer world of nature, too. So I think any activities which open this up are worthy of attention through this season. And I think to do that we have to suspend our modern human need for things that kind of add up neatly and make sense in logical terms. We obviously need to keep our outer life running according to clock time. But lunar time is quite different. And it’s a time that is felt by the psyche rather than measured by the regular hands of the clock. So I’d say that that’s an appropriate thing to start thinking about during this upcoming month, if you can, is just to let yourself drift a little from your usual routine or your daily plan or schedule. The lunar calendar drifts against the solar ones. So if you follow the lunar calendar, it unhooks you a little bit from solar time. It can be a little dislocating. So it’s perhaps something that you want to keep as a sort of conscious activity. But if you try to reckon your days by the lunar cycle, just through this month, it just puts you in touch with that more feeling-led ground of Cancer. And that I think a whole sort of inner world opens up. And if you’re an artist or a musician or poet, or you’ve got some sort of artistic way of expressing yourself, these languages that can adequately carry and express how we feel, that’s something that’s rather beautiful to engage in. And you don’t have to be good at it. It’s just your own sort of personal, finding your own personal language.
Alejo: Yeah, beautiful. And I agree. You know, it’s interesting how Cancer, I was thinking while you were speaking, how Cancer is so much related to this inner world, the inner rhythm of the soul. Like you were saying, the lunar calendar. But at the same time it’s a cardinal sign. And I thought when you were sharing this, the possibility of connecting to the inner world so that creativity will open up. The idea that by going within something will emerge, and this idea of cardinality. Do you have any other ideas of how cardinality is expressed with Cancer?
Carole: It’s kind of a curious one for Cancer because we think of Cancer as an introverted sign. Cancer is much more at home in quiet spaces and away from the bustle of the world. But you see the cardinality, I think, if that person is placed in a position of danger. Or if they feel hurt, or if they have an emotional reaction to something. You see that reaction happens very, very quickly. It’s almost instantaneous. And there’s this very active way of asserting emotional ground. And that might not always be verbally expressed. Cancer is sort of, in traditional astrology, it’s known as a mute sign, it’s it’s not a verbal sign. But it’s felt very keenly. Anyone with planets in Cancer will know that you have that sort of kick in the gut when you react to something, and I think that’s part of the cardinal quality.
Alejo: Nice, thank you. Yeah, fantastic ideas, thank you. Okay. So now let’s move on to the key signatures of the month, of his period with the transits and everything. Okay, according to my information, the 21st of June 2:58pm, and this is GMT, the Sun will go into Cancer, so the season properly starts. And there was an idea you were sharing with me before, we started with an idea of this set of transits that are going to happen in relation to Uranus. So before we go into the dates, specifically, you kind of saw this pattern which I think it was beautiful, would you like to share some ideas on that? And then maybe we can pin down the dates. But you saw this pattern which I think it was fantastic with Venus and Mars?
Carole: Yes, just before we come to the pattern, I thought it was worth Cancer-style, just taking a breath and thinking about this as the solstice point. I think that’s so important. One of the four solar stations of the year. And we think very much of the winter solstice when the Sun, in the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun hangs for three days. It appears behind for three days at the same point. Reaches its lowest point at noon. So we have this idea of the three days in the underworld before resurrection. At the summer solstice we have the Sun appearing to stand still at its highest point in the sky for about three days. So it has this quality of a turning point as it weaves up from the equator, up at the equinox to the Tropic of Cancer in the north, and then back down to the equator and back down to the Tropic of Capricorn in 23 and a half degrees south. So that’s the limits of its bounds. And just in that movement, we have this Cancerian idea of the tide coming in and the tide going out. And this sort of rhythmic breathing in and breathing out. And it’s just that point of the balancing of dark and light at this moment of the year, which I think is interesting to connect to. It’s the point of maximum solar power in the northern hemisphere. And from here, of course, we have the decline into the darkness of winter. So there’s a reminder here, I think, that dark and light are mutually necessary and complementary. The darkness is contained in the light, and vice versa. And we see that in the Yin Yang symbol. And of course, all over Jung’s work, the incorporation of the shadow, and so on. I think it’s important. It’s a time for thinking about this. It’s important for any individual or group or organization to acknowledge that shadow side, the opposite side. And you can use the solstice as a kind of ritual space to reflect on that idea. You know, the devil is not someone over there, and nothing to do with us. You know, we have to incorporate that in. And sadness and grief and the flip sides of, you know, the solar light and solar joy, those are also part of things, too. So it’s just a reminder of that time.
Alejo: Yeah, it’s interesting. I was in London, we met a few days ago, and I went to see Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare, and you pointed out like, ah, you’re seeing this because for people who haven’t read it, it happens on the solstice actually. So Carole pointed out ‘Ah you’re going to see these exactly at the season.’ And it’s interesting because in the play, people fall in love and out of love, because of course the fairies are playing around so quickly. And this idea of the light and shadow you were mentioning, and I was thinking also about the idea of Cancer and the emotions. Emotions in motion. How we are in the Cancer season we can be more attuned, perhaps, of this idea that emotions have their own flow. And in the play, people fall in love and out of love so quickly and so abruptly. And how a person who, you know, when you’re in love with someone they are the most important thing but then suddenly, because it’s very played out, and then you’re not in love with them anymore. You finally see everything that’s disgusting about them. And this idea of, yeah, remember the light and shadow are necessary. That to love probably also means to suffer, it’s not going to come only with the nice things. I think it’s a beautiful reminder for Sun in Cancer, yeah. Because it’s the world of emotions, right? So the Sun is lighting up the world of emotions and it means there’s a pool of different experiences there. And we call them light and dark but probably it’s our our judgment based on how we feel about them, right? But there’s so many things to feel. I remember the poet, Sappho, from Greece. She said one has to feel everything in life. This idea that we need to go through all of these feelings in life. Nice. Yeah, thank you for stopping by there. Yes, very good Carole, thank you so much.
Carole: But yes, moving on to the Mars square to Uranus. But there’s also the series of squares to Uranus. The Mars square Uranus is on the 26th of June, then Venus is square to Uranus on the 2nd of July, and Mercury which is moving quite rapidly at the moment, because it’s close to its superior conjunction with the Sun, comes up to square Uranus on the 23rd of July right at the end of this month period. So we’ve got this series of squares. And just that Mars is square to Uranus, that does feel quite tense, quite resistant, quite belligerent, unwilling to compromise. So that’s how we start our season here. It’s quite an interesting point. And if we’re putting it into the context of that, seeing both sides, the dark and the light and the idea of looking at our very deepest feelings and acknowledging them and allowing them to be expressed. We feel what we feel and there’s not necessarily any logic to that, but we feel what we feel. And so I think those points, particularly maybe Mars square Uranus, is a couple of days, you know, 2, 3, 4 days where we can just acknowledge feelings of anger or resistance or belligerence or pushing back against something that we think has disadvantaged us or isn’t going our way. And just be aware of that. And find a way to express it. You know, lighter firework but in a safe place. And what’s interesting about the squares, so there’s a sequence. There’s Mars, then there’s Venus, so there’s a reconciliation process. And then the Mercury comes along and it allows a moment of dialogue. And at the same time we have Lilith, and I don’t know if you work with Lilith, if your listeners are working with Lilith here, but I do often work with Lilith. And Lilith is between 18 and 20 degrees of Leo during the course of the month. So she is squaring Uranus during this period of time, coming up to a square to Uranus. So that’s the bigger backdrop of it. And of course then Mars and Venus and Mercury also make conjunctions to Lilith. So that’s part of the story, too. For those of you who don’t work with Lilith, there’s the archetypal image there of the outlaw who’s been ejected by the authorities. So those particular flashpoints, perhaps, in that story,
Alejo: Very interesting, yes.
Carole: On my mind at the moment, on lots of people’s minds I expect in the USA and in the UK, the current stories around Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. And of course, Donald Trump is facing the court case for, as I understand it, leaving rather a lot of hypersensitive documents in a bathroom. And over here in the UK, of course, we’ve got Boris Johnson, former prime minister. He resigned recently, just a few days ago, as an MP because he knew that he was going to be ousted. He was going to be suspended as an MP because of the findings of an inquiry into his behavior during lockdown. It found that he lied consistently to Parliament. And so you know, we have in both of these characters very much this much this pushback and the sense of resistance and the rejection of any kind of authority. It’s very interesting to be seeing this at the moment. Both of them are playing the role of disrupter and agitator and they’ve become emblems of disaffection. And it’s very easy for us to cook our own disaffection onto that and say, yes, I’m waving the flag for Boris Johnson or I’m waving the flag that Donald Trump. But maybe we can take a step back at this point and just examine where that comes from in ourselves.
Alejo: Yeah, very, very interesting. So to make sure I understand. So the Lilith square Uranus, we can identify with this idea of being, you didn’t say an outcast, you used a different word.
Carole: Well, she’s a renegade presence and I’m not sure which word it was that I used. Outlaw, I think was the word. Yes, outside of the normal scope and bounds. And that’s her place of power, but it’s also her place of disempowerment. And with Lilith, we’re always on the knife’s edge between those two things. Anyone with Lilith strong in the chart tends to operate outside of the boundaries. And yet, that’s also a place of woundedness. And as long as we are aware of that, then we can turn that so that it becomes a place of strength. We recognize that sense of being the outlaw and we can use that. She was said to have been the first wife of Adam. But she wouldn’t lie under Adam and be a good girl and do her, you know, do what she was expected to do. So she wanted to lie on top. And so of course, she was ejected from the Garden of Eden and flew to the Red Sea in a state of exile and had a relationship with Satan. You know, the rest is history. Yeah, but that’s the narrative that we’re under at the moment. And Uranus, of course, is the sky god and he just pushes out seed into the world indiscriminately. And there’s no sense of anything landing in real space and growing and taking root. So we have that sort of energy in the air through the course of this month.
Alejo: So when Mars picks this up, it’s this idea that anger comes out. Sudden spurts of anger because of feeling like an outlaw, right?
Carole: Yes, that’s very possible. Where it’s unconscious, you know. ‘Light blue touch paper and stand well back’ is the instruction that’s on the back of firework packets. And I think that’s a good instruction for this. But the more conscious we are of that, the more that we can use it. You know, the ancient world had all sorts of festivals for turning the social order upside down. This time of year isn’t particularly one of them. But we can do something of that nature and recognize that we need to do something wild under this energy. You know, go and play your jambay drum, go and dance wildly, take up Tango, Flamenco, you know, do something. Really using that wild energy, that while feminine, well, the Lilith archetype has an archetypal feminine quality to it.
Alejo: Nice. And then Venus comes, and you were saying this sense of perhaps the anger bursting up but then when Venus comes, the sense of more acceptance, perhaps. Or finding joy in that, the idea of finding pleasure in that. Perhaps being able to love that aspect of ourselves that has to do with being outsiders, right.
Carole: I like the idea of the Venus following the Mars, because it’s only once the true feelings have been expressed honestly and openly that you can start any kind of reconciliation or balancing process.
Alejo: And then Mercury comes with the perfect example of the idea of balancing opposites and trying to reconcile them and creating alchemy between what we have experienced during the two transits. Yeah, it’s beautiful, yes. Great, thank you so much for sharing this, Carole. And then on the 30th of June, well, on the 27th, you said Mercury is moving quickly so it’s going into Cancer. So with this process we kind of moved forward in the month, so let’s go back to the beginning. On the 30th of June, Neptune stations retrograde. And he’s going to stay retrograde until December, so for six months. Which is normal every time he’s kind of on the other side of where the Sun is. And well, you know, it’s interesting because we’re getting to the last period of Neptune being in Pisces. Finally it’s going to go away soon. How do you interpret this idea of Neptune going retrograde?
Carole: Well, it’s a collective planet, of course. And so it’s transpersonal in nature, and it’s retrograde for about half the year. So I think it’s more difficult for us to see the influence of that as maybe individuals. Unless, of course, you’ve got something around 27 degrees in your chart, particularly of the mutable signs. In which case the station will really have a very personal implication. But Neptune calls into question what we consider to be real and solid and dependable and unassailable. And those things which we’ve come to rely on for our bedrock can feel as though they’re being eroded and nothing feels safe. But it also brings what Shakespeare called a ‘sea change’. We have to try and look beyond the immediacy of our fear or grief, to try and see the bigger arc of what’s happening. And it’s almost impossible to do, really, but for anybody with planets picked up by Neptune right now, maybe just for all of us, you know, just the idea of being in the flow of it. Just allowing ourselves to sense things and to be in that more interior space. Neptune chimes with the idea of the Cancer season and the meaning of Cancer because they are both portals to the imagination. And so they bring us a new vision of the world which is centered in symbols and dreams and stories and emotional responses. And so through those tides, we just learn to let go a little of our concrete and literal sense perceptions. We learn to trust our intuition and imagination a little more, I think.
Alejo: Whenever Neptune goes retrograde, like you were saying it’s a collective motion, unless of course we have something there exactly. But I always try to think about the ways in which we have accepted to be illusioned. How like all of the expectations and illusions that we have placed out there. And I feel like the moment when Neptune goes retrograde, because he does this all the time, not all the time, but every year and for several months. So this moment is like a period in which I think we can go back in and see why did we project these illusions? Why did we come up with these ideas? Perhaps kind of getting back inside, instead of putting it out there, getting back in, looking back into ourselves and see, why did we nee to create these expectations? What were we hoping to achieve that didn’t happen? Or perhaps some things did happen, but in some things we felt deceived. And there’s like a whole process of our own triggers. We were talking about love just a minute ago when we were talking about Midsummer Night’s Dream. And I think it’s so clear when you love someone, we make so many projections. So when Neptune goes retrograde, I would say is the time when these projections come back to you, and you feel disappointed that the person is not the way you expected it to be. But I would say this applies to everything in life, right, not just to falling in love. So the Neptune retrograde period, I think may help us to see what had we been hoping for that didn’t happen? And how much of this that didn’t, didn’t happen because it was impossible, because it was a projection. So we need to be responsible, perhaps, for the sense of the disappointment or deception. And how much that didn’t happen, well, because of something out there, right. And we can see where we could work that out. Yeah, I think this is a process of inner examination of our expectations.
Carole: Yes, certainly. And I think we can do that with any retrograde period, with any planet on its own terms, certainly.
Alejo: And then on the same day, so the Moon, this is a quick transit, but I think it’s interesting because the Moon will be in Scorpio and it will be creating a t-square with Mars in Leo and Uranus in Taurus. So this whole sense of rage that we were talking about before, I don’t know, it might get triggered during this day. So around the 30th of June, like you were saying, be careful with the fireworks. I would say be particularly careful about this because the Moon is in Scorpio is not so easygoing, it’s going to be picking this up. So I think this might be an interesting date. Especially, I would say, if these planets are picking up something in your chart. Because of course, not everyone is going to be enraged, but I would say it’s an interesting day to be careful. To pay attention about your feelings of anger or defending yourself on these kind of things.
Carole: Certainly. We associate Scorpio perhaps with the process of catharsis. And there was a phrase that I heard about Scorpio and I can’t remember where I heard it from, but ‘violence for the sake of healing’. On an archetypal level, violence for the sake of healing, that seems very redolent of the Scorpio energy. So again, you know, it’s all about consciousness, being conscious of it. Do we use it wisely?
Alejo: Yeah, exactly. Because, of course, I will say, if the sky is creating this figure, it is a moment… I would say, you know, the sky is our guide. It is a moment to connect with that. The thing is if we connect with that in an unconscious way, what might happen? But if we are aware of it and we connect with it in a very conscious way, we can create something probably.
Carole: Before we move on, would it be possible to have a quick look at Mercury conjuncting Sun?
Alejo: Yes, we have it on the first of July, right? And you’re saying Mercury is moving quickly because it’s going to the superior conjunction?
Carole: That’s right. Mercury is coming up to its superior conjunction there, so it’s exact on the 1st of July. And that’s the beginning of Mercury’s cycle. It goes from superior conjunction to superior conjunction with the inferior conjunction being a point of retrograde, and that sort of halfway through the cycle. So I think it’s very interesting that we have this turning point of the solstice, just after that. You know, Hermes is currently in the underworld at the beginning of this period, and emerges on the other side of the Sun when the Sun moves into Leo in the third week of July. So we’ve got this period of time when we have this sort of psychopomp energy, as Mercury moves through the shadows of the Sun, is lost in the rays of the Sun. That’s going to be particularly resonant perhaps for anybody who’s got planets around 9 degrees of cancer. But just generally, there’s a sense of a new beginning in Mercury’s terms. And of course, that’s going to play on all the Cancerian themes of home and family, people we’re in a caretaking relationship with, and of course our own personal cycles of self care. But yes, Mercury is moving very swiftly at the moment,,which it always does at superior conjunction.
Alejo: Yes, so you would say this day might be particularly prominent, especially for examining this idea of the psychopomp. So this idea of what areas of ourselves we can go and find which are kind of hidden in the underworld, and perhaps bring them in into awareness.
Carole: Yes, we all need to have that psychopomp, that guide of souls aspect of ourselves, an activity that we engage in which allows us to go into that deeper space. Meditation takes us there, perhaps. Therapy takes us there. Talking to somebody takes us there. Having a guide or a witness, or a way of recording our thoughts. So that’s a good time to be thoughtful, I think, and aware, self aware. Spend time in a quieter kind of interior space, maybe. And just acknowledge that there is something at this very much deeper level that maybe one is trying to access, or the world is trying to access. And that’s available at that particular moment in time.
Alejo: Yeah, fantastic. Because sometimes we look at Mercury, because he’s moving so fast, and we don’t give it enough attention. And what you’re saying is like, okay, yeah, this is a psychopomp. It can give us a lot of insights and a lot of self awareness if we give him room to do that.
Carole: Yes. And you see it in the charts of people who have Mercury conjunct Sun, not retrograde, and you know then it’s the superior conjunction. And you can see that sort of almost shamanistic voices from the deep space, interior space, aspect to that person. I’m thinking Jimi Hendrix, for instance. With a Sun-Mercury conjunction in Sagittarius and the 12th. And there’s that sense of speaking from that archetypal space. So I think it’s a moment for that.
Alejo: Nice, fantastic. Great, thank you. And then we get to the 3rd of July. So we get to the Full Moon. The Sun is at 11 degrees of Cancer, the Moon is at 11 degrees of Capricorn. It’s a bit strange, you know, that we have the Full Moon first and then we have the New Moon. I think it’s always interesting when that happens. And so if you have, of course, any planets at 11 degrees of cardinal signs, I would say mostly any planets at 11 degrees of Cancer or Capricorn, this lunation might be very important. If you have any transits there, long transits, probably this lunation will be very important. I always feel like the Full Moon in Cancer is helping us reflect… You were talking before about Cancer and Capricorn, like when the egg breaks and the nestling comes out. So I think it always helps us reflect on our sense of needing to belong, needing to be part of something, needing to be nurtured and taken care of. And at the same time, growing into being independent, being self reliant, being autonomous, right? So I think this is the tension. And I would say that, to me, the way I take it, the Cancer-Capricorn polarity, is the idea that nurturing is not only emotionally nurturing, which would be Cancer, but it’s also like material nurturing. To nurture, you know, we need the two figures. We need the figure that is warm and caring, and sweet. But also, we need the figure that’s going to be more hard and pushes us to grow, you know, and it’s not just soft. I was in my Goddaughters birthday and we were choosing sandals and we needed to be careful because the sandals need to be hard now, because she’s about to start to learn how to walk. So if they’re too soft, she will never grow and learn how to walk. And I think this is the paradox between Cancer and Capricorn. That to nurture and grow, we need both. We need the softness and also the hard part. So I think this lunation in general, the full moon in this Cancer season, reminds us of this idea that it’s important to find these placements of safety and security, but then it’s important not to draw inwards too much, perhaps. But to grow from there. Does it make sense what I’m saying?
Carole: Absolutely. And I think with all oppositions there needs to be a sense of actively trying to integrate the two things. So that in this case, for instance, that sense of mature self regulation and self management actually becomes the hardness that you’re talking about there, the hard sandals, actually become the thing that nurture and support. So that seems like a paradox at the beginning of the process. But in fact, it becomes the truth of the matter. You can’t stay in that very soft space because as you say, you lose your spine, you lose your sense of uprightness, or that sense of scaffolding, and you lose your sense, ultimately, you lose your sense of safety. So the one is dependent on the other and that’s the paradox. All sign oppositions contain a paradox, but they also contain the idea of bringing together into the same space.
Alejo: And this Full Moon is going to be trining or sextile, depending if you’re talking from the Sun or the Moon, Jupiter in Taurus. So I have the sense of perhaps trusting the universe. You know, trusting Mother Nature, trusting your body to see that, you know, what you need to go through this paradox, I would say. But then it’s also picking up the Mars in Leo. So I was thinking about this idea that you were saying about speaking out, being able to speak out your desires or emotions. Like finding a safe environment, a safe context, in which you can express what you want, what you need, and you can act from a very honest and transparent, and perhaps noble way with the Leo, right?
Carole: Absolutely. Yes. This Full Moon is actually conjunct Prince Harry’s ascendant, and I don’t know whether, his ascendant-descendant I should say. And I don’t know whether you’ve been following the story of this, it’s very much here in the UK at the moment. Which is that he’s currently embroiled in a case in the high court against two newspaper groups in the UK on charges of phone hacking and relentless press intrusion. And he just testified a few days ago. The case will take another few months to complete, but I wonder whether for him, for instance, there’ll be something around that point, the 3rd of July, or maybe one or two days beforehand as the energy starts to build towards that Full Moon point where there is the sense of culmination or release or a sense of seeing how the two sides can work together. Of course, all of this is very personal for him because it is rooted in the loss of his mother in very similar sort of circumstances. Press intrusion circumstances back in the 1990s. What’s interesting also is that if you set the Full Moon chart for London, the angles are the UK’s 1801 chart. And the Full Moon is across the IC/MC. So it’s very, you know, there are sort of national perspectives to this also. And that may be true for other some other countries around the world. But yes, it’s a point of illumination, perhaps. A point of clarity and a point of potential for integration and self awareness. Integration through self awareness.
Alejo: Nice, thank you. We have so many interesting ideas, and I’m looking at the time now. On the 6th of July we have again, the Moon picking up this Mars with Uranus. Then on the 10th of July, Mars goes into Virgo. And I would like to talk a little bit about the New Moon and the nodes that are changing to Aries and Libra. Because we’re a bit tight on time now. Is that okay with you?
Carole: Yes, absolutely.
Alejo: Because I think this is important. These are important things that are happening. So the New Moon, we have it on the 17th of July, yes. And it’s happening at 24 degrees of Cancer, 24’56, so almost 25 degrees of Cancer. So again, if you have anything at 25 Cancer or maybe 25 Capricorn, it’s probably going to be an important lunation. And it’s opposing Pluto. It’s quite interesting, because a few days before, Mercury was also opposing Pluto. And because it’s going so fast, by the time that the New Moon happens, Mercury is a bit farther away. But Pluto is at 29 degrees of Capricorn, he was in Aquarius and went back into Capricorn. So now the New Moon is opposing Pluto. And because the nodes are about to change, Pluto is squaring these nodes. So depending on which kind of nodes you use. But I still have them in Taurus/Scorpio about 00. Like when the New Moon happens, I have them at 00 Taurus/Scorpio, like they’re literally about change. We have a New Moon which is indicating something new that’s about to start. So I don’t know, do you have any ideas about this?
Carole: Yes, well, the New Moon is the point of darkness, isn’t it? You know that a seed being set but it’s being born in the dark. And there’s a blindness to it. You can sense it, but you don’t know it. You can’t see it physically, you can’t see the Moon at this point in its cycle. And the opposition to Pluto just sort of reinforces that. Then of course, the nodes are a Sun-Moon relationship. They say something that all the myths around the nodes are about Dragons swallowing the Sun and the Moon as they circuit around. And so I think there’s a big story there maybe about… I was thinking of this in terms of the Joseph Campbell’s hero stories, and you know, the hero in the underworld, the sort of journey into the underworld. But we can also see it in terms of any underworld story or journey, that idea of being swallowed and regurgitated. And so there’s something there that’s quite powerful, I think, about being allowing oneself into the depths and allowing oneself to be changed in some kind of alchemical process. I think it’s quite a tricky point. Anything square the nodes has this tricky quality to it. Because something is trying to be pulled into awareness, but there’s a sense of an inevitability around it, a sort of fatefulness around it as those circumstances are not in our control. And that’s also the case with Pluto, I think. We don’t feel that the circumstances are under our control. So that might be a side of liminal point where we just have to trust our own instincts. And it feels as though there’s chaos everywhere. But actually, we just have to trust our instincts that it’s all going to be fine. And that the seed is being set. And something will grow from that eventually.
Alejo: Yeah, you were mentioning Joseph Campbell, and I’m thinking on the 17 steps and the hero’s journey. One of the steps is the ‘belly of the whale’. I’m saying this for people who have the book, maybe they want to go back to it. So the ‘belly of the whale’ is the moment in which the hero is in some kind of dark cave, perhaps like a dark concave space, which again, it’s like a very Cancerian image, right? And he has to stay there and face, we call it sometimes the dark night of the soul. And like you’re saying it’s a dark place, and he knows that he’s going to be transformed. He knows that in some ways he will have to die and be reborn. And I think it’s so poetic that it’s happening just when the nodes are turning. Because the North Node is going to go into Aries. And you were talking about this idea of the dragon eating the hero, the dragon facing the hero and the idea of being reborn after this battle. And with the North Node moving from Taurus to Aries, I think there is perhaps this sense of, after being in the Scorpio/Taurus axis with the North Node in Taurus, which is more slow motion and resistant perhaps the motion, the idea that in this dark night what we are being nurtured and prepared for the North Node going into Aries. So like we’re going to start a period, perhaps, in which we will have the opportunity to go out there to express ourselves, to fight our battles, to speak our truths, and be more active. So this idea of a seed being planted that is going to propel us out into the world. I love this idea. I think it’s nice. Yeah.
Carole: Yes. And that move from Pisces to Aries, it’s like you must take something of the sign that you’re moving from into the sign that it’s moving into. So in all of the hero stories, I was just thinking of Jason and the Golden Fleece and that wonderful ceramic where it showed the picture that shows him being swallowed by the Colchian Dragon and regurgitated, and Athena is standing on. And of course, Jason has this difficult relationship to the feminine through the person of Medea and so on. And there’s just that idea the hero must release themselves to the feminine, to the ground of something that is not considered to be heroic; that is more emotional in nature and archetypal and primal in nature, and incorporate that in order to be able to go forward and claim the birthright. Don’t get to take the Golden Fleece until you’ve been through that regurgitation process. That swallowing process, which is your own psychological transformation.
Alejo: Fantastic. Nice. Thank you so much. And then on the 23rd the Sun goes into Leo, so we start the new season. And that very same day Venus stations retrograde, and she will stay there until September the 3rd. I guess we will talk a lot about this on the next episode. But I don’t know if you want to share some ideas about this?
Carole: Yes, so she’s slowing as we go through the rest of June and into July. So that’s something to be aware of. And then yes, goes retrograde on the 23rd and onto inferior conjunction on the 13th of August. And then the retrograde period lasts until the 4th of September. So that’s our biblical 40 days in the wilderness. And that’s the time for introspection and reevaluation of our values and desires. And I’m sure that will come up in future podcasts. But yes, so Venus just about to enter into the underworld. She’s just standing on the precipice of that. We recall the myth of Persephone, also Inanna. The encounter with her dark sister Ereshkigal, being killed, put on the meat hook, et cetera, et cetera. And that process of testing, which the goddess undergoes in the descent. So we have still this sort of underworld aspect to it. So all the things that Venus represents, I think, during that time will be entering into a phase of scrutiny. It’s time to take those things back to their most basic root principles. And there’s a process of empowerment also available there if we stay with the process until it’s complete.
Alejo: Yeah, nice. Thank you so much, Carol. Then we usually list a few dates that we think might be nice dates to start things or to do like, we call it opportunity, when opportunity knocks. I’ve noticed that from the 24th of June to the 6th of July, this might change depending on the kind of orbs people use, the Sun will be in Cancer training Saturn in Pisces, and they will all be sextile Jupiter in Taurus. So I think this might be a nice time if you want to start a project, to build something, to create something. That is kind of nice flow between Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter who brings opportunities and Saturn who brings stability. And if it’s something that’s coming out from your heart, like from the Sun. So the idea of expressing or sharing, I would say this is a nice moment to do that. Then I’ve noticed that in from 29th of June to the 1st of July, we have again, we have on 29th of June, we have the Sun trining Saturn and then they’re also trining the Moon, they’re all in water signs. So I think again, it might be a good day to focus on creativity. Art, if you do something artistic. You do something therapeutic, maybe. It could be a good day to try something that you may want to do to help your patients go deeper or something like that. But it’s a day that we may be able to connect very much with our emotions. Then on the 30th of June, Mercury trine Saturn, and on the 1st of July it’s going to sextile Jupiter. So again, I think there is this sense of, this could be something more for mental work. If you have to read something, if you have to do transactions, I think it could be positive dates.
Carole: They all sound like very positive days, don’t they? And this interchange of Taurus with the water signs, it feels very fertile, very fecund, very creative. And I think those are all brilliant days for that. Saturn in Pisces may be a little more tricky, you know, there is that sense of maybe not finding firm ground or needing to sort of work on the manifestation side of it. But certainly fertile from a creative and imaginative point of view. And great for planting something and sort of, you know, in fertile soil.
Alejo: Nice. Thank you. Do you have any other days you wanted to share?
Carole: Well, just apropos of the 1st of July with this Mercury sextile Jupiter and the Sun sextile Jupiter, we’ve got the Mercury-Sun conjunction sextile Jupiter. And I, you know, I randomly look at in things on the internet. I was thinking there’s an international day of everything throughout the year. And the 1st of July is Alice’s day, which is an annual celebration of the book by Lewis Carroll Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. I was looking at his chart, Carroll had Chiron at 11 of Taurus in a grand trine with Mercury and Saturn. He was this, you know, everybody probably knows, this sort of shy, techie, mathematician who had an alter ego as the writer of poetry and children’s stories. So I think maybe that’s a good day, 1st of July for, you know, a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and getting into that sort of mindset of imagination and so on.
Alejo: Nice, great, thank you so much. Then the key takeaway or mantra, so we usually give a mantra, or a phrase perhaps, to reflect on. And mine, talking about this idea of belonging, I chose ‘my family’s humanity, my belonging is the Earth, the pain is behind, I feel the healing in my heart.’ I was thinking about this idea of the end of theTaurus/Scorpio nodal journey. That’s why I chose this idea of the pain is behind, I feel the healing in my heart. You can come up with, with with with one now if you don’t have one.
Carole: Well, I have a couple of quotes that I guess, it’s not a personal mantra that I’ve invented for myself, but a couple of quotes which I think maybe reflect something of the deeper principles of Cancer. And one is from the anthropologist Margaret Mead who did a lot of research into Samoan social customs. She wrote a book called Coming of Age in Samoa in the 1920s. And she said, “Never believed that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed, that’s all who ever have.” And it’s just that feeling of, you know, you don’t have to do anything big or terribly important, you just have to do it. And, you know, the goodness flows from that. And also just coming back to Proust. There’s quite a famous quote of his, it’s from the book. I won’t read out the longer quote because I guess we don’t have time, but listeners can go and see it in situ and see the longer quote. But he said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” That’s basically in the context of saying, you know, you can go into outer space, you can go to Mars to Venus, but if you take the same pair of eyes with you, you don’t see anything different. What you need to do is see with the eyes of imagination, open your sense of vision. And I was thinking about Cancer and the Moon, its rule of the Moon being so associated in ancient astrology and in traditional astrology with the organ of the imagination, as the portal, the gateway. Cancer as the gateway, in platonic thinking, the gateway for souls to enter into the world. And the Moon sphere as the portal of the imagination. Where our imagination then takes us beyond that into the realm of divine. And I think that’s very much there with Proust, that idea of the organ of the imagination being so primary. And so that’s part of my mantra, really.
Alejo: Yeah, and it makes me think also of the idea of memory, how we build memory. It’s not a copy of reality, we go back to the past and depending on who we are in the present, we see it with new eyes.
Carole: And it has its own reality, we have to accord it its own reality.
Alejo: Great. Then we also usually share if we’re reading something, because usually astrologers they like to read. So I’m reading right now, so it might not be related to Cancer season. I’m reading Life Isn’t Binary by Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi. And actually, when I thought about this, I thought this doesn’t have to do with Cancer season. But now I’m thinking that it does in a way, because gender does create groups of belonging and the question, the idea of gender and binary genders. So in some ways, I think it makes sense to share this now in Cancer season. And I’ve just started to read iRobot by Isaac Asimov, which is a classic that I always wanted to read. I was in the technological museum in London and they had it there so I bought it. Well, are you reading anything right now?
Carole: Well, yes, always. Actually, I am reading something pretty Cancerian at the moment, which is Eva Luna by Isabel Allende. It wasn’t planned for Cancer season, it just sort of happened that way. And I’m only a short way through so far, but the central character is this little girl called Eva Luna, which I guess roughly translates as ‘moon mother’. And we see her strange, magical birth circumstances, and her powerful relationship to her mother which is rooted in the richness of their imagination, their shared love of stories. And when her mother dies when Eva is seven, she’s sent away. It’s such as Saturnian number, and resonant of that Cancer/Capricorn Full Moon that we were talking about before. And she’s sent away to work for a stranger. But her mother remains alive to her through all of that, because her mother has told her that as long as Eva can imagine her and talk to her and tell her stories, then she’ll be alive. So it’s really evocative of the the power of the mother-child bond and how this survives death. And that’s very much on my mind at the moment, because my own mother is 97. And so she’s coming towards the end of her life, I guess.
Alejo: Wow. Amazing. Nice, Carole, thank you so much. So how can people reach you if they want to reach you? What what projects do you have going on?
Carole: Well, you mentioned the school that I’ve just set up with Kim Farley, which is called a Asteria, or Asteria Teaching. So people can contact me through that: asteria-teaching.com is our web address. I also have a website that’s just about to be launched, which will be launched around the 1st of July, so in this season. And that will be caroletaylorastrology.com, and you can use that URL [email protected] if you want to contact me. And so with a Asteria, Kim and I will be doing some workshops through July and August in London. So that’s what we’re busy preparing for at the moment. Those are my live events for this particular time period. And of course, I’m doing a webinar for Astrology University on the 5th of August. That’s slightly outside it, but that’s my next thing coming up.
Alejo: Great, fantastic. If you want to know what Astrology University has in hand, so on the 26th of June, from the 26th of June to the 21st of July, there’s a course will Kelly Surtees which is about career and life direction in astrology. So I think it’s very useful because sometimes we get clients that they are at this age that they don’t know what to study. And sometimes we get clients that they have a career but they want to change careers and they don’t know where to go to. So it’s important to know exactly where to look at in the chart. And then there’s a fantastic event, but this is an in-person event. It’s on the weekend of July 15th and 16th, 2023. And it’s a student’s summer retreat in Colorado with Tony Howard. If you can attend, I think it’s going to be amazing. I can’t attend because I’m too far, I’m in Europe. But I would love to go, I think it’s going to be amazing. You have all of the information in astrologyuniversity.com. I don’t have anything important coming up. If you want to contact me my Instagram is @liminalcosmos. My website is liminalcosmo.com. Great. So Carole, thank you so very much. You’re fantastic, I love the way you express ideas. Thank you so much for being here and sharing all of your insights and your thoughts.
Carole: It’s been an absolute pleasure, Alejo. Thank you.
Alejo: All right. Take care.
Tony: Thanks for tuning in to the Astrology University Podcast. I’m the founder, Tony Howard. Head over to astrologyuniversity.com where you can find webinars and courses to help deepen your study of astrology. Study with some of the best astrologers in the field, and check out our diploma program for those of you interested in working professionally or in developing the skill to analyze charts for yourself, your friends and family. Hope to see you in class soon and until then, take good care.
