Astrology: Embrace the Weird
By: Janette Dalgliesh – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.
There’s a lot going on right now, so stand by for some Weird!
If you navigate well, Weird can take you to some amazing places. Weird is rarely comfortable, of course, but knowing where the Weird is coming from makes it way easier to plot a good course.
The current Weird comes from a heightened state of flux and flexibility, a state where things can change more easily.
Change opens up possibility; but human brains are wary of change, so increased flux feels unsettling and edgy.
Hold your nerve, and you can leverage this fluidity with intention and a solid focus on what you want to create, like a boss.
Above all – as Douglas Adams famously pointed out in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – don’t panic.
Take a deep breath and recite the words of Dame Julian of Norwich: all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
The Weird will most likely intensify over July with Eclipse season, then soften again over August. Here’s what’s at play:
Three Jupiter-Neptune interactions during 2019 have been amping up everything to do with the worlds of dreams, the imagination, the intangible, the magical.
A Pluto-Saturn convergence invites us to build a solid foundation for whatever we want to create, over the next 18 months. The influence is both personal and societal, and anything flimsy or superficial is unlikely to sustain. Now’s the time to start putting some robust underpinnings in place, but no need to rush it as this cycle runs through to December 2020.
So while Jupiter-Neptune says ‘make the dream big and potent and authentic’, Pluto-Saturn says ‘build it solid and real’. First the blue sky dreaming to open up horizons of possibility; then the steady building of solid foundations.
Our old friend Mercury Retrograde (Rx) is back again, providing a great opportunity for regrouping, rethinking and reassessing. He starts out in Sun-ruled, fiery Leo and pops back into Moon-ruled Cancer for a bit, giving us two radically different energies to play with.
Lean on this cycle to rethink aspects of your identity (Sun) if you wish; and also reassess whether you’re content with how your emotional needs (Moon) are being met – and what you might need to do about that, if they’re not.
Do please ignore the usual bad Mercury Rx press you see on social media. But it’s still best to put off buying tech or signing important documents until later in August if you can. And if you can’t wait, be sure to do your due diligence (Mercury loves deep research!) and move ahead with confidence.
I’m not one for doom and gloom around Mercury Rx, but this one has the additional Weird circulating around it, so it’s smart to proceed with a little extra caution.
Along with the rest, we get two eclipses during July: a New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer on 2 July, and a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn two weeks later.
Eclipses are powerful times for working magic and alchemy, which is really good news for conscious creators – especially if there’s anything which has seemed stuck. And, of course, this Eclipse season adds another layer of flux to the mix, which is why July may feel especially unpredictable and unsettling. Hang in there!
For the New Moon in Cancer, put in place new things that will take care of your emotional home ground – new boundaries, new habits designed to improve your wellbeing overall (whether mind, spirit or body), a new relationship with your home. This would be a smart time to check out Confluence contributor Jacqueline Gates and her fabulous Intentional Nesting work.
And then the Full Moon Eclipse in Capricorn will provide support for those new habits and boundaries to become more sustainable and robust.
Imagine you could spend two weeks from New Moon focusing on BE-ing someone who takes just a little more care of herself, or who flows just a little more compassion to herself; and then the following two weeks DO-ing the actions of that woman, to help bring her into everyday life.
The lines will be blurred, since sometimes it’s the behaviour (the actions) which help you BE someone who is a little more self-compassionate. But this cycle supports the sense of internal identity first; then external immersion in that identity. Which is very cool!
And as a final ‘blessing’ for navigating this period, action-man Mars has just moved out of watery Cancer into fiery Leo, bringing a chunk of get-up-and-go to the mix and helping to inspire some feisty perseverance.
As you can see, there’s a lot going on.
If you get the urge for a sudden, radical overhaul of anything please pause, apply loads of due diligence, and proceed with care and attention.
Avoid drastic sudden moves that you might later have to untangle, or that have a permanent effect (no tattoos please!).
Avoid get-rich-quick schemes, instant diet plans or anything else that doesn’t have a solid foundation to support it.
Allow at least 48 hours’ cooling off period before leaping in to anything radically new.
Here are a few strategies to pick up one or more of these various astro influences. Don’t think of this as a ‘to-do’ list you have to complete (yikes!!!!) – think of it as a smorgasbord, from which you get to pick and choose any delicacies which light you up.
- learn a meditation technique which enables you to step back from your thoughts. Mindfulness is a simple yet potent support for the reassessing of very old, un-challenged and unhelpful beliefs
- find ways to loosen up and embrace flexibility – Mercury the trickster never takes things too seriously, so look for ways to dance and play your way through this season of weirdness, either literally or metaphorically (or both!)
- practice gigantic amounts of self-compassion – taskmaster Saturn in the mix can nudge us way too far into perfectionist or self-loathing territory
- write gentle love-letters to your own internal landscape of thought habits – letters of enquiry and investigation-without-judgement. What limiting beliefs might be ready for replacement?
- pick up a gratitude practice and celebrate anything you can find in life that feels good – the flavour of a good coffee, the feel of fresh sheets, the way oxygen flows in when you take a deep breath, access to clean water, the fact that you can read this article online. All worth doing a little wiggle-dance of delight
- if you have habits of thought that seem sticky and resistant to change, consider seeking some specific support with that, whether it’s formal therapy, time with a trusted coach or friend, or my own Vibration Rehab DIY product
- ensure that you include time and space for daydreaming as you focus on what you plan to build next – logical Saturn is GREAT with the step-by-step minutiae of getting a thing done; but useless for figuring out WHAT that thing might be. For that, you’ll want to start by leaning in to the expansive Jupiter energy, i.e. daydreaming without limits (and remember, no leaping without first looking!)
- review my recent suggestions for a Solstice ritual, because those are all designed to help leverage the Cancerian energies – you may find something there you’d like to adapt for this upcoming Eclipse season
- ask ‘am I the star of my own life?’ – and if the answer is ‘no’ (or ‘not yet’), begin gently considering what that life might look like and who that leading lady might be, so you can begin to inhabit that identity
- if you do experience moments of panic, especially in this lead-up to the first Eclipse of the season, recognise that this is partly astrological, partly neurological. Take some slow, deep breaths to reset your brain chemistry from panic to all-is-well. Allow emotions to flow through and out. And then seek out a practical thing to do (a solution, a brisk walk, cleaning out a single shelf in the fridge).
The overarching message here is this: remain calm and carry on.
Allow yourself to dream big, but don’t jump into get-rich-quick or flimsy, unproven schemes. Instead, take the time to build solid foundations, or seek out robust and proven approaches.
Be ready to play and dance.
Be ready for the exposure of limiting beliefs. Even where this might be painful, do the work to process and heal them.
Above all – and this is probably the one thing I’d say we should ALL do – consider the possibility that the weirder things get, the better they will work out.
Because sometimes ‘Weird’ is Universe’s path of least resistance to deliver what you’re seeking.
And if you find yourself really struggling with anything about this period of Weird, it might mean something in the astro patterns is affecting an area of your natal chart which has been ‘stuck’ for a while, or where you haven’t yet put a lot of attention.
If you know how to read your chart, take a look at the exact times listed below, and see if anything there is lighting something up for you.
If you’re not sure how to tell, and you’d like specific information on where and how this will land for you personally, hit me up for a consult and we’ll take a look.
Exact times (US Eastern timezone)
- 16 June 2019 – Jupiter square Neptune (still in play)
- 2 July 2019 at 3:16pm – New Moon Eclipse at 10° Cancer
- 7 July 2019 at 6:10pm – Mercury turns retrograde at 04° Leo
- 16 July 2019 at 5:38pm – Full Moon Eclipse at 24° Capricorn
- 19 July 2019 at 3:06 AM – Mercury Rx re-enters Cancer
- 31 July 2019 – Mercury turns direct at 23° Cancer
- 11 August 2019 at 3:45pm – Mercury re-enters Leo
- 21 September 2019 – Jupiter square Neptune again (the last for 2019)
- 12/13 January 2020 – Pluto conjunct Saturn at 22 deg Capricorn – in effect now until Dec 2020
Janette Dalgliesh has a simple mission in life – to help every person unlock their capacity for resonant joy, and live it. A keen student of astrology, brain science, chaos magic and Law of Attraction, she serves her people through astrology consults, coaching, teaching and writing. You can find Janette via her Facebook, or at her website, Resonant Joy
Confluence Daily is the one place where everything comes together. The one-stop for daily news for women.
