The Astrology of August 2021: Performing For No One
Nicolae Comanescu, Non-Stop Painting
Aliens in the Spotlight
-Mercury Cazimi
-Mercury opposite Saturn
-Sun opposite Saturn
-New Moon in Leo
-Mercury opposite Jupiter
-Mercury ingress Virgo
-Sun opposite Jupiter
-Mars trine Uranus
-Full Moon in Aquarius
-Moon on Fomalhaut
-Sun ingress Virgo
-Venus trine Saturn
-Sun on Regulus
August puts a lot of emphasis on the fixed axis of Leo and Aquarius, the latter end of which has gotten copious amounts of attention the past year and a half and will continue to be one of the spotlight spots for months and years to come. Observing the polarity of Leo-Aquarius and its spectrum dynamics is both helpful for processing what’s on the table, and also rather ignorable this Summer as we have two Full Moons in Aquarius rather than the typical one, the first being in the earliest degrees of the sign on July 23rd and the second in the final degree on the 22nd of August, not to mention both the Greater Benefic, Jupiter, and Malefic, Saturn, are back to occupying that airy territory together.
The month begins with a superior conjunction of Mercury in the Sun’s domicile, lighting up some objective perspective on what is clearly going on from a bit of a birds eye view, or at least how things appear from the high throne of how much sovereignty you have over your life, and how much more you’d like and what would be the most proper place to situate yourself for sunbathing in the most suitable form of attention flow. Mercury comes equipped with messages and connects, some clever factoids and some spotlight read literacy to inform your orientation and truth check how honest you are with your self about your position. Are you on stage this round, or are you not in the right place for the kind of performance that fits your objectives? Are there any signs in sight or people around who might be able to offer directions so you can roll your throne into a more appropriate ray of sunlight to gleam your gold for you? Mercury opposes Saturn only a few hours after on the 1st so this is entirely in the context of updating our thinking so that our constructs, boundaries and systems are leaning future forward rather than fallen under the rubble of our own histories and being trampled by the specters of the past, cast in lead, old balls and chains. Saturn is going to offer you this hard reality of walk out into the unknown and off of safety or die ultimatum for another couple years, so as we are getting the glove end of it swiped across our face to spark off this month, the sooner we start accepting the challenge the more he will be rolling raw building materials for us to utilize into our workshops rather than knocking us off our old apparatus; tried and true is unfortunately meaningless now. The Sun opposes Saturn on the 2nd and gives us another objective look on what components need a fresh design, how we might network them together, and go off the map and get a little avant garde in our blue print schemes. Might as well measure up to our imaginations and do something visionary at this point, there’s not really any other option anyway, that’s where the tractions at, the rest is just a sinking ship.
This brings us up to speed for the New Moon in Leo on the 8th of August. Venus will be trine Uranus, and the Sun and Mercury both square to the Promethean Outer Planet of High Voltage, urgency, nervous tension and sudden shifts. Saturn has been holding his infamous changeability and randomness in potentiality, and we might be at the point of our processing and engineering of desires that we think what would suit our true selves best is to attempt entirely different baselines, despite the fact that if we feel different, act different and move about with a different gait and rhythm then we are not us anymore but something else entirely, but in light of the rest of what’s going on in the moment releasing control on who we are and incepting a new identity which embodies experimentation and itching for eureka level action might be even closer to the core than the person who has appeared on the glossy 8X10s we’ve ben using for promo the last decade or so. Changes we’ve been trying to make for months and months or even years are now taking shape, but the matrix for which to roll them out is in sheer uncertainty: anything could happen, no safety net there. But then again, a body at rest stays at rest and you can’t change and stay the same, so mentally prepare to fire up the Frankenstein and take it for a walk around the block, you might be surprised. The route to your objectives is not via the route you had pre planned.
Marina abramovich
On the 9th Mercury opposes Jupiter and then on the 11th he ingresses his home sign in Virgo. Balancing the time where people can find you for a dialogue and out on a limb calculating your next jump because you see some convenient rungs rolling in your way to grab and swing from can bring a balance of coherence and analytical clarity. This might be a polar mixture of being straight up about your objectives and not being able to explain what kind of territory you are headed into next, not because you are being secretive as much as no one would really understand; that is except for other exiles, the like minded few you meet out on the fringes and are quickly forming a collective of idea expansion which benefits your escape from the fallen foundations which are the haunted historical structures which went full exorcist all 2020. Mercury in Virgo rolls up his sleeves and starts doubling down on sorting out the details. Pet cap chewing, murmuring to himself, he directs acute concentration to facilitating the procedure. This begins with a thorough familiarity of the elements, what works correctly and what is flawed. Logical lucidity applied in a practical way laser points its way through correcting issues with the inner workings so that things can be on track. Sound fun? For the engineering minded this is delightful, but for many of us this will be a dry spell, but one that is much needed and incredibly helpful. We all find satisfaction in getting meticulously organized.
Sehnsucht (‘Longing’) by the Nederlands Dans Theater at Sadler’s Wells, London, in 2014. Photo by Leo Mason: Popperfoto_Getty
As we move to the second half of the month a lot of the tension points gravitate toward integration. The Sun opposes Jupiter on the 19th, bringing in some scope on what kind of opportunities we have available to install new designs that bring us into greater alignment with what are spirit is striving for. What we were thinking about the previous week we might be enacting here. Interesting then as Mars trines Uranus on the 22nd only hours before the Moon culminates in Fullness. Our specific, measured, tactical actions are harmonized with the radical changes which have been trying to manifest over the past several months, and really since May 2018 when Uranus first ingressed into Taurus. Something blooms within the pioneering new designs and emerging frontiers of our lives now, and Jupiter helps make space for it. Venus in rulership in Libra is even applying to Saturn, so the balance and equilibrium of our desires finds the cutting edge concepts to be harmonious with our values and current attractions. August seems to be a month of going out on a limb and having it work out. There is a particularly magical character to this lunation despite how much weird science is packed into it. When we think purely of the stellar layer we see the Moon goes full applying to the Royal Star Fomalhaut while the Sun feeds her light applying to the Royal star Regulus. Regulus brings eminence via a resplendent glow, by lighting up with a halo quality, as if divinely selected to stand out and be seen. Meanwhile Fomalhaut engenders eminence through the ability to poetically express the mystical nature of reality. Regulus is Corleonis, the Heart of the Lion, and Fomalhaut is the mouth of the Fish which drinks the waters pouring from Aquarius’ urn, the former associated with archangel Raphael, the watcher of the North, where the latter is keyed to Gabriel, the Watcher of the South. Lighting up this angelic axis with harmonious aspects from the inner planets all around and a central role from the Greater Benefic is lending a very considerable degree of magical potentiality to slip genius new designs and concepts into reality and find a flow to fill their sails and disperse their essences into the All.
We might be mindful to be cunning here, and shoal our sigils toward the gathering of light with calls to powerful Watcher’s hung upon their respective stars. The Magician fakes it till he makes it in the 1st Arcanum, and with everything still in prototype mode we can’t really make promises of any kind in actuality, but despite anything being road tested at all we can more than likely just pass go and skip to Arcanum 17 the Star, make a wish and immediately move on to 18 Moon, 19 Sun right to 20 Judgement and 21 World. Reality here asks, “well anyone else have a better idea?” And we are free to just stand up and say, “Yup, I do” and walk through the door, angels on either side clearing our way. This is not optimism, its opportunistic gate crashing with lubricated hinges under thoroughly enchanted light.
The Genius and the Era, Ion Grigorescu 1990
It’s interesting to note, if we light up one of the axis of the Royal Stars its worth a glance over to the others, where we find Uranus and Saturn circling like sharks a lot of the year. Uranus stations retrograde square the Sun on the August 8th Full Moon. When we start taking our suped up rat racers out on the road we find there’s things about them that simply won’t work, and parts could even shear off from unexpected clearance issues. Throw an entry in the diary we’ll be back to this territory in the torrential pleasure deluge of April 2022, but for now we find the dramatic tension seems larger than life. Our plot twists are sure to make a splash, but on the way to making that big omelet we got to get pretty busy breaking those eggs.
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Kuwana - The sailor Tokuso and the sea monster
Mad science, Oceanic research
and the Bends
Venus trine Uranus
Mercury Square Uranus
Sun square Uranus
Venus opposite Neptune
Mercury ingress Virgo
Mars on the bends
Venus trine Pluto
Mars on the bends
Mercury conjunct Mars
Mercury trine Uranus
Sun ingress Virgo
Mercury opposite Neptune
Mercury trine Pluto
Sun on bends
Meanwhile, there’s a whole other side to the story. When Venus trines Uranus, a few days before he begins to back down from his revolutionary advance and say, good enough this is as far as I’ll go for now anyway, there’s a particular careful harmony to how we articulate the conveyer belt which delivers us to our desires. We don’t want the goods we want delivered to be shaken off the track before they’re in arms reach. That’s certainly jarring from an objective perspective, and we know this, with Mercury and the New Moon both squaring Uranus leading up to the lunation from Leo on the 8th. Why wait when it’s all so obvious anyway? Well, its confusing, Venus opposes Neptune and realizes unfortunately our desires aren’t so straightforward, or they are and they aren’t, more precisely they effect other things, or really everything, just indirectly, and those dynamics of permeability could mess up the process, as well as lead us into projecting there’s factors present that aren’t necessarily solid in nature, just dreams and hallucinations. It’s worrisome to let dreams and omens direct our operations of the heart. Luckily Mercury enters Virgo on the 11th, and the stories saturating the operating room are quickly dispelled and the accuracy of the surgeries increases exponentially. Note out in the world with Jupiter back in Aquarius and all this Uranus involvement and the usual suspects taking their annual stroll through the Virgin’s sign we are back to the drawing board in a major way getting up to corrections and adjustments with a certain resolve and even zeal, but that of the cool headed specialist. Expect to hear the 2 cents of the experts multiplied to a million, starting to sound a drone in the macrocosmic narrative, but in our personal stories, calling in some exalted 2nd opinions might get things together faster and better than previously possible. Could be a pleasant surprise.
Next day, the 12th, Mars tactically maneuvers across the bends of the nodes while Venus trines Pluto. Not surprising we are attracted to heavy handed machinations because in reality we’re under the gun and our hands are being forced and the plan is rolling right along and both society and our personal fate lines have various things planned for us and their not wasting any time and we’re not getting any younger, so act now or live with your decision to do nothing and never get what you want. Might be a moment to realize the thing your obsessed with isn’t bad for you its what your soul has been begging you to stop being afraid of and start cutting the fat here and here so you’re leaner and meaner and able to move on with figuring out your shit finally. Mercury hits the bends on the 15th, how’d you do shooting from the hip, botch job or no? Are you cut out for this line of work or what? Either way things progress, you can fix this or that as you go, and lo and behold here comes Venus into Libra on the 16th, what a nice surprise. It’ll be fine, we can just kind of just mix master it back into shape, or find someone who can work with that kind of thing as is, here’s a glass of wine, what’s new? Romance? Art? Have some olives let’s go sit over here there’s such a nice view. Maybe not the answer to the problems cropping up but makes it a bit easier to get some outside perspective and not only strain your eyes staring at the data through the readers. So, now that we’re back and cocktail ready Mercury can oppose Neptune and accept that a little daydreaming in the office is simply unavoidable. The imagination has its place, and there’s no way nothing is going to read our thoughts, and collective consciousness might have some 100 monkey advice which helps to tie up the loose ends if we learn to look at it right and sort out the mental noise from the precognitive signal. Mercury finishes up his stint being efficient and diligent in his home sign by trining Pluto. Hey, we all know this is where the process was leading us, why did we pretend otherwise? Of course what you were afraid of was true, that’s the nature of reality. So, let’s not get too bent out of shape about it, learn to accept the world is a scary place and nature is harsh and we’re all ultimately not in control of anything and we’ll all die some day ad from that particular posturing make the master move to manipulate the whole game board and drop a heavy handed smack down on whoever thinks they got us cornered as they didn’t even notice our cowl and grim visage, mother fucker watch out your playing chess with death.
Giorgio de Chirico
No matter how you move your pawns at that point, the Sun crosses the bends as the finalé of August, so the story we’re in pulls all the appropriate tension ropes and the stage mechanics articulate themselves for the next act, so with Venus in Libra, enjoy some refreshments during the brief intermission, there’s more sea monsters and power surges to come.
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Edvard Munch
Finishing Touches To Restore
The Balance
Venus trine Uranus
Venus opposite Neptune
Venus trine Pluto
Venus ingress Libra
Venus trine Saturn
Venus opposite Chiron
The devil is in the details in Venus’ traditional fall in Virgo, and with an eye towards critique we find instead of satisfaction a kind of scattering effect in search of the particular component that was missing from the recipe or a way in which a few ingredients could be swapped to increase the deliciousness. There’s an it was almost fun except for this or it would have been fun if only for that. In a time when we’re trying to shake up our baseline grooves and work out upgrades to our mainframes this kind of thinking is useful, so it goes without saying when she trines Uranus in her home sign early in the month. Her opposition to Neptune the day after the New Moon might flood the fact checking approach to finding fault with pleasure factors in such a way that its hard to discern from where the signals are coming from and source from a more synesthetic sense of stimuli, as when your mind is swimming with drugs. Which detail pops out to bother you while sober, well now while drunk, how about on acid? Many well known artists have been eulogized for having a gonzo process, Rimbaud’s idea of disorientation having spoken to Jim Morrison in a Dionysian fashion. Venus in Virgo might not like to throw the cake she’s meticulously baking into a blender but she might have to compromise and accept some frostings and toppings she can’t have quality control over.
On the 12th Venus is trine Pluto while Mars is on the bends. Who’s the dark, mysterious stranger? We might ask ourselves what shadows we find attractive which loom from our own creative processes or cast across the bedroom. Mars and Venus just rode the Sun’s sign in relative unison so we have some desire and action consolidation data to reference mid July, what was your trigger finger itchy to indulge in? Here is another inner planet point of attention, as Venus and Mars will spend some quality time with Pluto at the end of Capricorn in January through March mechanically re-evaluating how we get ourselves satisfied, this pull from fate patterns and romanticization of initiatory power we are flirting with very much foreshadows this winter’s tale in store. Whatever we are halfway there too mid August we’ll be neck deep in by mid winter.
After that ominous chord a new song on comes ringing sonorously from the playlist, one that most everyone can agree with and its a perfect moment upon the dance floor floor, you can see the smiles on peoples faces. Venus ingresses Libra and smooths thing over with her particular grace and charm. Glasses clink, snacks are served, the appetite is wet, the palette is amused, the tongue is occupied, the body is swaying, it’s a ball. Not only that but a significant mixing session to the general composition to make sure the levels are all right and melding together nicely can be applied to the new stuff we’re just beginning to cook up and get ready to debut. We might think of what was fresh and ready to roll in March 2020 that got caught in the works by covid, then what came back around again in an augmented format by winter solstice, and has been brushing up against circumstances that shave off layers of it and throw some sparks but are this month especially coming back into a pretty clear clarity and are no longer able to be ignored. Whatever these concepts and constructs and designs and new blueprints are in your life, they’ve undoubtedly gotten a little jagged and ragged from being dragged in the mud and trodden upon and trampled over. As Venus trines Saturn just after the illuminating and lubricating Full Moon in Aquarius late in the month, you might get all your innovations looking beautiful once again and fitting for public interface, where you most undoubtedly might want to seduce other partygoers into investing some stock in whatever it is you are assembling out in the frontiers. Doing and saying are different things, so the opposition of Venus to Chiron in Aries which follows puts your money where your mouth is in a way that might cause some momentary discomfort. But again its just a matter of balance, and if you can just keep your composure you can carry the tray of medicinal tinctures without spilling any and serve the antidote up right as the sore spot appears.
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