What a confoundingly, dazzlingly complicated month July is. It drenches communications with emotionality and confusion while setting off and running us through the most fundamental, extensive and exciting rewiring of our lifetime. It sneaks in awareness of money and resources (especially shortfalls) and inclines us toward discernment and improvement projects. And it ends with a revised vision for the future, our communities, and our place in both.

It starts with Mercury retrograde in his most emotional mode, the sign of Cancer. We’ll be hearing, speaking and processing through the filter of feelings, and less through reason, which adds potential for muddying to the usual retrograde pitfalls of confusion and misunderstanding. We may also be opening up emotionally, realizing and talking about how we’ve been feeling about … anything and everything.

A lot of revisiting and reworking may involve Jupiter’s year-plus in Cancer, and particularly events of the last few months. (Watch especially for reminders of moments of collective celebration, from Artemis mission moon joy to recent jubilation in the streets after sports wins.)

It’s an excellent time to learn what’s been going on with your family (blood or chosen), recently or historically. Nostalgia will be easy to tap into. Vary your own wistfulness about the way things were by talking to the older generation; ask questions you haven’t before and record conversations.

Mercury is retrograde until July 23 and remains in Cancer until early August. To learn more, read my Mercury retrograde guide.

While feelings are flowing, the skies hurtle us toward the rare, reality-changing outer planet configuration that dominates the middle of the month. It’s not standing on its lonesome; the Sun and two inner planets are also do-si-do-ing down the outer planet gauntlet and bringing its fiery potentials into our personal sphere and being.

Two influences at the beginning of the month signal the approach. Jupiter has just moved into Leo and is amplifying self-expression, an imperative for fun and the challenge of being our biggest, grandest individual selves in the context of a greater community – all of which will increasingly fire up the outer planets as the king of the gods moves into position.

The action really starts as Mars heads for his conjunction to changemaker Uranus, which is exact July 4 (and will reverberate days before and after). It’s an explosive, anything-can-happen influence, involving information, technology, aggression, plot twists, shocks, disruptions and out of the blue strikes. Reality-changing news could drop. Systems or grids could go down. Travel could be a mine field of surprises, detours and worse. And internal switches could flip without warning and turn on motivation to take radical, reality-altering action.

In other words, this contact hits “GO” for the rewiring coming mid-month.
Whatever happens is not likely to be straightforward. Mercury’s retrograde could soften and obscure the details or the impact or even the true nature. And it occurs within an open doorway between Mars and Neptune, planet of illusion and inspiration, which also opens the possibility of softening or misdirecting or, sigh, gaslighting. Keep the faith, though: this combo could also let in higher guidance or an unseen helping hand or inspiration bordering on magical or … love as the driving force.

Fearless, powerful action and changes follow immediately, as Mars teams with transformative Pluto July 5. Drive surges to focus, to cut away, and to purge, as well as to realign power.

Before the big action comes, we’re pushed to suit up and practice discernment. A square from the Sun to Saturn July 6 challenges us to recognize limits and also step into responsibility. Venus’ entry into Virgo July 9 tilts the social mode toward drawing and maintaining boundaries, adopting a critical eye and considering how this or that could be better. (We’ll stay in this mode until she enters Libra August 6.)

Venus’ earth mother persona is timely support for the new challenge and opportunity for healing that sneaked in with Chiron’s entry into Taurus late in June. After seven years of inflaming issues of agency, aggression and toxic masculinity, Chiron has turned focus to our bodies, resources, creativity and the feminine. Even if they present as problems (and many will), these issues provide grounding as the outer planets rewire everything, with Venus in fix-it mode standing by with suggestions and to-do lists.

She’s directing attention to more than physical wounding and financial shortfalls. Healthier living, healthier boundaries, healthier eating, mental hygiene and a return to critical thinking are erupting into cosmic imperative, as Venus squares quick change agent Uranus and inconjuncts Neptune and Pluto, peaking on July 13. The connections unleash jolts, awakening, and adjustments in beliefs, idealism, finances and power, priming relationships, money and values for the mid-July event.

Before it begins, the Cancer New Moon refreshes issues of home, family, nurturing and security. They are newly informed by Mercury’s retrograde journey, which has him just past the Moon, but still close enough to contribute his findings into this next lunar phase. We are heading into the unknown, to be sure, but our hearts are coming along brimming with awareness of what has fed us to this point.

The outer planet configuration starts with Uranus’ sextile to Pluto July 18 and runs through Neptune’s sextile to Pluto July 25. Throughout this week, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are making a sequence of harmonious, enlivening aspects, shooting information and energy that power up radical innovation and transformation and fundamentally rewire reality, our experience of it and ourselves.

The configuration technically locks into place with the energetic lid created by Jupiter’s opposition to Pluto July 20. All the other aspects occur below that opposition, in a formation called a cradle or a basket. This configuration has become a social media sensation under the label “Barbault’s Basket,” named for the late astrologer Andre Barbault, who saw it as a profoundly positive turning point for humanity that would birth a new global civilization with more unity and wealth redistribution.

To more easily see how this applies to your own life, you might think of it as a Basket of Light, with beams crisscrossing as they connect and energize four major points. They’re installing a system that will blossom and evolve other time. Three of the players will keep their contacts as they move ahead in parallel for the next two years; one of them, Jupiter, will reach a point of stabilizing with Saturn at the end of August.

For a deeper discussion of what this means (and breakdowns of the generational impact) read my article Barbault’s Basket & You, which is available for purchase for a nominal charge at my Patreon without necessity of joining.

As energy bursts weave patterns like lasers in a sci fi story, agendas hit walls, obstacles and demands to be responsible (Mars squaring Saturn July 19) and similar factors require adjustments in relationships and ongoing improvement projects (Venus inconjuncting Saturn July 23). Meanwhile, the skies signal that the personal meaning of the basket is on its way, when the Sun moves into Leo July 22 and starts his approach to the outer planet gauntlet.

It feels like a crawl, at first, because Mercury is sliding into his direct station July 23 and slowing the experience of time. This sensation increases the opportunity to learn or transmit helpful information, possibly affecting a relationship, when Mercury sextiles Venus July 24.

Confirmation arrives that we are indeed in a very different reality July 26, when the North Node moves into Aquarius. The path forward changes from “we are all in this together” to the detached, intellectual land of the future, of technology, of “We the People” and collective power. The shift stirs the potentials of February’s Aquarius New Moon solar eclipse; watch for them to come back into thought, discourse and events.

The month ends with us processing and assimilating the personal impact of the basket, as the Sun contacts all its components July 27 and 29. Awareness swells of demons and power games, inspiration, forgiveness and understanding pour in, and opportunities pop to break free or view situations in radically new light, as the Sun opposes Pluto, trines Neptune and sextiles Uranus.

As the Sun moves into his final meeting, desires demand communication; relationships demand action when Venus squares Mars on July 29. Entitlement and confidence run higher than high, with the Sun conjunct Jupiter. We want what we want, unabashedly and unapologetically. That may differ from what it would have been even a month ago, because we are now different. The first phase of the rewiring is complete; each of us is now radiating a focused, empowered, inspired and novel sense of self.

Parlaying this forward happens at the Aquarius Full Moon of August 30. Another round of shedding is in the works. Friends are going. Groups are splintering or reshaping. Places in the community are being swapped. And visions for the future are evolving to match our freshly rewired reality.

https://empowermentunlimited.net/category/astroinsight/monthly-outlook/