July: Eclipsed, Bewildered and Bewitched

Hello, I'm an astrologer, my name is Mandi


I have just this minute set up this new blog!


I have lots of cool content on my website at http://www.mandilockley.com/ & will from now on post all my astro-rambles on here as well.


Here's my piece about astrology for July - an eclipse month - enjoy!


July is Eclipse season, bringing with it some powerful energies. This blog is my astrological and personal take on what these energies symbolise and how they might be worked with at this special time. I hope you enjoy it.


July sees two Eclipses, a Lunar Eclipse on 7th July and a Solar Eclipse on 22nd July. An Eclipse is a special kind of New Moon or Full Moon, occurring when the Earth, Sun and Moon align. During a Lunar Eclipse, the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, temporarily blocking the reflected light of the Moon and during a Solar Eclipse, the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, blocking out the light of the Sun. Eclipses are most dramatic events to observe, as those lucky enough to have witnessed a Total Eclipse of the Sun or watched on a clear night as the Moon disappeared behind the shadow of the Earth will verify. However, you do not need to directly experience an eclipse for its symbolism to reflect in your personal experiences. The old adage as above, so below, stands firm.


That said it is very difficult to predict exactly what will happen when an eclipse touches your personal astrological chart. Their effects are sometimes exciting, sometimes stressful, often passing by without having any sort of obvious effect at the time, only to manifest as an event some weeks later. In most general terms though, eclipses represent endings, times when the light goes out and something is taken away, creating a space for something new to germinate safely in the temporary darkness.

Looking at the two eclipses for July, rather than try to make predictions about what they might mean for a particular birth sign, I will focus more generally on what energies are passing out and ending, what each eclipse brings in terms of its energies and how we might positively and consciously work with them.


The first Eclipse of the season is a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on 7th July. The Moon, at 15 degrees of Capricorn opposes the Sun in Cancer. During a regular Full Moon, the Moon is at her brightest and under her light we can’t hide, truths are exposed, but during a lunar eclipse her light is blocked by our very own ‘mother-ship’, the Earth, so lady Luna is cast into shadow. But what can this mean?

In my blog of 31st May, June Astrology: Scandals, Healing & The Power of the Feminine http://www.mandilockley.com/monthly%20astrologya.html I discussed the energies symbolised by the Summer Solstice, the need to find a powerful, fresh perspective and respect for feminine values and described how so many of us have lately felt the need to take a break from our path to rest, recuperate and heal. Now, however, during this Eclipse, the masculine, yang energies, symbolised by the practical, down to earth Capricorn Moon are coming in, pushing us back into the world of ambition, progress and action.What should we do? Leave our cosy, comfortable places and jump back in there? Well, yes and no.



Yes, because we must now leave our protective nests and no, because as we venture out once again we must hold within us the energies of the soft, yielding, receptive, nurturing spaces we have created during our retreat. This is important, because we will surely face the shadow sides of both Cancer and Capricorn and must approach them with compassion.

The shadow side of Cancer is needy, over-protective and emotionally manipulative. Nothing new can be learnt from this position. Rather, the emotions become stagnant and turn in on themselves, with ever diminishing returns. The shadow side of Capricorn is rigid, over-structured and cold. Making progress in the so-called ‘real’ world is the only thing that matters, integrity and taking responsibility for our actions go out of the window.


In the shadow side of both signs, the world is a harsh, difficult, dangerous place. In this expression of the two signs, the energies can’t flow naturally, they are blocked and squashed and transmuted into something which can harm rather than heal and we are locked in a compulsive pattern of doing what we feel we need to do in order to ‘survive’.


During this time, we should seek to express the higher expressions of both signs and thus find a space where we feel truly safe because we have already been through the dark and we are no longer afraid. It is a space where we can nurture ourselves and others, where the healing waters of our emotions run crystal clear and where we are willing to serve with integrity and discipline and administrate progress through responsible action and the right use of our emotional and material resources. In essence, Cancer and Capricorn really are two expressions of the same energies, constantly flowing towards and away from balance, an eternal dance of opposition and harmony.

By holding and grounding these energies in balance, we can each, in our way, create a vessel to positively carry forward the current planetary energies, energies which seem to be prompting us ever more urgently to move towards a world of equality, fairness, responsible individual freedom, cooperation and community.


The second eclipse of July is a New Moon Solar Eclipse. This Eclipse is set to be a powerful one for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is the second of two Cancer New Moons this year, an unusual event, the first being the Cancer New Moon of 22nd June, at the Solstice.The second reason is that this Eclipse takes place in the very last degree of the sign of Cancer. The last degree of any sign is known as the critical degree and any astrological alignment at one of these degrees feels urgent and incredibly intense.


In Cancer, the intensity of this eclipse will revolve around the urgent addressing of imbalances between the masculine and the feminine energies, between home and family life and work and material concerns and between our own very personal inner work and our busy outer lives. It is in following the energy of these themes that we will continue the work we began at the Solstice in June and grounded at the Lunar Eclipse of 7th July.


This Solar Eclipse, then, will mark a time to move forward with those energies and themes and begin to manifest a balance of polarities out in the conscious world. If you plant such seeds at this Solar Eclipse, fearlessly, in the darkness, they will most surely grow into the light, flower and bear fruit. As ever, follow your own truth and trust your intuition to guide your next move.


In Predictive Astrology, The Eagle and the Lark, Bernadette Brady describes how each Solar Eclipse belongs to a particular family of Eclipses, known as a Saros Series, which produce an eclipse once every 18 years. The themes of the Saros Series to which the 22nd July 2009 Eclipse belongs are described by Brady as follows: “This family of eclipses is concerned with the need to make sudden reforms. Old ideas or methods will fail and new systems are required”.


This is very telling when considered against the current world economic and social climate, especially when we remind ourselves that while the series of Saturn-Uranus oppositions which began in 2008 are in abatement, they are by no means over, with the third of five exact oppositions coming in September.


Saturn opposite Uranus is a wake-up call measurement, powerfully symbolising the need to end the old ways of doing things, inevitably disrupting the status quo to make way for new, fair, inclusive values by which to run our individual lives and structure our world, values which will take us boldly into the Age of Aquarius. Remembering that the first Saturn-Uranus conjunction of this series coincided exactly with the election of Barack Obama provides some clue to the energies of this measurement.Until September though, there remains, as reflected by the ongoing Jupiter-Neptune-Chiron conjunction, a wonderful opportunity for all gentle souls, poets, spiritual seekers, visionaries and teachers to re-group and heal and in so doing to process, hold, ground, balance and express the intense energies of this July’s Eclipses.


May your dance be a merry one.

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