a semi-finessed transcript of an hour live on Instagram. I just went with the flow. if you are in the COMMUNE, you can go back through any lunation in 2018. this is a conversation about the collective happenings. how you experienced the year is really specific to your own chart. some you’ll find relevant and some you won’t because talking about collective transits means generalizing quite a bit.
THE RETRO SUMMER
part of what made this year WHAT THE FUCK was the amount of retrogrades we had at one time. we had our usual retrogrades of Mercury which happens three times a year, and Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, & Pluto which occur each year for a couple of months. that’s not unusual. what is unusual is that we also had Venus retrograde & Mars retrograde as well.
Mars was retrograde in Aquarius from June-August, overlapping with other retrogrades (including Mercury retro in leo at the time). Mars stayed in aquarius until November, which adds to the WHAT THE FUCK element because aquarius can be erratic, chaotic, evolutionary, & futuristic. it is about deconstructing and restructuring in an innovative way. with mars there so much action, energy, drive, & attention focused on that type of movement. while it was retrograde, it was all about reviewing, reflecting, reassessing, & adjusting how we directed our energy in terms of our collective contribution & our own evolution. that happened in a specific area of your chart. Mars retrograde doesn’t happen every single year, it occurs every 2+ years. this was one of the years where the planet of action, drive, passion, & initiation turned inward. which is what a retrograde does- turns the focus on reflection, reassessment, & adjustment. recalibration, really.
aquarius is prone to recalibration because it can look at the entire picture & see the pieces that need adjustment. with Mars there (wherever it was in your chart, but in this case collectively) it was an invitation to change the way we approached change itself—our own & our collective evolution. it was also an invitation to change how we confront. Mars is the god of war so being retrograde meant that where we might have usually externalized our confrontation or agitation, it became internalized. that may have caused a lot of discombobulation & disconnection. it was this really powerful portal for change from inside out. where usually Mars makes change in more tangible ways, it was about slowly rewiring that part of our psyche that is assertive, confrontational, full of desire, action, & drive. that has a lot to do with our sense of self and our sense of power.
with aquarius, the perspective is collective & universal. it absolutely caused a great amount of tension in atmosphere because people were trying to figure out, “how do we do this thing? how do we make shit happen in an equitable way that is also honoring our unique, individual contribution? there are all these things that need done, built, to happen, & be evolved but what is your unique contribution?”
for many, the fuckery of a summer of retrogrades created a disconnect when it comes to creativity (leo) or community (aquarius). if you had to individuate or embody your radical values, that created a ripple effect of change within the people/places/things that used to feed & resource you or where you used to find belonging. many of us are now sitting in this disconnect/discombobulation— which is really important to be with & stay with. you’re not going to get what you had before 2018 back. the question isn’t “how do I reconnect?” the question is, “what am I going to choose to connect to now?” everything is different. it’s not that the retrogrades came & made everything funky and now we can go back to “normal”. there is no normal. OR this is the new normal.
that’s important to keep in mind because with the current intensification of cancer/capricorn energy, many of us are going to be wanting to cultivate or create some sense of what we once knew or some sense of what was comfortable & familiar, with what gave us belonging. but really, the foundational structures of that have changed & will continue to change with Pluto in capricorn. Pluto is bringing death/rebirth to the very foundations of our society & our world but also personally to you in your chart, wherever it is. you’re not going to get what once nourished & nurtured you back & that’s okay. because something new, better, more accurate & sustainable is on its way. and you’re actually response-able for co-creating that with the multiverse. for being willing to surrender & follow what has been revealed to you as your path—even if that’s really just a whole bunch of unknown.
THE LEO/AQUARIUS ECLIPSES
Mars retro ties into the other major theme of 2018 which was the eclipses in leo & aquarius. the North Node was in leo until November 7, 2018 so the eclipses were in leo & aquarius for the most part of 2 years. we had leo eclipses in January & August, aquarius eclipses in February & July, and we’ll have the final total lunar eclipse in leo on January 21st EST, which ends the story of eclipses on the leo/aquarius axis. eclipses bring change, they bring these really wide portals of possibility. in aquarius, for evolution/the collective & in leo, for self-confidence/creative expression.
the past 2ish years have been eclipses happening in vital parts of the chart for taurus, leo, scorpio, and aquarius risings. all of us felt the eclipses in whichever part of our life they were happening in, but those rising signs felt it the hardest. if you have aries, cancer, libra, or capricorn rising, we’ve already entered your 2 year portal for life altering changes.
the leo/aquarius eclipses tie into the message of Mars in aquarius which brought the questions of, “how do we merge self & evolution? how do we merge self & the collective? how do we find the sweet spot? how do we integrate?” leo & aquarius are opposite signs. leo is about the individual & the individuation process. aquarius is about the collective & the collective contribution process. these things are deeply interrelated, even though in many of our societies they’ve become compartmentalized.
the eclipses brought attention to how this axis is really intertwined, how your self-confidence & your creative expression is the contribution/light that is needed for the collective. because when you try to do shit that’s not coming from your brightest self, then it's not going to fit. it’s not going to be sustainable, it’s not going to be life-giving. if you’re dying while you’re trying to give life, it’s just this really draining self-harming process. that all had to change.
aquarius does not fuck around. aquarius is like, “this shit needs to change, or else.” aquarius is detached & objective enough to know that the outcome is more important than the ego. leo might be freaking out like, “what about me?” but aquarius is the understanding that we’re one drop in a massive ocean. some of us are more skilled at doing aquarius: being selfless, focusing on the collective— which can turn into this really subtle martydom. some of us do leo better: “I’m focused on me & my shit and y’all can go fuck yourselves if you aren’t gonna get right.”
eclipses are intense but also leo being ruled by the Sun, the sense of self, is a really sensitive place to have so much activity & attention on. right now, in the collective age that we’re in, having so much emphasis on aquarius energy was also intense because so many of us are trying to integrate being radical. what does it mean to actually be radical? how do we embody that, rather than just theorize & intellectualize it? (which is one of the traps of aquarius).
cancer/capricorn is going to really pull us into how to practice that embodiment & how to make the arrangements that we need to internally (cancer) that will dismantle the external structures (capricorn) that keep us from offering our brightest contribution. this year has been about figuring out how to do both. be like, “I’m worried about me & my shit because that impacts the collective.” tend to yourself with the motivation of offering your brightest contribution. because when you’re falling apart & your shit is all over the place, the longevity is short. that is something that capricorn is going to be on our asses about.
a note on transits: when one transit ends or we go through a series of transits & then its no longer happening, that doesn’t mean that the work ends. transits layer on top of each other. if you didn’t begin to untangle yourself. affirm yourself, or get clear about what your brightest contribution is, that’s still work that you have to do & it’ll come show up in another way. transits aren’t the boss of you, they don’t make shit happen on their own. you have to collaborate & co-create.
