Summer Solstice under a Capricorn Full Moon
Summer Solstice 2024
As many of you know by now, I finally relocated full time to Vilamoura on the Algarve coast in Portugal in May of this year. It had ended up being a one and a half year process, as a deep part of my soul still hungered to recreate the wonderful almost gossamer and highly ethereal dream like life I had previously lived in Italy some years back. Under a Neptune trining Neptune transit of course! But it was not to be.
We are now at the peak of the Summer Solstice with the Full Moon in Capricorn less than a day away, depending on where you are in the world. Summer Solstice in Ireland is Thursday 20th June at 9.50pm. I like to think of Summer Solstice as being a half year total reset – what have your experiences been in every house in your birth chart so far, and what is to come? For those with young children, the Summer can pass in a haze of activity as we juggle summer holidays, which can often come with an increase in tantrums and meltdowns. Or sunstroke. Or pretty much whatever!
For those of you living in Portugal, as many of my readers now are, the Summer school holidays are a full three month ongoing navigational process. Unlike the UK where children have a mere six weeks off school. Or Ireland where it is between seven and ten weeks. Or ye Gods, Italy where they have an extra special form of torture called summer holiday homework!
Saturday’s Full Moon in Capricorn on 22nd June (2.08am Dublin time) can help us do our own inner re-set. Interestingly, the rising sign for the timing of the Dublin Summer Solstice is Capricorn! This Full Moon is also opposing Venus and Mercury, all also in Cancer.
As this Full Moon in the practical Cardinal Earth ruled Capricorn is also trining Mars in Taurus, we may have slow steamy outbursts of anger – depending on how you choose to express your anger! It might be slamming the dishwasher door shut ‘cos once again, no one has emptied it! A healthy Mars is best expressed through vigorous physical exercise. As I have written before, anger should be acted on, not acted out. A distinct but very important difference.
There is a lot of both earth and water in both the Summer Solstice and Full Moon charts – Sun, Venus and Mercury in Cancer, with Neptune and Saturn in Pisces. Then we have the Full Moon and Ceres in Capricorn, along with Mars and Uranus in Taurus and Juno in Virgo. As Cancer is Cardinal Water there will be a push pull between being practical and being emotional. A very vigorous walk on the beach can be the perfect cure all. Or a vigorous session at the gym or a yoga class, followed by a walk near water.
So now, at the time of the current Summer Solstice is also the time to ask yourself – what of any of your life have you done a full reset on?
If not, why not? Pluto in Aquarius is demanding we do so.
The day of the Summer Solstice…
The day of the Solstice we have the Moon at 15% degrees Sagittarius, hence that days’ Moon is ruled by Jupiter, and despite us now being five months into 2024, we still only have Pluto retrograde in Aquarius and Ceres retrograde in Capricorn. Hence the collective chart is still full of forward moving energy and it is a great time to make the most of it.
We have also just moved into Cancer, Cardinal Water season. Mercury in Cancer is highly deeply emotionally intuitive and we may find ourselves being drawn to having deeply heartfelt conversations with loved ones, family, friends and indeed even strangers, out of the blue.
Venus in Cancer may draw us to redecorate part of our home in ethereally beautiful colours. Aquamarine, gossamer, fuchsia pink, gold, ceruleum. Colours we would not usually use perhaps.
So a perfect time to embrace our creativity, if we have not yet done so this year. A time to sign up for that long postponed weeks writing retreat, or short painting holiday. It does not have to be in another country, even 30 miles down the road gives you a feeling of doing something creative for yourself. Even if family or work commitments prevent us going away right now, we can still plan and book to have something creative to look forward to later in the year.
Writing and astrology retreat
My own letter writing and astrology retreat is being run in collaboration with Kathryn Hastings, from 23rd to 28th September at the four star Inchydoney Hotel in West Cork, Ireland, and there are still some places left. It will be a week of deep intentions where we teach the ancient art of hand written letters and Kathryn will teach how to use wax seals. My own work will focus on embodying the creative planets in your natal birth chart and how to harness that energy. Each workshop will focus on a different creative planet – the Moon, Venus, Mercury and Neptune.
The Moon is linked to our needs and emotions, and also our true vocation. Venus is our everyday creativity, and also our value system, hence what we love, who we love, how we love. Mercury is strongly linked to writing and out oral and written communication skills. Those with a strong Mercury in their chart tend to be either natural writers, or intuitively brilliant negotiators! And Neptune is our higher divine creativity, where we are our most spiritual selfless self. It is when our creativity comes through us, not from us. Like when we sit in front of a canvas, having no idea what we are going to paint and hour later, we find we have created something extraordinary.
Many of the great romantic writers of centuries ago, along with several of the greatest artists of our time were and are highly Neptunian – Lord Byron, Shelley, Keats. As are Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan – both Neptune conjunct the North Node. Born to create, pure and simple. David Bowie – Neptune trine his North Node, Leonard Cohen Neptune conjunct Venus, Sinead O Connor – Neptune conjunct Mercury conjunct her South Node, Prince – Neptune conjunct the North Node. What music must be being played across the Veil these days!
I am also running an astrology and medium ship retreat with Irish medium Vivienne Cardin here in Vilamoura on the Algarve from 18th to 21st October. A payment plan is available and there are limited places.
Details of both retreats along with several other half day Vilamoura based workshops are now all on my courses and events page of my website .
I was laughing as I found myself arranging and posting these extra half day workshops in the run up to the first Full Moon in Capricorn! It was a really focused feeling of “right, well the kids might now all be off school, but I am sure as hell still running these workshops!”
My sibling workshop is highly suitable for children over the age of 10. It provides the ideal opportunity for you as a parent to better understand not only your own brothers and sisters, but also the dynamics between your children. Sibling patterns also play out in step families and families where there has been adoption. I will be referencing both the work of Lynn Bell and Brian Clark during this workshop, two renowned astrologers who have written extensively about the sibling relationship.
Birth order is often overlooked in astrology and I know from my advanced Feng Shui studies how important it is. An adult may reference themselves as being the second child but if they are the first daughter, that makes them the eldest daughter, with all the patterns that involves. Or a gap of over five years between siblings can lead to a feeling of belonging to a second family.
So the Summer Solstice is a time of total reset, for hey, we still have half the year to go – right?
Even if finances are tight, we can still find time and resources to go buy a small sketchpad or a beautiful notebook and start either journalling, or writing the simplest of poems. The ones which come from the heart, unprompted.
One of the effects of the Covid years was the plethora of online writing groups, so there are now thousands of groups to choose from. Such as the London Writers Salon, which meets online three times a day, to assist writers write in silence online for a solid hour, alongside other writers. They have several membership categories, and the basic one is free. How great is that!
And the Full Moon in Capricorn, is, as always, a time when we let go of all that no longer serves us in our current lives, in order to allow room, time and space for that which does serve us. For those of us with young families, that may mean dropping chores we feel we have to do, in order to spend more deeply meaningful time doing that which we love. It may mean hiring a weekly housekeeper to allow us more hours to focus on growing that small business we have been working on for so long. Or dreaming really big, and finding the courage to ask for unpaid time off, so we can go travel. It is amazing how many of my clients have never even thought of that option. Or how many of them might have up to two months paid leave they can access.
This is a time when we will be invoking the energies of the Sagittarius Moon of the Solstice, the Cancer energy of the Sun, Venus and Mercury, along the the hard working serious Capricorn Full Moon. So a time of mixed energies. A time when we still have a lot of the Summer to go, and hence some of us may be already feeling burnt out before we have even taken a Summer break.
Here in Portugal, I know many people who have converted old houses on land they bought, or who have created artists studios for themselves. My own long awaited new apartment in Quartiera has a stunning sea view, is open plan, and has not just one, but two balconies. I learnt by accident several years ago that both open plan and also living on the one floor is what worked best for me. My kitchen is already replete with watercolour sketches and paints strewn everywhere, the back balcony is for writing and evening painting and astrology planning, and the open plan sitting area easily facilitates my office. Thankfully astrology does not take up much space at all!
As I have so often written, when we are in alignment with what our soul truly wishes to experience, the heavens open.
Moving into my apartment was not without its many challenges as I had several infuriating meetings with various people before finally figuring out the most time efficient process for getting the infamous NIF (Portugal tax ID without which I can’t do a lot of day to day stuff). Then working with internet from my phone until I get my NIF. Then figuring out where the practical day to day stuff was – took me three days to find a postbox!
And yet, as I was so finally in alignment I found the hotel I had just left was more than happy to see me come back and use their wifi, taking up a whole table for hours on end without even batting an eyelid. The kind reception staff even told me “well, of course, we know you need a second home!” And so now I have two homes in Portugal. And yes, they don’t mind me using the pool as well! Or the accidental stumbling upon a second hand English book section in a local office. Which saves this ueber Gemini a small fortune on chick lit and detective novels!
After years of gruelling and rigourous Neptune and Pluto transits, the Gods are finally smiling. But then too, I did the work. Despite the grief of so many losses, I still showed up to the work I so love. Bless you all who are letting go of all that no longer serves you coming up to this, the first of two Full Moons in Capricorn.
The second Full Moon in Capricorn will be on Sunday 21st July at 11.17am Irish time, so the serious Summer Capricorn energy gives you a second chance to drop all that no longer serving you in the lead up to that Full Moon too. More of which I will be writing about anon.
That Full Moon falls poignantly just before the first anniversary of the crossing over of Sinead O’Connor on 26th July last year, aged a mere 56. Like many others I was shell shocked at her death, as she had long been an idol of mine. Like many women my age, I grew up with her. I had written a blog on the Venus Retrograde in Leo we were going through at the time which you can read as I ended up dedicating it to her, as words failed me.
To see where either this Full Moon in Capricorn or the July Full Moon in Capricorn is being triggered for you now you can book a transit reading by following this link.
Thank you dear readers for reading my blog on the Summer Solstice, and as always, for supporting my work. In the meantime,may your soul embrace and enjoy this wonderful mid year re-set.