Declination Report for June 2023

Hey friends! Here’s the planetary declination news for June 2023. What is declination? Find out here.

Monthly Declination Transits

• June 1 – last official day of Venus out of bounds (VE 23N38)
• June 4 – Moon out of bounds (through June 7)
• June 5 – Venus contraparallel Pluto
• June 5 – Sun parallel Venus (so Venus+Sun contraparallel Pluto)
• June 6 – Venus enters Leo
• June 10 – Mercury parallel Uranus
• June 11 – Mercury parallel Mars (in range of Mercury+Mars+Uranus)
• June 11 – Mercury enters Gemini
• June 14 – Mars parallel Uranus
• June 15 – Mercury parallel Venus
• June 16 – Moon out of bounds (through June 21)
• June 21 – Sun enters Cancer
• June 21 – Mercury contraparallel Pluto
• June 22 – Venus parallel Uranus
• June 23 – Sun parallel Mercury
• June 25 – Mercury out of bounds (through July 7)
• June 26 – Mercury enters Cancer

As June kicks off, Venus is just coming back from being out of bounds in Cancer. By June 2, Venus returns to the out of bounds border, at 23N26, and then makes its way back down as it changes signs to Leo on June 6, shifting tone in a big way. But just before it gets there, it makes a parallel to Pluto, signaling another burst of intensity in Cancer the day before the ingress into Leo. This Venus-Pluto parallel creates an opportunity to process anything that came up in May relative to Venus. With the Sun joining Venus that day, you may receive insight or clarity that will assist you in this processing. Doing so intentionally could clear the space for the next day as Venus enters Leo.

If May had you in more experimental or emotional territory with all things Venus (attractions, connections, etc.), June 6 will bring a welcome shift as Venus takes on a more regal or creatively demonstrative style. If you’re an artist, the month of May could have provided a fruitful exploration of emotional territory that you could begin to express more clearly after Venus moves into Leo

Mercury figures prominently this month due to its parallels with Mars and Uranus June 10 – 14, its ingress into Gemini and then Cancer, and then going out of bounds at the end of the month. Let’s break that down a bit.

Note the dates for June 10 – 14, especially if you have planets in early mutable signs, around 12° fixed, or natal declinations around 17° – 18°. You’re receiving a Mercury-Mars-Uranus activation on these days. Especially after Mercury enters Gemini, the urge to say what’s “really pissing you off” may intensify. As always with communicating from a place of stress or anger, use your inner resources here. It might be especially hard to think before you speak or to take a step back first, but Mars being in a fixed sign might help you there just a little, since fixed signs are more accustomed to taking a pause before responding. On the other hand, Mars in Leo could also intensify your resolve to speak your mind – and dramatically so!

If you “let it rip” and a conflict ensues, keep the conversation flowing (Mercury in Gemini) – and by conversation, that means going in both ways! Make sure you’re listening too. Communication skillfully managed on these days could break up log jams that allow for better flow going forward. So the idea isn’t to avoid conflict, or to avoid speaking your mind, it’s to do so skillfully while honoring any desire to cut ties, break away, or go in a new direction.

As Mercury makes its parallel to Venus on June 15, you may get an opportunity to smooth things over. This is also a great day for writers. Bookmark this day to go over any previous passages that you feel “didn’t have a good flow”. Mercury-Venus contacts give us opportunities for lovely wordplay.

The last bit of big declination news this month is that Mercury goes out of bounds on June 25 and then enters Cancer. Mercury often only goes out of bounds for a couple of days, but this time it stays out of bounds until July 7. So we’ll have a little more time to benefit from its many gifts while out of bounds, which include outside-the-box thinking, code-breaking (Alan Turing had this placement natally, and in Cancer), and creative problem solving. In Cancer, the problem-solving may arise out of following more gut hunches or emotional leanings rather than the clean logic of Gemini. Where your logic hits a dead end, intuition and creative thinking can open doors you wouldn’t have opened otherwise.

Some pitfalls of Mercury out of bounds in Cancer include subjectivity that steps a little too far outside the reality zone. So this energy is suited well for creative exploration and inner work. We’re at risk of believing our own inner talk without validation from the outside world here. The key is to give space for our intuitions to shape our thought processes, and then, once Mercury comes back from its declination peak, to start to share with others, and be willing to receive their input so that our subjective experience gets shaped (and often corrected) by outside input.

When input from others shows us that our thoughts are one-sided or completely off beat, the risk this placement is to retreat back to our inner safe zone and reject the process of having our ideas tested in the outside world.

Best wishes for June!

-Tony Howard

Get a full introduction to declination in our Intro to Declination course.

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash