Astrology of the Summer Solstice — June 21, 2022
The Summer Solstice is a major astrological and cultural event each year, so let’s take a closer look at the astrology chart for the 2022 summer solstice, cast for the moment of exactness on June 21, 2022, at 5:14am on the United States’ East Coast.
I’ll be exploring the energy of planets in their placements, clusters of planets and their aspects, and then I’ll look at an overall signature of the chart. (Since this is a global event, the houses are not relevant for this analysis.)
In the end, neither human life nor consciousness are composed of isolated incidents; it’s a holistic experience in its entirety, and at every level the individual and the greater whole are both one, as one. As above, so below…
Analysis: A Solar Event
The summer solstice is a solar event, so in my analysis, I’ll start with the sun. Located at the crossroads of Gemini and Cancer, this transition is experienced as the one day of most light out of the entire year in the northern hemisphere, and the one day of most darkness out of the entire year in the southern hemisphere.
This transition moves from the sign of ‘mind distributed into space’ — Gemini — to the sign of ‘self-leadership through faith’ — Cancer.
This transition marks the first of four 90° squares over one entire orbit, and while each 90° square represents a fundamental change in direction, this first square represents the need to take action to expand into greater trust in the bigger processes of growth.
This transition opens the largest capacity for faith and trust in the whole cycle, and since it’s the first square, it’s also the one with largest amount of both space and time for development over the rest of the cycle.
Faith in New Beginnings:
The planet at the beginning of the cycle at just over three degrees of Aries, is the moon: at three degrees of Aries, four minutes, and 46 seconds. It’s 46 seconds through the 4th minute, meaning that the moon is in the 5th minute of the 4th degree of Aries.
This is technically important.
Mathematically, the 5th minute is 1/12 of the way through the 4th degree of Aries. Since there are twelve archetypes in the zodiac, and Aries is the first one, 1/12 refers to the Aries archetype, so even at the granular level that exists within degrees, there is Aries energy present, emphasizing a ‘Will to Exist’.
Every 3rd degree symbol has an element of synthesis and concentration, and every 4th degree symbol represents a stage where that synthesis has formalized and multiplied to become a technique or method.
The Moon is at a point of growth and development that represents moving forward with the synthesis that has been arrived at, and in the earliest stages of expanding it into a bigger and broader technique or method for doing whatever the archetypal behavior of its zodiacal placement (Aries) is.
Whatever zodiac, down to the individual degree, is behind any planet as it traipses across the sky, infusing that planet with energy. This is part of the magic of the zodiac, but I digress…
Because the moon is in the first few degrees of Aries, the beginning of the greater cycle of the zodiac, it represents a profound demonstration of “a new beginning becoming in being”.
Additionally, since the moon is in the 4th quarter square phase to the sun, the two luminaries (sun and moon) are illuminating new powers in the Consciousness of Light for its new direction.
Our new moon is moving out of a wide sextile (65°) to Pluto that’s in retrograde, moving back over the United States’ natal Pluto position. For me, this helps have a bigger context of understanding for the current political upheaval and general social restructuring around the world, since the Pluto archetype represents an “alchemical mulching” analogous to the Phoenix’s process of rebirth through self-combustion.
The moon is between Neptune and Jupiter and in the same sign as Jupiter, Chiron and Mars, all of which are in Aries, except Neptune, which is still in Pisces, its home sign.
This is such an interesting collection of planets for a general signature of a young yet magical, almost otherworldly character — an old soul being born out of our collective hearts and minds.
There’s a change in the fundamental relationship we have with our own abilities to move forward in the world. And yet the call is to have unending faith in your capacity to connect with the desires of your own heart and the calls that emanate from your own spirit — a call from spirit, through spirit, to all spirit.
This is the voice of a highest truth in dialogue with you, not a talking-headed television in monologue at you.
All of this is happening in support of a new beginning being born out of this time of intense change.
IT’S A BOWL!
An important quality of the ‘bigger picture’ of this chart is that it’s a bowl pattern. The center point, the midpoint, of any bowl pattern represents a balance point that can help anchor you to the center at ‘the eye of the storm’.
The bowl is edged by the Sun and Pluto: the Sun in the front, and Pluto in retrograde at the back. The span is 182° and growing in both directions since the front edge (sun) is moving forward and the back edge (Pluto retrograde) is seemingly moving backwards.
182° is 2° more than a full half-cycle. The symbolism of this spread suggests that a complete individual experience is at the beginning stages of expanding into a broader collective experience.
The midpoint of the bowl is the 29th degree of Pisces. This further emphasizes the stage of transition we are presently in, moving from the past to the future. It implies support for resting into perpetuating values that hold validity across broad time horizons. The heart knows these perpetuating and enduring values much better than the mind does, so it’s a good idea for the head to defer to the wisdom of the heart.
Symbology:
The Sabian symbol for the 29th degree of Pisces reads: light breaking into many colors through a prism.
The keynote of this degree is: “the analytical power of the mind necessary for the formulation of life processes in their many aspects.”
What’s implied here is that we must use our minds to make choices that align with our future, rather than our past. We must formulate life processes into their many aspects and discern and differentiate.
What the symbol tells us is that “unity will always break again into multiplicity.” That, “The prism is always there; there is no absolute unity.” If anything could be called, “absolute” it is the relationship between the one and the many.
Synthesis:
This chart is calculated for the summer solstice, which is a transition point in the yearly cycle. The implication for this chart is much broader than a lunar cycle event — it represents a phase that happens over the whole year and refers to the solar energy (not lunar energy), so I’d expect the manifestation of the energy in this chart to be more visible in the world.
As the sun crosses over the threshold at the solstice and transitions into the first degree of cancer, there is an instantaneous and fundamental reorientation process being initiated that may stabilize the energy for the next several lunar cycles (into the fall).
The cluster of planets (and points) in Taurus and Gemini — Uranus, the North Node, Venus, and Mercury support grounding into the values that are held in the mind. The social mind is in the process of integrating the use of new powers by awakening to understandings that reveal abuses of power and could lead to revolts against privilege.
Metaphorically, consciousness must learn that swords and torches are both significant and effective tools, available to be used for constructive and destructive ends, and that every tool imports its own technical mastery.
Mastery of technique anchors our deeper awareness into the eternal now, where there is no escape except into the readiness of the heart to be present to all issues as if there were only two opposing sides. Fighting upstream and flowing downstream (past and future) are different strategies with different demands on the swimming itself.
Mercury is highlighting how the ambitious swimmer gathers feedback from the transformational powers between mind and matter. A fundamental trust in and cooperation with life can get taken advantage of by the ambitious and this violation can incite a revolt against the privileges the ambitious have enriched themselves with.
The opportunity of the individualized transcended sovereign human is the complete transmutation of life into love and the letting go of all situational chaos that diffuses flow energy and turn downstream into the overwhelming power of the greatest context that is born out of complete synthesis of the creative potential of organic rhythm.
Those of us who can clear our energy bodies and trust in the still silent voices of a higher power will be the ones who build the new world by noticing and responding, rather than merely reacting to the injustices perpetrated over generations.
The Call of the individual at every level is not to pitchforks, but to allow yourself to move and be moved, responding as one-within-one, with uncuffed and unleashed equanimity.
Happy Summer Solstice!
