The Week Above is a weekly astrology weather report detailing the major planetary configurations for the week ahead. All times and dates given are in Eastern Time. There will be references to your birth chart throughout. If you aren't sure of what these references mean, check out Astrodienst for free online chart drawings, and Cups & Crowns for the basics of how to understand a drawn chart.

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General Notes: Hungry Dragons and Restless Dead

The dominating event of the week is the Solar Eclipse in Cancer on July 2nd, which can color quite a swath of temporal territory with its flavor in all directions, so look to that section for information on how the next two weeks or so can be flavored.

Also sometime this week, depending on how you calculate them, Saturn dives into the South Node exactly, which reemphasizes the themes of The Boneyard (Saturn-South Node-Pluto in Capricorn) that have to do with unresolved ancestors and the legacy of the dead. In a time when the Dragon’s Head blocks out the Sun, it’s especially important to honor one’s ancestors who have passed on, because a hell of a lot of them are feeling rather restless these days.

Something that’s been bothering me lately is how much of our lives are being directed by the restless dead that just don’t have any way of moving on by themselves and so must rely on us to do this work for them. Eclipse season is going to bring up a lot of this for us (as this year as a whole has for many) so beginning to do this work if you haven’t already is essential. My colleague Kaitlin Coppock has an excellent article on this up on her website and if you want a professional to help move on the unresolved dead with you, my colleague Chiron Armand offers services at sliding-scale. I guarantee you, there’s work to be done there for each and every one of us.

July 1st - Mars in Leo

Mars struggled quite a bit in Cancer, as he usually does, but especially so this season with the opposition to The Boneyard. In Leo he’s quite a bit happier, and once he’s in the last decan/third of Leo, he’ll be especially happy as he’s got a bit of dignity there.

Mars in Leo fights for the spectacle of it, more gladiator or pro wrestler than MMA fighter. He’s still fighting his fights, but there’s flair to it. There’s drama. There’s showmanship.

Leo is also the sign of expressing a creative inner fire, so those of you with important placements in Aries or Scorpio may find yourselves wanting to act creatively and boldly and make some kind of art. You’ll also feel the relief of Mars exiting Cancer most strongly, so this is absolutely something to look forward to in that regard.

Mars will be in Leo until August 18th, after which he’ll be feeling much less fiery and feisty in Virgo.

July 2nd - Solar Eclipse in Cancer

Eclipses are one of the oldest bad omens known to humanity, and were likely known as such long before humanity arrived on Earth. It’s scary—the light in the sky disappears when it should be shining brightly.

It’s not the end of the world or anything, but it isn’t a good time to do New Moon magic. A solar eclipse isn’t a “supercharged new moon,” it’s a new moon full of snakes and weird shit. It’s a terrible time to do magic, which isn’t to say that magic won’t happen.

Eclipses have a sort of reverse-void moon energy to them, where actions taken haphazardly can turn into permanent fixtures of your life, but typically only if you don’t put a ton of thought into them. Casual fuck buddies become lifelong relationships. Jobs started because you need the money launch a career. A pair of pants you bought because you just needed to buy something that fit end up becoming a mainstay of your wardrobe (true story). Often these events are positive, but trying to make something like this happen isn’t effective.

The fates take over during eclipses. We are not in control here. Fated events happen, usually in that random chance way that fate tends to work, and human beings trying to control or harness it end up missing the mark completely.

And also like, there’s just a lot of random-ass weird shit vibes going around during eclipse season, especially in the time between eclipses (they always come in pairs), so basically from July 2nd to July 16th. Though the eclipse season as a whole starts and ends one lunation on either side of the eclipse pair, so basically since June 16th until July 31st we’re in it.

This eclipse is at 10° Cancer, so any planets or points in your chart around 10°, particularly in Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn, are gonna be activated by this eclipse. You can give it a pretty wide orb—2°-18° isn’t entirely unreasonable—but the closer to 10° the stronger the impact will be.

July 3rd - Venus in Cancer

Poor Venus. She didn’t ask for this. In Gemini, Venus was mercifully out of sight of The Boneyard, but once she enters Cancer she’ll be right up against that big brick wall.

Venus in Cancer is emotional, romantic, soft, sensitive, and self-protective. She wants to feel her love and beauty and value deep in her soft core, but isn’t always trusting that that core will be respected and honored. And this time around, it’s up against some tough opposition.

Venus is not going to run into Saturn and Pluto right away—she doesn’t oppose Saturn until the 17th and she doesn’t hit Pluto until the 21st. But she can still be seen by them, and that makes her journey through the soft waters of Cancer all that much harder.

But there’s value in this. There’s lessons to be learned from what it means to be soft in a time when everything feels hard. Venus reminds us that the pain is worth it, the crying is worth it, it’s all worth it to stay tender, because we need tenderness in troubling times. We need softness in a crisis. And crying is an essential human activity we all need, like eating and sleeping. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Venus is in Cancer until July 27th, when she enters the heart-fire of Leo.

July 3rd and 5th - All-Day Void Moons

As I wrote previously about void of course moons:

Void of course moons aren’t specifically malefic events, they just tend to run counter to the desires of fast-paced, capitalist, consumerist society. Plans made when the Moon is void of course either get canceled, have to be re-planned, or the end result turns out very different from what the plan was. Any work meetings during these times will end up being full of decisions that have to be revisited and changed, any sessions booked will have to be rescheduled or might just end up turning into a different modality when you get there. I remember distinctly one time a client booked a tarot reading with me when the moon was void of course and five minutes into it we switched to astrology for the rest of the reading (they booked an hour and the price is the same). Purchases made when the moon is void of course end up going unused or otherwise become sources of regret—if you buy groceries, you end up eating out. If you buy a dress, you wear it once. I once bought food to donate to a charity drive during a void moon and ended up getting into a disturbing political argument with the reactionary collecting food. Hungry people got fed, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Void of course moons are great times to daydream, to wander, to loaf around, to kick back and relax. They’re great times to get rid of stuff. They’re great times to do things you’re forced to do but don’t want anything to come of—this was Ronald Reagan’s strategy, releasing bad news when the Moon was void of course so it couldn’t do anything to harm him.

The Moon is void of course for over 12 hours from 10:25am EDT until 11:19pm on July 3rd, and for almost 24 hours from 2:24am EDT July 5th until 12:25am July 6th.

The void moon on the 3rd is in Cancer, the sign of the eclipse, so I expect a weird combination of permanence and impermanence in the outcomes of events that happen on that day. Eclipse season is all about expecting the unexpected, so I’m watching this one to see what occurs in that regard.

That’s all for this week! If you found this valuable and would like to learn more about your chart, you can book a reading here.