Men are not free when they’re doing just what they like.
Men are only free when they’re doing what the deepest self likes.
And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.
D.H. Lawrence
Every year Summer Solstice marks the Sun’s ingress into Cancer, the lunar water sign. The Cancer new moon is on Friday the 23rd, and Mercury and Mars are also moving through this sign for the next few weeks. This is a period where the imaginative resources, emotional subjectivity and self-reflective capacity of Cancer is ripe.
When the Sun enters Aries it marks a kind of rebirth in the zodiac wheel. We are in the season of renewal as the Sun illuminates Aries which is symbolized by the leaping ram who rushes forth into life, bounding and exploring with a surefooted innocence. We begin again. Spring in its merciful tenderness brings an increase of light and the promise of blossoms. I’ve collected some instrumental pieces evocative of this moment—the cello expresses the transition between winter and spring with such longing and joy.
It seems we are surrounded by an ocean of sound and noise. Social and political concerns pull at us like the unyielding tide, and we navigate the news and what seems like daily incursions on freedoms and principles. We are living in a period of massive upheaval with breakdowns, breakthroughs, and revolution (Uranus) being empowered and compelled by underlying archetypal processes of change (Pluto). “Nobody told me there'd be days like these/Strange days indeed/most peculiar”. Thank you, John Lennon.