Transcript:
035 | A Second Cancer New Moon, and Savoring the Sun in Leo
July 20, 2020
Jen: Welcome to the Big Sky Astrology podcast, with April Elliott Kent and me, producer and cohost Jen Braun. Hey friends, Jen here. Today is July 20th, 2020. And here with me, as always, is someone who – we could say – it’s funny how good she is at astrology. My friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent. Hi April!
April: Greetings, Jen!
Jen: Hey April, grasshopper walks into a bar. Bartender says, “We have a drink named after you.” Grasshopper says, “Really? You have a drink named Steve?”
April: Hey Jen.
Jen: Yes?
April: I ordered a chicken and an egg on Amazon… I’ll let you know.
April: We are, as you can tell, very excited this week, because July 24th is “Tell An Old Joke Day.” And we are embracing that.
Jen: What did one snowman say to the other?
April: I don’t know.
Jen: I smell carrots!
April: That’s kooky. This is relevant to our interests, Jen. A slice of apple pie is $2.50 in Jamaica, and $3 in the Bahamas. These are the “pie rates” of the Caribbean.
Jen: What did zero say to eight?
April: I like your belt!
Jen: Yes!
April: You told me that one…
Jen: I did tell you that?
April: You told me that one a long time ago.
Jen: And you remembered. Very good!
April: If you see a robbery at an Apple store, does that make you an… iWitness?
Jen: I just want to point out that April is actually reading all her jokes, and mine are just in my head.
April: That’s right. Because you’re a fan of jokes. You are a wit, a jokester and a prankster, my friend. So we will celebrate you on July 24th.
Jen: That sounds very mercurial.
April: It is very mercurial. You have a strong Mercury.
Jen: I do.
April: So there we are. And today, as we are releasing this episode, it is National Moon Day.
Jen: The Moon!
April: Well, I’m just wondering if they always do that on a Monday.
Jen: On a Moon-day. Good question!
April: Or if it’s a movable feast, in other words.
Jen: That’s a fair question. It should always be on a Moon-day.
April: It should be. Shouldn’t it? Now, what else is new this week? Or should we just go straight to Tiny Houses?
Jen: My Virgo planets do enjoy tiny houses… when you see them on TV shows and they’re just very neatly ordered. I do enjoy that.
April: Very much. They are very Virgo. I think that every time I look at them.
Jen: It’s pleasing to my Virgo eye.
April: Yes. With the cunning storage, it’s really, really interesting. I’ve been telling Jen for a couple of weeks that we’ve been absolutely obsessed around here with watching tiny houses on YouTube. There’s a channel called “Big Lives in a Tiny House.” Or “Living Big in a Tiny House” or something.
Jen: Yeah.
April: This person clearly is not going to want to be our imaginary sponsor. Because I can’t even get the name of his show right. But it is about these tiny houses. And I know without a doubt, there’s no way I can live in a tiny house. I’ve got a Sag ascendant… you are not going to shoehorn me into a tiny house on a regular basis. But I’m so charmed and intrigued by them. And I’ve been wanting to build one in the backyard for an office.
Jen: That would great.
April: It would. I’m thinking of an airstream or, and we’ve been watching them as time goes on, they get more and more miniature and small and they’re towing them along behind their car. Just like a very tiny U-Haul trailer… the size of that and I’m thinking, “Well, why don’t you just use a camper?”
Jen: Yes. Right.
April: Isn’t that a tiny house? Why do we have to get so inventive and complicated about this?
Jen: Maybe they like to make it; do the creation and all of that…
April: I think they do.
Jen: …build it with their hands.
April: And they do interesting things. There’s a lot of interesting woodwork that goes on in them and they’re very intriguing.
Jen: They are intriguing.
April: That’s how I’ve been spending my television viewing hours. What are you watching these days?
Jen: Well, I told you, I just finished watching “The Mandalorian” on Disney Plus. Welcome new imaginary sponsor, Disney!
April: Disney Plus! It’s true! We haven’t given them a chance at an imaginary sponsorship before now. So, welcome Disney Plus! And this is, you had to explain to me because I was clueless, but…
Jen: Well, there’s the original Star Wars trilogy, and this show happens five years after that. It was a really good series. I’m quite pleased that I watched it.
April: Oh excellent. There you go. So now you’re all up to date on what April and Jen are watching. And that’s important because the people want to know.
Jen: And you have a few new jokes.
April: And you have some jokes.
Jen: Hey April…
April: Yes, Jen?
Jen: Why did the pilgrims’ pants always fall down?
April: Why Jen?
Jen: Because they wore their belts on their hats!
April: What’s with the belts on the hat? I do want to know. Is it to adjust them or something? I never really thought about it before, but it is a little bit kooky. So, there you are.
Well, we started last week, we had a sort of a light week and we caught everybody up on the Sun making the opposition to the big Saturn/Pluto point and all of that. And we had a very different Moonwatch segment last week because we didn’t have one of the major four lunations that we normally talk about. So we took that opportunity to tell people about the eight lunar phases.
Jen: And if you haven’t seen April’s artwork for that particular episode, go to bigskyastropod.com because she does artwork for each episode. And it was called “The Eight Lunar Phases: Have Them With A Salad.”
Jen: Because of Balsamic. But out of each lunar phase, she turned the moon into a tomato.
April: Oh. And I felt so pleased with that little artistic innovation.
Jen: That was so awesome.
April: I have to admit, I did like that one. And in case people are not on my mailing list, if you join my mailing list at bigskyastrology.com/subscribe, you will get an automated response and it will include a link for a little mini-email-tutorial that I just put out last week on the lunar phases. It goes into a little more detail than we did on the podcast episode about each lunar phase, and what are the best things to be doing during that time of the month. So go ahead and sign up there. And if you’re already signed up, you’ll find it in the mailing that was sent out last Monday. So you can go and read more about the lunar phases.
Jen: And I am going to say – because we have a lot of new listeners over the last month or so – that April does all her own artwork. And so if you’re not following her on Instagram or Facebook, or… do you do much on Twitter, April?
April: No.
Jen: Okay. Instagram or Facebook, she’s @bigskyastrology and you can see all of the artwork and it’s really beautiful and sometimes amusing.
April: Thank you, Jen. I very much appreciate that.
Jen: Because people might not know that you’re on these platforms…
April: They might not.
Jen: …posting regularly.
April: Doing artistic things. So thank you.
Jen: Of course.
April: I think that’s a sign. But this week we are back to pretty much our usual…
Jen: Moonwatch!
April: …Moonwatch! Play it, Jen!
Jen: So what can you tell us about this New Moon, April?
April: Well, this week we have the second of two consecutive New Moons in the sign of Cancer, which sounds a little bit like, “Ooh, that must be very rare.” It’s really not.
Jen: Okay.
April: You can assume if you have a New Moon at 0° or 1° of a sign, as we did back on June 20th or 21st, that you’re going to get another New Moon 28 days later. You’re probably going to get a second one in the same sign.
Jen: Right.
April: This New Moon happens on July 20th at 10:33 AM Pacific time on the Sabian symbol, “A Storm In A Canyon.” Which is a symbol that to me gives an image of a powerful release, especially of emotion, because we associate Cancer with emotion, feeling, intuition.
Jen: That makes sense.
April: The New Moon point at 28° of Cancer and 26 minutes is in a very tight opposition aspect to Saturn 180° away. And that means they’re sitting diametrically opposed on the horoscopic wheel. What that tells us is: It’s not just a New Moon – which is always the time in the lunar cycle about new beginnings, planting new seeds, coming up with a plan for the next 28 days, and to some extent for the next 12 months with regard to that sign that the New Moon is in – but it also talks about this opposition of the Sun and the Moon with Saturn… which is happening almost simultaneously, just like five hours after the New Moon, the symbol exactly opposed Saturn.
Jen: Right. It’s a really tight opposition.
April: It’s also still separating from the opposition to Jupiter and Pluto, which we talked about last week.
Jen: Yes.
April: This is a point that Saturn was at about March 6th, which was just before the pandemic close-downs were beginning to happen. I found when I was doing a lot of what we call electional astrology, which is when you choose or elect favorable days to do things… and it has its own set of rules and planetary priorities, and I did a lot of this for weddings – that was my specialty for a long time, please don’t ask me to do it now, I don’t it anymore – but, what I did find from doing a lot of research about that was that the Sun’s opposition to Saturn was one of the most difficult aspects you could have in a chart where something is beginning. Because Saturn suppresses the energy that’s trying to grow. So in this case, energy, courage – because we’re talking about the Sun in opposition to Saturn – energy, courage and confidence are stifled because of the Sun’s opposition to Saturn.
Jen: Yes. Because Saturn’s about limits and boundaries.
April: Right.
Jen: The ancients used to be able to see Saturn with the naked eye. And they thought that was the end of the universe. And then if we found out that it had rings around it… more boundaries, more limits… and so that’s really what Saturn represents.
April: Yes. It’s a tempering planet rather than an encouraging one. The Sun is more about expression, putting things out there, life, the life force, the life spirit. So having it come into opposition with its ancient enemy, Saturn – which as you said, is the opposite of that – the Sun is where things began, we might say in a sense. And Saturn’s where they end, as far as ancient astrologers knew.
Jen: Exactly.
April: New Moons are normally the times, as I said, that we start new things. But whatever we initiate under a Sun/Saturn opposition has a very hard time flourishing. So we can say if, at this New Moon, you have been thinking, “Yes, this is the time that I’m going to launch out with my plans to start a business, go to grad school, get married…” whatever it might be that you’re thinking of doing… maybe not so much with this one. Maybe let the Sun get past this opposition with Saturn and then see how you can move forward from there.
Jen: And how much past would you say people should wait if they are thinking of launching something on that day?
April: I think maybe the New Moon in Leo on August 18th is looking a little more… I haven’t looked at the full chart of that, but I know the Sun won’t be connecting with Saturn in the same way then… so that might be a little bit better New Moon for initiating things.
Jen: Okay.
April: But it makes sense. This is the second New Moon in the same sign. The first was at the beginning of the sign. This one’s at the end of the sign. And it’s a better cycle, I think the next 28 days, for finishing some things up. And I know that we’ve been saying that a lot over the last couple of months, but it has been a little bit of a finishing time and also a reexamination time. We talked about it last week with the Sun opposed the Saturn/Pluto conjunction point.
Jen: Right.
April: This one has, as I said, the Sun and the Moon opposed Saturn. And you caught another aspect in there. Was it a Mars aspect?
Jen: I noted that Mars will be squaring the July 4th eclipse point a couple of days later. So it’s not quite exact on this chart, but I know that around the 22nd of July, Mars will be squaring that July 4th eclipse point, which was at 13°38’ Capricorn.
April: Right. And as we spoke about on one of the episodes that had to do with eclipses – and we were talking about when you begin to really see the effects of the eclipse – and we were talking about looking at the faster moving transits. So this is one of those moments. Because when you start having faster moving transits that are making a strong aspect – a conjunction, a square or an opposition – to the eclipse point, you will usually begin to see some concrete manifestation of the energy of that eclipse. And that was a surprisingly difficult eclipse, I thought. And it did have a tough chart associated with it. I think it opened some cans of worms and especially in relationships, because as I always have said, lunar eclipses have a lot to say about relationships. This is a time of coming to an even deeper understanding, perhaps, of the things that we were looking at at that eclipse.
Jen: Okay.
April: And maybe this is a 28-day cycle for resolving some of those things. And that is what I would say about that New Moon. Did you have any other thoughts about it?
Jen: I know that Mercury stationed at 14 degrees right before the solstice eclipse; I know Mercury will be going over that point this week. And so storylines will be continuing from the solstice eclipse because that was the first New Moon in Cancer. This is the second New Moon in Cancer. Plus Mercury is now making his way back over that same patch that he was at around that time.
April: Oh, okay. So you’re not referring to the eclipse point, which was zero degrees Cancer? You’re talking about where Mercury was around that time?
Jen: Yes. But I guess I’m also saying – because we had our first New Moon in Cancer and this is the second New Moon in Cancer – that some storylines may be continuing.
April: Sure. Absolutely.
Jen: Okay.
April: Yes. And they are eclipse-oriented for a couple of different reasons. And you pointed out good ones with the Mercury connections and Mars.
Jen: Yes.
April: So all we can say folks is, good luck with all that.
Jen: Oh boy.
April: Because, it really is a very dramatic kind of New Moon. I mean, there is energy to it and there is optimism in a way – and courage – to tackle some things. And that’s positive because we came out of that long period of three eclipses in a row… and a whole lot of stuff got stirred up. So I think this is where it’s like: Wow, you’ve eaten this huge meal. And now we’re to the digestion point of saying, “Okay, how are we going to incorporate all of that energy into our lives going forward?”
Jen: Do you have any suggestions for people about how to deal with some of this energy?
April: I think one thing that came to mind for me right away is: Don’t give up. And that is a common reaction to an opposition to or from Saturn. Saturn wants to stop us in our tracks. And we told that a couple of episodes ago… a couple of stories about perseverance and persistence, which is something we associate with Saturn. Sometimes what feels like Saturn just being perverse and trying to stop us in our tracks just out of meanness is not bad. It’s more about, “Well, are you really ready to do that? Do you have the infrastructure in place? If you’re starting a business, do you have the money? Do you have a business plan? Have you really done your research about your audience and all of that?”
Jen: Okay.
April: That’s how I read this one, is to say, it’s not that you can’t do something you’ve been thinking about doing, it’s that, I think this New Moon opposed Saturn says: You’re just not quite ready yet on a practical level when it comes to relationships and things like that. It might be that, oh, we decide that we want to move forward and say, for instance, you decide to get engaged or something like that… or you did during the eclipses. So Saturn might say, “Well, it’s not that you can’t do that. But maybe this is not exactly the right moment.” Or it can be, “We want to do a renovation on our house.” Well, Saturn is kind of about the structures we build. And if it’s an opposition to the Sun – the heart of the project – maybe it’s not the best time you can do it, but it’s going to be harder. And just know it’s going to be harder.
Jen: So maybe you are looking at shoring up plans in a healthy way, whatever that might be?
April: Yes. Planning instead of initiating the building, the action, the permanent action, is probably the better way to go at this New Moon.
Jen: Alright.
April: Also this week, a couple of days later, the Sun will enter Leo.
Jen: Leo!
April: Leo! Leo has to have a little fanfare. Leo is all about the razzle dazzle.
Jen: Leo, yes. And you happen to be a Leo, my friend April.
April: Yes. So when we say “I am a Leo,” all we mean is I was born at the time of year that the Sun appeared to me moving through constellation of Leo.
Jen: Yes.
April: The Sun interestingly on July 22nd at 1:37 AM Pacific Time… it will be in the sign of its rulership, which means it’s extremely strong in this sign. The Sun does its very best work most naturally in Leo, because they’re both kind of about the same things. They’re about the heart, the core of the person, about the engine that runs your life. And Leo is about very similar things. It’s about self-expression and liveliness, creative play, interactions with children. The way I like to sum up Leo is: It’s about heart-opening experiences and people. We consider Leo very much associated with children because they do bring such joy, hopefully. Except when they don’t. Except when the Sun is opposed Saturn, I guess.
Jen: Yes.
April: But Leo is about the child in all of us… as the part of us that wants to play and do things in an unstructured way. So it’s a time of year for that. If you think here in the United States, this is summertime, this is the heart of the summer when the Sun is in Leo. And all of the things that – if we go back in our minds and we think of being children at the time that we grew up, at least here in the United States – I know you and I have shared some of these memories of days of endless play and swimming in the pool and going to the public pool or eating ice cream with our siblings. And just hours with nothing really to do. I like the idea of how boredom really is helpful to creativity. It’s good to have the long boring days of summer. You’ve emptied yourself out and you’re like, “Okay, now I’m getting a little restless. What can I do that would be fun?” And that is what Leo time is about. The main question is, “What can I do during the season of the year that will bring me joy? That will open my heart? That will reenergize me?” The word recreation. If we break it down, it’s “Re – Creation.”
Jen: Right.
April: We’re renewing our creativity. And that is a great thing to be doing this time of year. Often kids are off of school. A lot of people take time off work and have vacations. Now, at the moment of course, we’re in a very unique environment. And doing the normal things that we think of during summer and for recreation, aren’t necessarily things that all of us want to be doing.
Jen: There is a pandemic happening. If anyone’s ever listening to this podcast five years in the future and wondering what was going on.
April: So we have to think of different ways to connect with this creative Leo spirit. I talk to a lot of clients who are trying to find ways of reintroducing creativity into their lives.
Jen: Interesting.
April: We spend a lot of time talking about things like hobbies. Which… do you have any hobbies? I have no hobbies. All my hobbies turned into businesses. So I’m hobby-less.
Jen: My hobby was astrology.
April: And see, you’ve done the same thing. You’ve kind of turned it into a more professional experience.
Jen: My wife loves to do art projects and make cards. And she does some coloring. She’s very creative.
April: I liked that trend a few years ago of adult coloring books.
Jen: Yes.
April: And they weren’t, like, necessarily the Kama Sutra. They weren’t adult in that regard. But they were, yes…
Jen: Thank you for clarifying.
April: Sure. I just thought I would try to just skirt to the edge of that explicit rating without really going over the…
Jen: Diving into it…
April: Right. But I think to myself sometimes, “Well, what is a hobby that I would want to have?” But I used to do needlework and that kind of stuff.
Jen: You don’t do that anymore?
April: No. I don’t do that anymore. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, just after my second Saturn return. And we don’t have great light in the room where I spend that time of the evening that I might have a little time to do those kinds of hobbies.
Think of a hobby. Think of it as a Leo-creative pursuit… as the thing that if you wake up in the morning and you think “Today, I get to do that!” Then you’ve keyed into Leo, you’ve keyed into the Sun, into the creative part of who you are. And the things that you can do and just do them for hours and hours and get lost in it. And then you look up at the clock, you’re like, “Oh my goodness, it’s been six hours that I’ve been doing this.”
Jen: Yes.
April: So that is what I think of Leo.
Jen: So something that you can get a little flow going?
April: Yes. The creative flow, the grateful flow, the flow of gratitude…
Jen: When you lose time.
April: Yes. Of being here. That’s the beautiful thing about the Sun generally. And as it goes through the chart over the course of the year, we see places to find joy because that’s the Sun’s job. “How can I be more joyful?” And when it’s going through Leo, it’s the kind of things that you would think would be joyful. Gathering with loved ones, playing, enjoying a good movie on Netflix… Welcome imaginary sponsor, Netflix. Back to the fold.
Jen: The idea of savoring. I was in a class over the weekend, and it was about the science of a meaningful life. And one thing that he talked about was this idea of savoring. That we’re so busy trying to get to where we want to go… to get to where our goal is… that sometimes we lose sight of taking the moment to just pause and notice where you are, and sort of savor where you are with whatever patch of your life you’re looking at in terms of this.
April: Yes. Interesting.
Jen: I think that’s something that often gets overlooked.
April: It really does. We’re very goal-oriented, at least in our society.
Jen: In the United States, at least.
April: Yes. I know it is very different in different parts of the world. And those are the societies we always look at with some respect and some envy and say, “Well, how do you have so much time to travel?” And it’s good to have that pause.
Jen: I used to live in Spain. They actually do take a siesta. Shops would close and people were taking that mid-afternoon break.
April: Yes. It is the pause that refreshes.
Jen: Yes.
April: So, that is Sun in Leo this week.
Jen: Very nice.
April: We also have one final aspect we wanted to talk about today, which is the Mercury sextile Uranus aspect on July 22nd. That’s at 1:25 PM Pacific time. And this repeats an aspect that was made between those two planets on June 5th. And then again, when Mercury was retrograde on June 30th.
Jen: Okay. Yes.
April: Those are your touchstones in time to go back to and think, “Okay, what was happening? Was there a project that I was thinking about or a communication or negotiation I was trying to get through with someone?” It’s an aspect that’s really about inspired thinking and intellectual breakthroughs. I always think of Mercury with Uranus – and sextile has so much of that kind of spirit as well – of two things that are kind of just enough unlike each other to spark interest, but not so far apart that they can’t understand each other at all.
This, along with the Sun going into Leo on the same day, is an aspect that speaks of dynamic self-expression. And it has a performative kind of aspect to it as well.
Jen: Because of the Uranus connection?
April: Yes. I like the two Sabian symbols of this aspect. Mercury Is on “A Clown Making Grimaces,” which I like. You can picture him looking in the mirror and trying out all his different faces and things. And I think that is the dynamic part of this, the performative part of this. And Uranus is on the Sabian symbol for 11 Taurus, which is “A Red Cross Nurse.” So there is, of course, the spirit of healing and of service, but also the neutrality that we associate with the Red Cross.
So it is this week about looking back at June 5th, June 30th, couple of days, either side of those… about breakthroughs in communication and in ideas and thinking… about expressing yourself in a really fun, dynamic, stimulating kind of a way… and finding the stance with other people that is a little more neutral and a little more healing.
Jen: Very good.
April: What do you think of that?
Jen: I like it. I was picturing the Red Cross nurse working on the clown. In my mind, that was the picture.
April: Oh, what had happened to our friend the clown?
Jen: I don’t know, but…
April: Had there been some misadventure during Mercury retrograde?
Jen: Perhaps too many of them tried to fit in a car!
April: Perhaps!
Jen: 20 clowns came out of a tiny car!
April: Exactly. Well, they’re all starting to leave that Capricorn microbus now, where they’ve all been wedged in for so long.
Jen: Totally.
April: Alright my friend. Well, that is everything that we have on the show sheet. Have we done it?
Jen: Episode thirty… oh gosh… what is this? Episode 35, April. Is that right?
April: I kid you not.
Jen: That can’t be right!
April: It is absolutely true. It is true and right.
Jen: Wow.
April: It feels like a good number. Doesn’t it?
Jen: I like 35. It’s great.
April: Excellent. Well, thanks to all of you for listening to The Big Sky Astrology Podcast. If you like what you’re hearing – and we certainly hope that you do – be sure to subscribe, rate and review. And what I’m hearing, Jen, from the podcasting cognoscenti is that: While we love rates and reviews, they’re actually not quite as vital as the subscriptions. So whatever application or platform you’re using to listen to the podcast, be sure to subscribe. And apparently that does really great things for our rankings, and to help people find us.
Jen: Excellent.
April: We also hope that you will tell a friend about the podcast or spread the word on social media or wherever you hang out. You can read show notes and full transcripts for each episode and leave your comments at our website, bigskyastropod.com.
Jen: And if you like the show and you want to help keep it going, go to bigskyastropod.com and you can either make a onetime contribution of any amount or you could become a podpal and make an ongoing monthly donation. Even a small amount would help us out. And that just makes us smile inside. Doesn’t it, April?
April: It does. And we’re still thinking tote bags. Tote bags are not off the table. And we’re going to get back to you in the fall when we start thinking about acknowledging our one-year mark.
Jen: Would they rather have tote bags, or would they rather have t-shirts? That’s what we want to know.
April: Oh, we do want to know! So leave a comment with this episode. Or Mugs. I love mugs.
Jen: I love mugs.
April: That would be good.
Jen: Yes.
April: Alright. Well, join us again bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground…
Jen: …and your eyes on the stars.
Thank you for listening. To learn more about April Elliott Kent, please check out her website, www.BigSkyAstrology.com, where you can sign up for her newsletter, read her thought-provoking weekly essays, purchase her books, sign up for a personal astrology reading, and more.
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© 2020 April Elliott Kent & Jennifer Braun
