July 2023
/THE PLUMB TREE- JULY 2023
ARIES- July begins at a Full Moon in Capricorn opposite the Sun in Cancer on the 3rd at 7:38 AM. This period will see you coming to an awareness about how much time you are spending on your career versus time spent at home with family As astrologer Lynn Bell says, oppositions either raise the stakes or raise consciousness. Venus and Mars are both in Leo-lighting up your 5th house of romance, children, and creativity, bringing energy and passion to those endeavors. On the 17th the North Node enters your sign for 18 months. Expect to notice that deep change and personal courage will be called for especially on the 22nd, 25th and 28th.
TAURUS-Blessed by Jupiter, the planet of good fortune and abundance in your sign this year, until next May, and with a supporting aspect from the planet of stability Saturn this month, you can expect to have an opportunity to solidify personal gains All Taureans are required to align themselves with their true values and eschew anything that doesn’t feel truly honest, anything that is purely motivated by financial profit and not what your believe in. The Full Moon on the 3rd will help you realize where your philosophy and values criterion need adjustments. Expect creative endeavors on the home front all month.
GEMINI- Your ruler Mercury picks up speed this month beginning in Cancer, moving into Leo on the 12th and then Virgo on the 29th. Your focus will be on personal finances and resources, then your neighbors and siblings and then your home, both present and original, and real estate matters. On the 17th the North Node, where we are growing, will begin its 18-month passage in Aries. Expect the number of organizations, groups and friends who share your values to increase.
CANCER- Your birthday month always brings changes. A new area of life will receive your attention at each birthday. Every 12 years it repeats in the same area but with different circumstances. Birthday 2011 will be similar in focus to this year. More of us should have journals; it would help our understanding of life so much. As Plato said: “An unexamined life is not worth living”. As both Venus and Mars are in Leo this month and your second house of values, resources, possessions, and manner of making a living expect to get inspired this month.
LEO-The big news of course is that with both Venus and Mars in your sign, making you feel passionate and sexy, with intense desire for what? A romance filled with drama, a stirring theatrical performance, the beginnings of a long overdue creative project, a grand opening of a beautiful new establishment. Leo likes to be in the spotlight-but sometimes must work hard being comfortable with it; especially after these last few years with Saturn pulling opposite your sign-but gone now since March 7th. Time to rise and shine. Just a note of caution. Venus will stop and appear to go retrograde July 23rd and there will be some backtracking to those aspirations-the complete fulfillment of the two lovers will be postponed.
VIRGO-Mars enters your sign on the 11th of July. Mars stirs us to action. But as Saturn, the planet of cool down is in Pisces, your opposite sign, there is a certain amount of tension and frustration to be expected. Just after the New Moon in Cancer on the 17th, on the 21st the two planets perfect that opposition. Oppositions raise the stakes or raise awareness. After the 21st Mars, the faster moving one leaves his encounter with Saturn and there is a resolution.
LIBRA-The South Node of the Moon enters Libra on the 17th of July. The South Node is a point in space where the Moon’s path around the earth crosses the ecliptic plane heading southwards. It has been thought of as indicating which area of life needs lessening or reducing. Its opposite sign -now Aries is where we ought to be growing or increasing. With the South node in Libra for the next 18 months-it would seem to indicate for you Libras that it is time to focus less on your relationships and trying to find balance therein, and more on your own personal goals. It can also indicate that you will be more involved with causes that have some spiritual benefit and have little ego satisfaction (not a bad thing). The last time the south node was in your sign was Christmas 2004-June 2006.
SCORPIO-Your ruler Mars is in Leo this month until the 11th when it moves into the next sign Virgo. In June, Venus joined Mars in June highlighting your 10th house of career. Passions must have been aroused then and are still until the 11th. There might have been an initiative in your career that almost came to be. There was promise but no completion as Venus is slowing down to turn retrograde in Leo on the 23rd. Retrogrades call for a change of perspective, and with Venus it is a change in what you desire. Mars moving into your 11th house of friends, hopes and wishes on the 11th will likely stir up that area of your life for the rest of the month.
SAGITARRIUS- For you, Jupiter, your planetary ruler is sailing through Taurus, the sign that governs your 6th house of work, service, health regime, charity work, employees, and small pets. You could get lucky this month and find the perfect service provider, or go off to an adoption center and rescue a homeless dog or cat. Watch on the 21st when Mars and Saturn, the two bad guys of the zodiac, are at their opposition confrontation. This will affect your home life where Saturn is and grants you more responsibility versus your career or reputation work life where Mars is, who might be represented by an angry boss wanting more of you too.
CAPRICORN-Pluto is in the last few degrees of Capricorn and will affect all those Capricorns born the 17th-20th of January any year. This is not a subtle influence. There is a tremendous thrust for evolutionary change, sometimes from your inner voice which “can’t take it anymore” and sometimes from the gods who remove obstacles in your path. Power changes are likely; whoever has power will lose it and who doesn’t have power will gain it. The USA has Pluto in Capricorn in the degrees Pluto is passing through, just as we did in the years of our founding. For all watch the Full Moon on the 3rd-the Moon is in your sign. Oppositions bring awareness.
AQUARIUS- As the month begins for you most of the action, continuing from June, is in your 7th house, the area of life having to do with your spouse, significant other, business partner or partner in whatever endeavor you share together. You might have been anticipating the culmination of a creative project as June proceeded along, but which appears now in July to have been a miscalculation. Mars is picking up speed as July begins and is leaving Venus behind. There is more work to be done and a change of perspective regarding what values the project is promoting. Venus and Mars will meet and consummate their union next February and the new start then will include your Aquarian ideals. Keep reminding them.
PISCES-Since June 17th Saturn has turned retrograde, and all those Pisceans born from the 19th of February through the 26th any year will experience the second crossing of Saturn over your Sun sign. Either it’s more work, more discipline, or more looking backwards for solutions, or more need of boundaries and containment, more patience, or a more serious approach to life, you are headed for it. This is the second of three passes. The resolution begins in November.
