Summer Solstice 2022 — Planetary Alignment on St John’s Day

The end of spring is a peculiar period of the year. Sunlight gets weird, and the Sun is so high in the sky that it almost feels like it’s not even shining. It is as if it was standing still, precisely as the word Solstice suggests. And in this stillness the Sun seems to call the human soul, almost absorbing it, dragging it with him in the heavenly heights.

It’s this feeling of “being absorbed” that in my opinion makes it difficult for the Soul to say that the Sun is shining out. This is because even though it’s true in a physical sense, the inner experience seems to go in the opposite direction. In a sense, when we look something irradiating we feel pushed away from it. And this is not what I feel, contemplating the midsummer Sun.

We are leaving Gemini, a mutable sign. Traditionally all mutables are considered to be “double signs”. This also applies to Virgo that from a symbolic perspective doesn’t have a double nature at all. Whereas Pisces, Gemini and Sagittarius can clearly be understood as having a double body.

This doubleness refers to the fact that mutable signs transition us from a season to the next. This means that during the month we can experience a mix of the mood and flavor of both. In the case of Gemini in particular, the Twins have two different natures. One of them, Castor, is mortal; his brother Pollux, immortal. We can picture them as a living image of the human being. In fact we all have a mortal garment and an immortal spirit.

In June we start feeling the call to follow our immortal nature up, towards the heavens. Our “I” feels almost compelled to follow the Sun in his cosmic journey. But all the light that shines on a material level feels almost like a heavy rain, preventing the soul to reach it. “It’s too soon”, it says, inviting us to stay on earth to build our wings. The material light casts beyond our figure a thick shadow, our mortal twin. Which is capable to condense and bear our double—all the parts of our soul that we still need to process.

Living throughout this mood, we approach Summer Solstice and the imagination of Archangel Uriel. For those not familiar with the Summer imagination given by Rudolf Steiner, Uriel is a spiritual being that admonishes us, pointing to our lower human inclinations to work on them.

Astrological Chart of Summer Solstice

Let’s now take a look at the entrance of the Sun in Cancer. In the picture below you can see part of the fortunate configuration we mentioned in the previous article. Most of the planets are in their dignities. In particular, five of them are in their domicile: Neptune in Pisces, Saturn is in Aquarius, Mars in Aries, Venus in Taurus and Mercury in Gemini. On top of that we find Jupiter, co-ruler of the Fire Triplicity, in Aries.

This means that this summer is going to be strong and intense. In fact the Moon, ruler of Cancer, is in Aries as well, making a square with the Sun. The luminaries are in tension with each other, but receptions are good. In fact the Moon receives the Sun in Cancer, her zodiac sign. And the Sun receives the Moon in Aries, the sign of his exaltation. Also the Moon-Jupiter conjunction is a mitigating factor, even though it may bring an emotional roller-coaster.

This means that even though we are definitely going to assist to all the tensions that eclipse season one has sown, the overall chart for the summer is describing several attempts to limit the damage.

It has already started. We’ve being talking about “lack of natural resources (such as the russian gas), environmental issues, supply chain slowdowns and cryptocurrencies”. International gas prices continue to soar, and just take a look at what happened to bitcoin! Its value has plummeted.

Also we need to continue monitoring the transits of Mars, because as we know it is the number one candidate as the eclipse activator. In particular on August 1st Mars is going to join Uranus and the North Node at 18° Taurus. We are going to talk about it in a dedicated article since it’s a very delicate configuration, especially because it perfectly mirror the eclipses energy.

Planetary Alignment on St John’s Day

If you are a morning person you don’t really want to miss this beautiful planetary alignment, taking place on St John’s Day before dawn. All five classical planets are going to be visible to the naked eye. only the small crescent of the waning moon could limit the visibility of some planets.

In the picture above you can see a simulation of the sky (from left to right): Mercury, Venus, Uranus (not visible), the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. If you get the chance, enjoy it!

Thanks for reading, as always if you enjoyed this article please subscribe to the Astronomicon Newsletter with the bar at the top of the website to receive weekly updates and not to miss future posts about the major astrological events. For private consultations, click on this link. Thanks again and have a good week.

Roberto Corona

I consider myself a free researcher in western spiritual disciplines, in particular Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and the Neoplatonic Hermetic tradition. I have a three-year training in Astrology at the CIDA delegation of Trieste, the Italian Center for Astrological Disciplines. I graduated in Computer Engineering from the University of Trieste.