Water, Water, Everywhere

by Steven Forrest

Contemplating the astrological weather for the month of June, three “warm fronts” capture my attention. They all promise rain, at least in the symbolic sense. First, Neptune makes its station in Pisces on June 6th. Planets making stations are always at their strongest. Second, Jupiter enters Cancer toward the end of the month—on the 26th.  Third, Mercury and Venus pave the way for Jupiter’s Cancer ingress, with Mercury arriving in that sign on May 31 and Venus following on June 3rd. So we will have a lot of Cancer steam in the air for the entire month, and it will be getting an assist from Neptune.

Throw in Saturn’s continuing passage through Scorpio, and that’s a lot of Water energy!

The four Elements — Fire, Earth, Air and Water — lie at the foundation of all astrological thought. And they each mean pretty much what anyone would think they mean, provide that person didn’t make straight F’s in poetry. In plain English, Fire is “fiery, Earth is “earthy,” Air is “airy,” and Water — well, let’s think about it! In fact, we will all automatically be doing a lot of thinking about Water over the next few weeks…although “thinking” is probably not the best word to use.

Show a random group of people a photo of a woman with tears running down her cheeks. Ask them what they think is going on. 95% will interpret those tears as a sign of sadness. They think that the woman is weeping because she is feeling sorrow. And that might be true — but why does the bride cry on her wedding day…not to mention the groom? Why does Miss Universe cry when they put the crown on her head? Why do we cry in the movies when the brave hero dies or the lovers finally connect after surmounting terrible adversity? Tears come when emotion reaches a certain threshold inside us. It does not matter what the nature of the emotion is. When we feel that deeply, water — literal water — comes out of our eyes.

Water represents emotion. More broadly, it represents the forces that animate the inner world. Water is the place you go when you close your eyes. Water is the perceptual faculty through which you “know things” …things that come to you from outside the realm of reason. These are typically the most important things in life, by the way. Whom should you love? Who could ever answer that question via logical analysis? In what should you believe? Even this: what color should you paint your living room? Somewhere on the earth is a person whose angels are whispering, “Chartreuse...paint the living room chartreuse...trust us, we’re angels.” That might sound silly, but in fact, the color of your living room emits a significant daily subliminal message. The point here is that an awful lot of the truly pivotal decisions in life have to be made trans-rationally. I could say “irrationally,” but that word carries the ghost of negativity. Water isn’t negative. It is the soul of life. And it is trans-rational.

THE WATER SYMBOLS

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All humanity is now moving into a Watery period. Jupiter’s entry into Cancer opens the big sluice gate, although Mercury and Venus set the stage. Once Jupiter arrives, it will be there for about a year — until mid-July 2014. Neptune will not be done with watery Pisces until 2026, while Saturn remains in watery Scorpio until September 2015. So the Sun, Venus and Mercury are the icing on the cake — much more transitory, but while they are in Cancer, they really underscore this watery flood. Venus exits first, on June 27. But Mercury retrogrades in Cancer from June 26 through July 20, and only enters Leo on August 8th. Of course the Sun will remain in Cancer as usual in June, until July 22nd.

Cancer is the energy of the Great Mother. Its highest expression is kindness and caring. It represents healing energy. These sweet words all refer to the outward behavior of Cancer, at least at its best. It is disposed to behave gently toward others, as a good mother would behave toward her baby. But all positive expressions of Cancer begin with the expression of caring toward ourselves — and that caring begins with simply knowing where we hurt.

Maybe you wake up one morning feeling a little sick. You take your temperature and you realize you have a slight fever. You call into work saying that you’re ill and that you are going to stay in bed and take care of yourself. That’s high Cancer energy. You say one more thing when you call in. You add, “I don’t want to give this bug to anyone.” That’s exactly how the caring for others derives from the foundation of self-care. That is Cancer at its highest, and during this time we are all invited to pay a little more attention to our woundedness, tiredness, and sadness. The aim is not to pity ourselves, but rather to generate self-awareness relative to areas where we are bleeding out life-force, and to correct them. Jupiter’s big question is always, how have I been settling for too little? All of us are invited to attend more effectively to our own self-care. The planet needs it. You need it.

 Meanwhile, Neptune is in Pisces. At their best, these two mystical influences — the planet and the sign it rules — reinforce each other. What emerges is compassion. What about Saturn in Scorpio? Saturn is serious and real, and inclined toward melancholy. Scorpio deals with everything in an emotionally authentic, unvarnished way. Thus, Saturn in Scorpio represents a realistic, grounded appraisal of our limits and of life’s more exhausting and dispiriting dimensions. Mixed with Neptune’s energy, this combination spells sweet sorrow. Sometimes people need a good cry. Add the Cancerian pieces, and we have a formula for compassionate, healing engagement with our own hurt — and to the extent that we can succeed at that first step, an urge arises toward compassionate, healing engagement with the hurts of others.

Doesn’t this seem timely? Isn’t this what the world needs now? Isn’t this what you need now? As ever, astrology illuminates the path — and, as ever, we need to follow it ourselves.

– Steven Forrest

NEW AUDIO RELEASE

Reaching the Client Workshop

Learn the art of counseling the client in this new release. In this complete workshop presentation, you’ll learn how to build rapport and connect with the client by using their birth chart to understand their core values and motivations. Includes descriptions of Sun, Moon and Ascendant through each of the 12 signs.

In this presentation, Steven introduces a detailed, chart-specific, and effective method for navigating the emotional and interpersonal dimensions of the astrological counseling session.

Learn how to strategically plan an astrological consultation. Learn how to come up with carefully tailored metaphors that quickly invoke the spirit of the chart. How do you deal with the guarded, boundaried client? How do you deal with the too-talkative one? When do you push – and when do you hold back? All these topics and more are explored as well as a full exploration of the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant. 

Created in March 2011. mp3 format. 9 hours. On sale for $39 through June 30.
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The Book of the Moon eBook Release!

The Book of the Moon: Discovering Astrology’s Lost Dimension

The Book of the Moon is now available in ebook format, and a perfect fit for this month’s deluge of the Water element. You can now enjoy this wonderful turn through some of the less celebrated components of moon theory including the out of bounds moon and the lunation cycle.

Steven also presents the powerful but little used tools: the Out of Bounds Moon, lunar speed, and lunar parallax. You’ll find rare descriptions of the progressed lunation cycle, planetary phase angles and nodal phase. Discover the soul of the moon in this lucid explanation of the Moon’s place in modern humanistic astrological counseling.

eBook price $9.99
Get the Kindle Edition | Nook Edition | Kobo Edition | iBooks Edition

This month’s artwork by Manu Jobst of Kunstfabrik.