This time of year can be considered a time of destiny forming, when all the ingredients are on the table and the master chef, in this case, the gods, enters the celestial kitchen to craft us as the masterpiece. The old year, 2026, has been breathed fully out. Now, 2027 begins…
Together with the Earth forces, we have breathed 2026 up and out, not only as offering to the summer Sun in its highest estate, but to gather forces from the stars for conceiving 2027. And now, it’s as if the summer Sun lulls us to sleep, and we’re set adrift in the celestial ocean being of the spirit.
The two main ingredients the gods have to work with are first, our own, human experiences, and second, the planets, and how they are positioned among the stars.
So let’s look at what’s happening:
On Monday, June 29th, the first Full Moon of the summer will occur. This is Moon at peak fertility and it’s fascinating where this Moon appears at this time of year, when the Sun is highest: it’s opposite the Sun, among the stars of Sagittarius, where the galactic center is located. Imagine it: the Sun is at its height, while the Full Moon is in the deeps, illuminating the first heaven that surrounds the Earth from in front of the center of our galaxy.
The same day as Full Moon, the planet Mercury begins its retrograde motion. Mercury is the bringer of dreams, and during this retrograde will move back through the region of Cancer stars, long associated with the gateway of the human being (Cancer is opposite Capricorn which is the gateway of the gods). And those aren’t the only two gateways among the stars. There’s also Tianguan, the celestial gateway that marks one horn of the Taurus Bull. Mars will meet Uranus in the vicinity of this star on the 4th of July ~ all of which suggests to me that the ingredients for potent, creative change toward the future are at the ready! Mars is visible in the morning sky, looking east before sunrise.
Saturn is also in the morning sky, but to the South, among the stars of the Pisces fishes, where the virtue striving is magnanimity: magnanimity becomes love.
Then there’s Venus, our beautiful evening star, the goddess of love, sweetly stepping toward encounter with Regulus, the star in Leo that marks the heart of the King. These two will be closest next week, but you should prepare your viewing spot, and your heart now by getting out to see Venus each evening.
Venus at the heart of the King; Saturn in the virtue field of magnanimity, Mars meeting Uranus at the celestial gateway, Mercury bringing us dreams from the gateway of the human being, and the Moon radiant from the edge of the mysterious deeps of our galaxy.
In the calendar of feast days, this week also brings observance of the Visitation, on July 2nd, the octave of St. John’s. The Visitation was established in the 14th century and is dedicated to Mary and Elizabeth, as cousins and mothers of Jesus and John. They spent three months together while Mary was in her first trimester and Elizabeth in her third ~ so again, this feast day placed in the calendar at this time of year suggests that we are in the season of destiny forming, even on a global scale, and to borrow from Rudolf Steiner, the more abundantly we can fill ourselves with the harmony of the cosmos now, the more peace and harmony there will be on the Earth.
As a contemplation for this week, this poem from Steiner contemporary Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours ~ Love Songs to God fits beautifully:
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
~Mary
Hear this episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on podcast here, and where you listen. Cover image for this week of destiny forming forces is William Blake’s Creation c. 1805