solstice summons
A word for the moment- responsibility.
Take a moment and feel where this word lands in your body. Do you feel it in your gut, your heart, your feet? What feelings does the word responsibility evoke within you? Pay attention to its images and stories. Is responsibility a burden or blessing? Does it stir up gratitude or grief?
The word responsibility lands in my gut and lower back, prompting me to sit up straight and feel into comfort or discomfort. It brings up stories of being a “big girl” and taking care of my material surroundings, being careful not to overextend myself by taking on too much. It makes me think of Earth, my sister and all my relatives, the garden, the altars, the children I care for, my cats, the little free libraries I tidy, the movement spaces I invite friends to join, my home and car. It has taken me quite a long time to remember I am responsible for the well-being of my body, spirit, and soul.
Cancer-Capricorn is known as a parental axis within the zodiac, with themes of authority and power, care and legacy, ancestors and home, discipline and responsibility. If you are reading this, you're likely an adult who is in some way responsible for your own parenting now. It is stressful and exciting to have such autonomy, to choose (to a certain extent) what nurturing looks like in adulthood. Take time to reflect: How are you handling this work?
This week I celebrate Juneteenth, the summer solstice and onset of Cancer season, and a full moon in Capricorn. We are being summoned to intentionally weave cycle into the care we give ourselves. There are scales to this and we get to choose how we play with the small and grand cycles in our lives. The quiet circle of inhale and exhale. The song of the birds in the morning and evening. The seasons and all the change they bring to our daily lives. It is a moment to revel in how far we’ve come and consider how we move toward our goals sustainably, because there is still so much further to go. I am both a descendant and ancestor in the circle of time. I am responsible for the care of my physical body, my first and only true home, a sacred vessel that carries the ancestors and descendants within tissues and cells. A large part of my astrological work has been coming back into resonance with my body and the Earth, our greatest teacher of cycle and nurturing.
“Crow calls, sun falls. They know the rhythm, the rhythm of it all. We are the only ones who have forgotten how to listen. The Earth is calling us to open up our ears.”
Maggie Wheeler
Summer solstice is an opportunity to reflect on the waxing of our journey from darkness into full light. It is known as the full moon of the year. Capricorn is the sea-goat, beginning in the depths of the sea and climbing to the summit with determination and discernment. The winter solstice and Capricorn new moon in January supported us in recognizing where we are already living the dream and making progress toward our goals: when we reach for connection/love/support, when we notice an unhealthy pattern and choose a new path, when we hold ourselves accountable to to habits that feed us, when we listen to our divine ancestral compass. A seed in dark soil, there is activity that must occur before bursting through as a bud. Now we have reached a summit in this work, the buds are reaching for the sun and we can take time here to recognize the growth we’ve made.
Offer gratitude for all the expansion you’ve experienced the last 6 months, the growth toward your goals now in full light. Think about those resolutions set in January and how they show up in your day. After the summer solstice, we tip into waning energy. We consider what must be shed in order to care for ourselves as a descendant and ancestor with sustainability, intentionality, grace, and accountability. Capricorn knows we can let go of the light and trust it will return, that there is a lesson in the growing darkness, that this summit is not the only one, that all is motion and change and we persist because we must.
“All is moving, all is change though I once believed that there might somehow be something firm beneath my feet. All is motion and all is well for solid ground is just a myth for those who never swim in it. All is moving in blessed change, oh the world we know will come and go and everything will rearrange so be the ground beneath that sky rolling round the by and by. All is change and so am I.”
Annie Zylstra
This full moon is forming a t-square with Neptune in Pisces. There is more than the concrete and material when it comes to responsibility and care. We need to zoom out, consider the scale of the cosmos, consider mythic thinking and themes across time and space, consider the land we live on and how rooted we are, consider the story of the place we call home and how the story is alive and written through us. Our bodies need imagination.
As we move into summer, there is a pull to ‘make the most of it.’ Do all you can, be everywhere all the time, experience everything. I invite you to slow down and take time for your heart during this busy season. You are responsible for your own well-being. You are responsible for the Earth you walk upon and the other creatures who call it home. You are responsible for living your dream, your soul’s work, a frequency which ripples to all those you come in contact with, ripples through time to those who came before and those who are coming after. It is only through deep care that we can extend ourselves to others. Cancer reminds us that an empty cup cannot pour and reciprocity is a divine gift.
“Fifty-two trillion cells, that’s how many of those single drifters have now merged together to make a single homo sapiens. All those cells living together, figuring out how to be alive so we can continue, just like this, one generation after the next.”
Susan Raffo in Liberated to the Bone
May you take responsibility for the gift you are to the world.
xo, Olivia
