First Quarter Moon and Solstice: Ebb & Flow

I don’t usually post and podcast for the Quarter Moons, but we are entering an intriguing, powerful, potentially confusing time. It felt like there was a lot to say, so here I am.

These next few days, we’re offered previews of what will be coming our way in the next few months.

This time ahead will include a Mars retrograde, a Venus retrograde, and a Mercury retrograde. We will see three eclipses. Neptune, Chiron, and Uranus will also travel retrograde, as Chiron and Uranus return briefly to the signs they just left.

Last night, June 18, Neptune stationed retrograde. This is the planet of dreams and visions traveling through Pisces, the sign she co-rules with Jupiter.

Neptune in Pisces connects us to the cosmos, to a felt sense of the world soul. Experiences here are difficult to express in ordinary language. We turn to poetry, painting, music, to ritual, reverie, and time in silence.

---

Rising Moon Astrology is now a PODCAST on iTunes. Please listen, subscribe, and leave a review.

Since the outer planets spend so much time––a third or more of each year––retrograde, we don’t place as much emphasis on retrograde motion as we do with the personal planets.

Stations, though, are important. In the days before and after a planet changes direction, its movement is very slow. The planet slows, stops, turns, then begins moving again, slowly, picking up the pace until it reaches its fastest speed, whatever that is.

This means Neptune is moving very, very slowly right now. This intensifies her energy.

Neptune is at 16 Pisces. Jupiter, as it happens, is at 14 Scorpio. Mercury is currently at 12 Cancer. We have a Grand Trine in Water, which deepens the impact of the Neptune station even more.

Today, June 19, Mercury travels two degrees to reach an exact trine with Jupiter. Tomorrow, June 20, Mercury travels another two degrees to reach an exact trine with Neptune. This energy of deep feelings, intuitive insights, and magic underlies everything else happening now.

June 20 brings the First Quarter Moon. With a half Moon in the sky, we get our first good look at what has emerged since the New Moon. This can be something of a crisis: Do we like what we see? Is the seedling sending up shoots from the soil the one we thought we planted?

As First Quarter Moons go, this one is on the intense side. The Moon is at 29 Virgo, the Sun at 29 Gemini. These are the final anaretic degrees, where the energy of each sign is strongest.

That Gemini Sun might find it difficult to focus. It could be tough to settle down to anything. The Virgo Moon could be extra fussy, trying really hard to get stuff organized before it’s too late.

Heightening the potential tension is an out-of-sign opposition and square from Chiron in early Aries. How do we react when we feel jumpy, anxious, a little out of control? Chiron the wounded healer can provide a trigger that shows us exactly where and how we lose our ability to be effective when stress is high.

Remember the Grand Water Trine. This framework could heighten emotions in a confusing way, leaving us feeling at sea. Or, we could allow ourselves to relax into a sense of connection with something much bigger and calmer and wiser than our individual selves.

Another pattern takes shape on June 20 as Venus in passionate Leo conjuncts the North Node, the place where new things can come into our lives. This is the head of the dragon. It is not always a comfortable spot for us.

Venus brings her joy and good fortune here, as if to say, hey, we can play here, we can experiment, don’t be too serious. In Leo, she also brings courage, a feeling that we can do anything we choose.

Meanwhile, Mars sits with the South Node of the past. These two are in Aquarius, no less committed than Leo, but much more cerebral, more structured, more interested in the ideal.

When Venus and Mars oppose each other, relationships are tested. Even within ourselves, we can feel a need to recalibrate yin and yang, feminine and masculine, will and heart.

When that opposition happens at the Nodes of the Moon, then that rebalancing has a deeper resonance. We might find ourselves in situations that trigger patterns from the past. We might unexpectedly encounter people from our past. Or perhaps we feel an urge to make contact ourselves.

The opportunity to examine and possibly release lots of things from the past will continue. Mars stations retrograde on June 26 and will travel back and forth over the South Node twice more. His first conjunction was June 13, at the New Moon.

In July and early August, the New and Full Moons will be eclipses, which happen when the Sun and Moon align with the Nodes of the Moon.

So, Venus and Mars are our heads up. They bring our attention to issues of past and future. They get us focused.

Linking back to the Grand Water Trine, we remember that the South Node holds the deep past as well as the individual past.

We might find ourselves working with the ancestors, or doing healing work to release old family patterns.

June 21 is the Solstice, the time the Sun reaches its northernmost point. This is the time when the Sun stands still. On this day, Mars and Venus reach their exact opposition.

Notice this pattern. We are in a time of ebb and flow. The Sun reaches the top of its northern wave, stops, and turns back south. Neptune, Mars, Venus, Mercury will each station, each change in course shifting the relationships between planet and Sun, planet and Earth.

What is ebbing in our lives? What needs to gracefully end, with gratitude? What is flowing into our lives? What needs to be invited and supported?

This is “only” a First Quarter Moon. With the Solstice, and everything the planets are up to, it becomes much more.

This is a time to open our senses. We can become aware, begin noticing what is showing up for us, where things are changing within and without. In this way, we prepare for the opportunities coming toward us, meeting each with grace and intention.

---

I use Unsplash for almost all my photo illustrations. All astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title, adapted from the photo of the tideline by Samuel Scrimshaw, the photo of the chandelier by Lizelle De Wit, the fire and water photo by Aziz Acharki, the castle at sunrise by Céderic Vandenberghe, and the sun through the trees by Marion Michele.