The current lunar cycle started with New Moon on June 14th and will complete at the next New Moon on July 14th. During this month, some intriguing events are happening overhead.
Every year at this time, the Sun stands still at its solstice moment, and after this mighty pause, the Earth dips forward under starry light, headlong into July, into summer, and into dreams of what may come. The Earth needs this time of dreamy restoration among the high constellations of summer, and we need it, too, this opportunity to gather fertile, cosmic forces for the way ahead.
Also at this time, the planets and stars make a specific gesture, and it’s never the same from one year to the next. We get a first glimpse of what it might mean each year at the eve of summer’s first New Moon, which comes on July 14th in 2026. At least two days prior to this Moon ~ so starting on Sunday, July 12th ~ the Moon returns to where it was last at New phase, when it enters its dark phase, hurrying along the star path to reunite with Earth and Sun, who have moved on among the stars since they all met last month. We don’t see the Moon when it’s at dark phase.
What has my attention this week that may hold a clue for a deepening sense of our own becoming is what’s happening with Venus, especially Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, July 8, 9, and 10, when our brilliant evening star ascends the throne of kings to hold counsel with the star Regulus at the heart of the Lion. This will be visible in the West an hour after sunset each night this week, and especially Wednesday, July 8th.
What can it mean? What might it portend? Nothing, actually, unless we engage with it.
Remember, the Moon was last New on June 14th. Three days later, on June 17th, the Moon occulted Venus over the entire US and most of Canada. Here at The Storyteller’s Night Sky we pondered Moon in love and the story of Endymion, Venus in love and the epic of Aeneas, Pluto in love and the abduction of Persephone.
Now, Venus ascends the throne of the King of Love. Together, planet and star give opportunity for what lives in human hearts and human loving to shine forth, to assume its rightful place in the world. Such a gesture in the cosmos longs to know what human beings are feeling, what they love, so as you go out to witness this sky phenomena, contemplate what’s been going on in your heart of hearts.
There’s a beautiful poem I’m going to share that can serve as a prompt for this, to guide a contemplation in harmony with the stars. But first, note that as Venus aligns with Regulus this week in the evening sky, the Moon is waning towards the dawn and will meet Neptune and Saturn about two hours before sunrise on Monday and Tuesday, July 6th & 7th, then Uranus and Mars on Saturday, July 11th, to then slip through the celestial gateway onto its dark phase Sunday, July 12th, when it passes the star Tianguan one and a half hours before sunrise.
To support us all in this week’s starry contemplation, The Question, by Colorado poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer:
All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of these words as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path to love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this?
Is this the path of love? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.
For the heart’s greater becoming,
Mary
Hear this week’s episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on podcast here, or wherever you listen. Cover image from Sky&Telescope.