July:

For most of the last month, it was difficult to wind down at night. Gears running on hyperdrive, with the accelerated feeling that summer is coming, tumbling, and about to overflow.

And then early summer makes way for the thick of summer that is never as light and frenetic as the ramp up. Summer is full of a heaviness that sits on the chest and disperses only maybe in the breeze of the night. The heat incurs a sluggishness that challenges the boundary of yourself, so you desire cool water because its freshness provides an edge.

July brings us into a labored negotiation. While it doesn’t hold the most dramatic astrology, it certainly is leading us into some rocky and decisive territory.

One big movement is Mars’ entrance into Taurus on the 5th. This change slows down the linear, fast-paced progress of the past month and brings some of its buzzy energy down to earth. Mars in Taurus can bring a solid drive, plodding forward at all costs, to a sector of your life. It could bring a sense of envy or deep rage, or ignite a fight for possession. Mars in Taurus sometimes is a scorched-earth approach to life and conflict, and can be hyper vigilant to perceived threats. It can be too settled in a version of events and go the extreme in this way. Of course, it can also energize with creativity and sensuality.

A possible moment for catharsis is the Mercury Cazimi on the 17th. On this day, Mercury not only enters the heart of the sun, but also makes a trine to Neptune. This alignment feels luscious, extremely good for poetry and love letters. Part of this moment is also a growing opposition of both Mercury and the Sun to Pluto (exact respectively on the 18th and the 20th). This moment may be filled with confrontations with obsessions and power struggles, even as you keep a spiritual pathway open to your heart.

The Capricorn full moon before this, on the 14, is a release around the themes of self-sufficiency. Here, we must see how we mark the lines between interdependency, codependency, and standing out on your own. This moment could also highlight the structures of care and security you have constructed. Because of various other planetary alignments, this moment could have a big emphasis on your art/aesthetic/romance/relationships, asking you to think about the consequences even as you want to frolic off.

The Sun enters Leo on the 23rd, and we get a Leo new moon at the end of the month on the 29th. This new moon is a seeding of new intentions, resetting a cycle around the stories of your warmth, passion, and desire to express yourself. There is a possibility of upsets in plans, communications, and various details.

Jupiter also stations retrograde on this day, marking a general return to various themes of how you’ve been growing and expanding since the spring time.

July, with its various influences, calls on us to slow down and move in line with our pleasure and emotional truth.

horoscopes

cancer:

This month, you get to engage with the developing action occurring in the world of your friendships and group alignments. You are also getting revelations around yourself, your body and your self-image especially as illuminated in the dynamic of an encounter or relationship.

End of the month ushers in growth in your financial resources and a strength in the feeling of being yourself.

Leo:

Your presence in the world gets a boost, but also some contention. This summer could bring a challenge to how you define this peak of authority in relation to an audience, open confrontation, disapproval, etc.

You are feeling a special tenderness in dreams and in a solitary meditation. By the end of the month, it’s Leo season, and you are ready to jump into the action and show off your moves.

Virgo:

There have been quite a few changes in your life, though I’m curious how it’s developed for you. Perhaps you’ve gotten deeper into a field of study or relate to a sense of displacement and journey in a different way. This month asks you to invest even deeper while being less attached to results.

There is an emphasis on the tenderness and rawness that comes in friendship. As you nurse memories and feelings, you’ll soon bump into the part of you that lives in the shadow. Rejoice in this jolly, grand king version of you that grumbles in the corner but reigns nevertheless.

libra:

You are finding the pain along the lines of separation and abrupt change. I feel for Libra risings especially, these past few years have been especially difficult, excavating familial and housing traumas and now bracing for earthquakes in the space of intimate unions and entanglements, if not debt and death. This month asks you to show up as your bravest self, but also the one least bent on destruction. The one that holds onto the earth like you are both the root and the butterfly.

Included in this month is a debut of your creative web-making, family building in the world. You have a chance for your work to shine. End of the month, you get to enter into the party of friendship - and really let loose in the love that these bonds create for you.

scorpio:

The way you are in relationship with others has been going through drastic changes for the last few years, and July and August add another chapter or new developments to this story. Practice letting loose so the universe does not have to pry it from your fingers, or lest you squish your beloved to death.

Also this month, you may get a chance to travel home (metaphorical home perhaps) or to the sea. End of month, as Leo season begins, you get to show off your flowers and your power.

sagittarius:

Are you feeding your body with the right treatment? Abrupt changes have been going on in different areas around how you organize your own personal care, routines, and general health. Take care of your daily life, as if you are the shepherd and your body the sheep. Make teas meditatively. Count the clouds.

You may find this month bringing up all the entanglements and debt within familial bonds. Fret not, end of the month, you may travel, embark on new studies, and in general feel the you that is plugged into the deeper meaning of life.

capricorn:

Pleasure and romance and creativity as something that you deeply possess and plod after? This has been going through giant chasms of change for the last few years, and the next two months invite you to go deeper and witness where you may be holding on too tight and approaching too directly.

The tenderness in relationships, of wanting to take care and be taken care of, are big themes for most of this month. Once Leo season starts, you occupy the space of the Magician, able to pull favors and move energy around to build a world you want.

aquarius:

Home has been shifting for a while, and in July, new developments occur. You see how fierce you become to defend what’s yours.

You also must tend to the you that needs so deeply to feel useful to others and that must be in tune with the cycles of labor and devotion. But soon, by the end of the month, you will enter new forms of relating. You will see how you shine in conversation, in call-and-response, and in understanding the other even as you feel outside of yourself.

pisces:

How is the writing going? How are the ways you are restructuring your neighborhood and your kin? July asks you to invest even more deeper.

You’re also deep in the process of loving and romancing. Of imagining and giving birth to new worlds. This space will ask you to bridge your own world with the one that is around and wants to be invited in. Once Leo season begins, you begin the work. This is the work where you shine and where you feel meaning being made.

aries:

Many changes have been ongoing in the arena of your possessions, what you feel defines you and gives and creates value. You may relate differently to work and to money. This month you will dig deeper into your attachments and your underlying attitudes around your survival.

Additionally, you will be deep in the nest of family. It may be a cracking open, or one in which you revisit the complicated web of feelings that is associated with these relationships in your life. As Leo season begins, you enter into the world with play and creativity on your mind.

taurus:

You’ve been changing so much. Even as you feel you’ve changed enough, more things come along. July is no different. But this time, it asks you to put in some muscle. You will need to advocate for yourself in a certain way this summer, but do it in a way where you don’t get swept up too much in the feeling, to forget how to execute things.

You’re also spending time with kin, whether with siblings, neighbors, extended families, or close friends. This time may bring up deeper feelings around your attachments and what type of closeness you need. Once Leo season starts, you are finding yourself at home, realigning with the genuine you that needs not put on any airs.

gemini:

This summer, you have a bit of work behind-the-scenes to do. It may be going to therapy, getting lots of rest, or spending time fixing or healing wounds. (No worries, soon enough you will be the center of attention again). This moment may also require you to define carefully what is yours and set up stricter boundaries with yourself. Soon, when Leo season comes around, you’ll be back around town, stirring up lots of action and attending all the functions.