Welcome to the June 2024 Cosmic Weather Forecast by Curtis Lang with Jane Sherry. Here in Winston Salem, as in most of the Northern Hemisphere, summer has arrived early.
We are bracing ourselves for a long stretch of 90+º days, and pop up storms that accompany heat waves here in the foothills. Early, prolonged summers are the new normal.
Map shows where the temperature is forecast to exceed 90˚F in the next 10 days,
courtesy Ben Noll on Twitter
The map above shows areas of projected 90+º temperatures through June 22nd in North America. A heat dome will move from the Midwest into the Northeast, baking the Eastern seaboard, and sending temperatures soaring in all 50 states!
Now that heat dome has moved north, causing record high heat in Nevada, Arizona and California, and is set to travel east, baking the entire US, much of Mexico and substantial areas in Canada.
Want to escape the unseasonable heat wave? Forget about a quick getaway to Cape Cod, Vermont, or even Maine! You need to go to Manitoba or Newfoundland!
The last 12 months globally have been the hottest 12 months in recorded history. May was the 11th straight month when temperatures breached the 1.5C threshold set as the safe limit for temperature rise at the 2015 Paris climate accords.
Rainbow Across the Park, Winston Salem, NC, photo by Jane Sherry, June 2024
But it's not all gloom and doom here in Winston Salem, where we try to keep you updated on the global climate emergency, as part of our Cosmic Weather Forecast.
One recent sunny afternoon, fat gray clouds appeared suddenly, dumping rain in our neighborhood, so Jane and I rushed onto our balcony, since conditions were ripe for a big rainbow, and sure enough, we saw a big double bow arching across Central Park, across the street from our building.
"It's a sign," we said. Many times in the past when Jane and I have felt oppressed, depressed, sad or stuck, a rainbow has appeared, encouraging us to raise our energy, elevate our minds, practice patience, and focus our will forces on the completion of the work at hand.
The rainbow has been for us an affirmation that we are on the right course, and that desired changes will come at the right time, but they can't be rushed.
It was nice to see this panoramic double rainbow because this has been a challenging year for us and for everyone we know.
Extreme weather events are the new normal worldwide. Our country is engaged in two wars of choice, in Ukraine and Gaza, with the potential to trigger World War III. Election season is upon us, and both American political parties seem to be in a self-sabotage competition.
As you read this newsletter, keep the promise of the rainbow in mind!
Joe Biden and Donald Trump
Joe Biden: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (source: Joe Biden); User:TDKR Chicago 101 (clipping) Donald Trump: Shealah Craighead (source: White House) Сombination: krassotkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
We are fast approaching Election Season 2024 here in America, with the first of several Presidential debates set for June 27th, and most people are totally dissatisfied with both of the geriatric Presidential candidates on offer.
One wants to be the 21st Century version of Il Duce, and the other one is propping up the dying American Global Hydrocarbon Empire with wars of choice in Ukraine and Gaza, while overseeing the start of a multi-trillion dollar multi-year arms buildup in preparation for the big event, a full scale war with China.
No matter who wins the election, housing, health care and education will remain unaffordable for the vast majority of Americans.
No matter who wins the election, the American made Forever Wars of the 21st Century will surely escalate and spread to more countries.
No matter who wins the election, the multi-trillion dollar military build up now underway in Europe and America will continue. Republicans and Democrats agree that winning the global 21st Century arms race is essential so America can prepare to attack Russia and China directly in five or ten years to eliminate their geopolitical rivals and maintain the primacy of the Global American Empire.
No matter who wins the election, doing the bidding of large campaign contributors will remain the main pre-occupation and the biggest priority of all three branches of the American government, wealth inequality will continue to worsen and the current feeble attempts to decarbonize the global economy will be throttled in their crib, robbed of needed money and commitment by a global arms race.
No wonder there's a feeling throughout the country that nothing will change for the better anytime soon.
In our politically polarized country, everyone except the 1% agree on one thing and that is the need for sweeping changes to address the many overlapping crises impacting life in 21st Century America and around the world.
So there's a feeling in the collective consciousness of being stuck with bad choices in a bad brain fog.
Worse, it seems that the potential for disaster lurks around every corner.
Paranoia runs deep.
But, as the great 20th Century American author Joseph Heller famously wrote in his anti-war masterpiece Catch-22, “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.”
And yes, there's a planetary energy signature that indicates this kind of fearful, hemmed in, frustrated, mentally occluded condition.
Saturn Atmospheric Changes, courtesy NASA
It's Saturn stuff! Especially Saturn in Pisces!
Saturn is a Transpersonal, or Social Planet, and its transits often reflect conditions in the collective consciousness as well as essential life lessons for the individual, depending upon the details of their birth cart.
With the Ringed Planet, Master of Life Lessons, immersed in the diffuse watery energies of Pisces, Saturnian boundaries dissolve to some extent, the structures of our life begin to seem tenuous, and we often feel that it's hard to think straight and make important decisions.
Pisces after all is symbolized by two fishes going in opposite directions, and indecisiveness is a Piscean hallmark.
Saturn has been in Pisces since March 7, 2023 and will remain in the sign of the fishes until May 24, 2025. Then after entering Aries briefly, Saturn retrogrades and passes through Pisces again from Aug. 31, 2025, to Feb. 13, 2026, so we are far from done with the lessons the Cosmic Taskmaster has assigned us for this transit.
Pisces from the Book of Hours 1470-1480
When we are controlled by the unconscious drives, inherited predispositions, genetic heritage and karmic debts that define our personalities, Saturn in Pisces contributes to a strong feeling that one is about to be hemmed in, restricted by vast Saturnine forces beyond control, and to a sense that one cannot attain a clear vision of those forces or even of any primal cause for our discomfort.
Despite the many potential negative connotations of the Saturn in Pisces transit, there is always a saving grace in every planetary placement.
On a personal level, the positive manifestation of Saturn energies involves engaging the probing power of the intellect to distinguish between appearances and realities.
Under the influence of Saturn in Pisces, the more spiritually developed individual may experience direct perception of subtle energy realms, increased empathy, and relevant intuitive guidance, especially in situations of conflict and uncertainty.
For those who have a strong connection to Piscean intuitive guidance, and well-honed powers of Saturnine discernment, Saturn in Pisces can provide strong support for efforts to pierce the veils of astral glamour and the fogs of mental illusion that prevent us from obtaining a clear view of our own spiritual condition, and of the hidden spiritual significance of events in our world.
This year, more than ever before, we could all benefit from these positive qualities of Saturn in Pisces.
But, if you are feeling confused, disheartened, gaslit, and spooked by the many ways that life can go off the rails in modern America during this Saturn in Pisces transit, brace yourself, because Saturn goes retrograde June 29th, a few days after the Solstice and the Full Moon, until November 15th, when the ringed planet will begin to crawl forward once again.
Saturn retrograde tends to amplify the planetary energy in our experience, focusing attention on the issues that most require our attention. At the same time, Saturn retrograde can make it extremely difficult to make needed changes, to get traction and achieve any forward movement at all.
To turbocharge the effects of Saturn Retrograde in Pisces, Jupiter in Gemini will square Saturn in Pisces in August. This Saturn/Jupiter square will be exact again this December, indicating that the aftermath of the November elections will be fraught with difficulties of all kinds.
Jupiter square Gemini transits generally are all about an inability to move forward, coupled with sudden unexpected financial and career problems that test the most basic structures of our lives.
This planetary aspect is characterized by feelings of frustration, impatience, restlessness and possible rash actions leading to disastrous outcomes.
For me, this Saturn in Pisces retrograde transit applies to the collective consciousness of the United States and especially to the country's prospects during the 2024 Presidential Election season, which will be in full swing in a couple of months.
Electoral College Map June 2024, from Sabato's Crystal Ball
As you can see from the map above, courtesy of The Center for Politics, a well regarded polling organization, the Presidential race is currently a toss-up, and likely to stay that way until the votes are all counted.
Neither political party is likely to achieve great success in this year's Saturn retrograde election cycle, unless success is defined as avoiding catastrophic failure.
The most probable outcome is that voters will be fickle in their loyalties, hesitant to choose, unhappy with their choices, and ultimately angry with the outcome of elections many or most of them may ultimately consider illegitimate, in whole or in part, for a variety of reasons.
There are many potential paths that would lead to a major Constitutional crisis. Let's look at just one.
Well known pollster Nate Silver spins one possibility. “It’s 7 p.m. on Monday, November 11," Silver explains. "Six long nights have passed since Election Day. The last ballots have finally been fully counted in Pennsylvania. And Joe Biden has just been declared the winner of the Keystone State by 3,000 votes out of nearly 7 million cast — and therefore the winner of the Electoral College….. Pennsylvania and the other two original Blue Wall states — Michigan and Wisconsin — just barely held for Biden, producing this electoral map: a win for Biden by the slimmest possible margin, 270-268…. It will take only one faithless elector to deny Biden his 270-vote majority, sending the nation into a constitutional crisis.”
With Saturn retrograde in Pisces for a couple of weeks after the election, the Saturnine structures of America's political system will likely be submerged in a tsunami of indecision featuring widespread technical difficulties with voting machines, legal battles over voting procedures and laws, faithless electors, and street protests by aggrieved parties convinced they've been defrauded.
"Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and former President Trump’s daughter-in-law, promised Friday to prosecute anyone who cheats in an election, threatening 'we will track you down,'” according to an article in The Hill, a daily news website devoted to the doings of Congress.
“This year is the year we do it,” Lara Trump said at Turning Point USA’s Detroit convention. “We are also sending a loud and clear message out there to anyone who thinks about cheating in an election: We will find you, we will track you down and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”
The longer it takes to complete the process of counting the popular vote and the Electoral College votes, in the Presidential race, and in down ballot races at the state and local level, the greater the opportunity for political spin, conspiracy theories and legal challenges to undermine the system itself.
Voters could find themselves adrift in murky Piscean waters, beset by astral glamours generated by a tsunami of disinformation and misinformation emanating from both political parties.
The stakes are high.
Will American democracy retain its legitimacy in the eyes of the American public?
What will the American version of democracy look like in the eyes of people around the world?
This November it will only take a single spark to ignite a political wildfire.
Mars could be the source of that spark.
Warrior planet Mars near the highly combustible Cancer/Leo cusp will sit in broad opposition to Pluto at the Capricorn/Aquarius cusp from the middle of October 2024 through the end of January 2025, long past the November elections.
Brawl in US House of Representatives, 1858
A Mars/Pluto opposition generally indicates inflamed emotions, incendiary actions and warlike aggression. There is a tendency for people to feel that others are trying to dominate them unfairly, and this may in fact be true.
This is an aspect with a transpersonal symbolism as well, and can indicate that political parties and religious groupings enter into conflict which both sides consider to be of existential importance.
With the stakes so high, the collective hive mind of the various factions involved in the conflict may default to complete conformity with their leaders.
If those leaders incite them, the various groups involved could react with unbridled rage and violent confrontations could occur throughout this period.
With Mars at the very end of Cancer on November 3rd, two days before the election, the first exact opposition to Pluto in Aquarius will perfect, and the potential for civil disturbances will be heightened.
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So it's quite likely that with Saturn retrograde in Pisces through the November election and beyond, and with Mars opposing Pluto during the last weeks of the election cycle and into the new year, the democratic system in America will be stress tested to the max.
The probability of disastrous outcomes remains far too high for comfort.
Fortunately the upcoming Summer Solstice and Full Strawberry Moon, and the next few weeks, are relatively calm from an astrological perspective, and we should all take advantage of this month's more benign aspects to enjoy life and take steps to prepare for what promises to be a long hot summer and a very interesting election season.
Summer Solstice 2024
We celebrate the Summer Solstice on Thursday, June 20, 2024 at 4:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, when the sun enters the zodiacal sign of Cancer.
This is is one of the four primary solar holidays of ancient peoples and remains sacred to many around the world in the 21st Century.
These four solar holidays are the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumnal Equinoxes.
Together they demarcate the great Cosmic Wheel of the four seasons.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice Festival is the time of the yearly seasonal cycle when will forces are rising within human beings, plants dance toward the sun, and all of nature is energized by Mother Earth’s outpouring of Universal Life Force energy.
This outpouring energy is directed by the Archangel of Summer, Uriel, who presides over the activities of the angels, devas, nature spirits and elementals in the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms.
Uriel, one of four stained glass windows in the cloisters of Chester Cathedral depicting the Archangels mentioned in the Christian Bible. Regent of the sun,
Uriel is often depicted holding flame or the sun in his hands. Inscription: ‘his ministers a flame of fire’.
Archangel Uriel is the Master of Universal Life Force Energy, which originates as Subtle Fire in the Divine Mind and descends through the subtle energy realms until it penetrates material reality, infusing the physical plane with the loving wisdom that is the Living Light, the Holy Spirit.
This Subtle Fire is the Source behind the Source of life that burns at the core of Mother Earth, the secret of kundalini energy. This Subtle Fire emanates from the Spiritual Sun and ignites the magnificence of the physical Star we know as Sol.
Uriel presides over the marriage of Energetic Forms found on the causal plane of existence with the appropriate flavor and measure of Universal Life Force energy necessary to provide patterns or templates for the birth, growth and complete development of minerals, plants, animals, planets and stars.
These energized growth templates, or morphogenetic fields, as biologist Rupert Sheldrake calls them, surround the space in the material world where the physical being manifests, and the resulting field of energy triggers the birth and guides the growth of stars, worlds, plants, minerals, insects, animals and humans alike from the beginning of their life cycle until the end.
For more on the Summer Solstice, including instructions for a Summer Solstice Rose Ceremony Honoring the Great Mother, see our article entitled Summer Solstice, Archangel Uriel and St. John's Day 2024.
Genetrix, Gouache on Amate Paper by Jane Sherry 2024
Capricorn Full Moon, Cancer Solar Festival
This month we celebrate the appearance of an orange-yellow moon at the time of the Cancer Solar Festival honoring the Great Mother.
This Strawberry Moon will sit low on the horizon far to the south in the night sky.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice is the time in the seasonal cycle when the Sun sits at its highest point above the horizon on the longest day of the year.
At the same time, the Moon appears at its lowest point in the sky.
Being low to the ground, the Moon will cast its light through dense bottom layers of the atmosphere, creating an orange-yellow coloration.
Full Orange Moon, by Victor Garcia on Unsplash
The Sabian Symbol for this Capricorn Full Moon is Three Rose Windows in a Gothic Church, One Damaged by War.
This symbolizes the fact that when an individual or a group engages in warfare there will always be collateral damage, and that collateral damage will always include destruction of some of the most cherished values of that individual or collective.
The corollary of this axiom is that the destruction of the group's most deeply held ethical and spiritual values will necessarily lead to a fraying of the ties that bind the collective into a cohesive unity.
We can see this dynamic at work very clearly if we analyze Israel's conduct in the Gaza War.
On October 7, a demonstration was held in front of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv by the families of the abductees, who expressed a request to President Biden to help with their return
Lizzy Shaanan Pikiwiki Israel, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Israel's scorched earth bombings of Gaza, the torture of captured Palestinians, and the decisions made to prioritize mass destruction in Palestinian enclaves over the release of Israeli hostages have already resulted in a tremendous loss of global goodwill toward Israel.
Netanyahu's conduct of the war has created deep divisions between Israelis who want the release of Israeli captives above all else, and Israelis who see those captives as acceptable collateral damage in an existential fight to the death that can only be successful when Israel occupies Gaza directly, displacing the Palestinians from their homeland.
Ad for an Israeli real estate company already drawing up plans for upscale settlements in the Gaza Strip.
"A house on the beach is not a dream!" the ad reads.
If you think that's a far fetched notion, just recall that on March 22nd, Jared Kushner, who grew up sharing his bedroom with Netanyahu from time to time, proposed expelling all the Gazans from their homeland and creating an upscale resort on the Mediterranean beaches there.
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,” Kushner said. “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
Here in America, where Republicans and Democrats compete to see who can be most warlike and the most supportive of right wing extremist theocratic Israeli war hawks, the Gaza War has sparked the most widespread and contentious student anti-war movement since the Nineteen Sixties.
The backlash against the student protestors has been swift, violent, and comprehensive, reminiscent of the violent repression unleashed against the Twentieth Century hippies who opposed the disastrous Vietnam War.
Three elite University Presidents have been forced to publicly apologize and step down because they failed to repress their students sufficiently.
Professors have been disciplined.
Journalists, authors and scientists have been cancelled for failing to be sufficiently supportive of Israel's genocidal war.
Free speech has been suppressed in America's universities, in its public forums on the Internet, and in the news media.
Those who protest the Israeli genocide are labeled anti-Semitic, even if they are Jewish!
Those protestors are far from crazy extremists, because the Gaza War has in fact been adjudicated in international courts of law as an act of genocide.
At the end of May, the International Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli offensive in Gaza constituted genocide and that Tel Aviv, in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, must “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction ..."
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All Out for Gaza, Demonstration in Columbus, Ohio, October 22, 2023
Becker1999 from Columbus, OH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The student protestors demanding a cease fire and a halt to genocide are joined by a large minority of American Jews, and a majority of Republican, Democratic and Independent voters!
"Nearly one-third of American Jews agree with accusations that Israel committed “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, and 60% support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," Turkey's Andalou News Agency reported as early as mid-March 2024.
"The survey showed that 70 per cent of voters support a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza, with 83 per cent of Democrats and 65 per cent of independents backing this stance. Among Republicans, 56 per cent support a permanent ceasefire," according to Middle East Monitor.
Yet another casualty in the Gaza Strip. Image: Saleh Najm and Anas Sharif, Wikipedia Commons
Your vote won't matter.
The genocide will continue in 2025 no matter who is President.
Our political leaders have destroyed the link between our democratic elections and the conduct of America's foreign policy!
That is one aspect of the collateral damage from the Gaza war, symbolized by the destruction of the Rose Window in a Gothic Cathedral, according to the Sabian Symbol for this week's Full Moon in Capricorn.
Meanwhile America's college students are being beaten and criminalized for taking a political position that the majority of American voters support and which is supported by international courts of law.
Protest led by New York City Democratic Socialists of America and Jewish Voice for Peace
marches north on Third Avenue in Manhattan, Oct 20, 2023
4kbw9Df3Tw, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Student protestors are accused of violence, but "A study by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) found that 97% of protests were nonviolent and nearly half of those that became violent involved protesters fighting with law enforcement during police interventions.
We are criminalizing an entire generation of our best and brightest. In the process, deep divisions have been created in the Democratic Party between party leaders, who want to punish protestors severely, and the twenty-something generation Z that may become totally alienated from the political party they once supported.
This is another example of the social self-sabotage symbolized by the destruction of the Rose Window in a Gothic Cathedral, according to the Sabian Symbol for this week's Full Moon in Capricorn.
This is just a superficial glance at the deep seated collateral damage to our ethical and moral values triggered by war.
This Full Moon in Capricorn is a time to assess our current situation unflinchingly and to determine if the course of action we are undertaking is worth the damage we are causing to our social fabric, our collective spiritual and ethical values, and our individual and collective peace of mind.
Neptune, Cassini Image, courtesy NASA
As we celebrate the Cancer Solar Festival, this Full Moon week's Cosmic Weather pattern is dominated to a great extent by the aspects created by Neptune, the spiritual ruler of the Zodiacal sign of Cancer.
At the time of this week's Full Moon, Neptune in the last degree of Pisces, at the Aries cusp, will be in a strong T-Square with Sun in the first degrees of Cancer and Moon in the first degrees of Capricorn.
In its most elevated expression, Neptune represents the Great Work of the Soul in manifestation, and acts as the vehicle of awakening Christ Consciousness for the individual and for the collective consciousness of humanity.
With Sun and Moon square Neptune this Full Moon, we can all utilize this powerful planetary energy to bring a spiritual dimension into our everyday consciousness, and to elevate our limited personality centered awareness to obtain a more expansive view of our world.
At this time, work in the creative arts, such as art, music, dance, theater, and painting is strongly supported.
Cave Ladder, Magic Lantern Drawing by Jane Sherry
All spiritual practices designed to strengthen our conscious awareness of spiritual realities can be unusually productive.
Exercises to strengthen our powers of discernment can achieve exceptional results.
Since the Neptune in Pisces/Sun/Moon T-square activates the Second Ray of Loving Wisdom, we are all encouraged to seek golden opportunities to be of service to struggling humanity in whatever ways we can.
This Full Moon, Neptune will also figure in a strong sextile to Pluto in Aquarius, which is a planetary signature associated above all with spiritual seekers.
Aquarius, from a Book of Hours, Italy, circa 1475 by John Glines
This strong, flowing planetary energy empowers us to seek access to the Higher Self, and to seek conscious awareness of the transpersonal realms of consciousness.
Individuals with this aspect in their natal chart may find that mystical experiences, spiritual practices, and exercises and therapy designed to expand consciousness will provide the most satisfaction of any activities in their lives.
Above all, this planetary aspect signals a strong desire to be of service to the collective.
We can all benefit by harnessing these powerful Neptunian energy signatures to support us as we engage in our favorite consciousness expanding rituals, meditations, and group spiritual practices this Full Moon week.
Crystal energy work, Reiki, transpersonal therapies like Past Life Regression, and all forms of complementary healing practices can achieve remarkable success at this time.
Curtis and Jane in Reynolda Gardens, Wakeforest University, May 2024, Selfies
Jane and I will be joining you in the ethers this Full Moon.
We affirm that we all will receive the grace and guidance we require to achieve our loftiest spiritual and material goals.
May loving kindness arise in your heart!
May loving wisdom arise in your consciousness!
May we join together with our Guides and Teachers, in harmony with the devas, elementals and nature spirits native to the ecosystem we inhabit, to bring forth a newly Awakened and Free humanity during this long, hot summer of 2024!
Meditation Moment: Any Fool Can Get Into an Ocean. . ., by Jack Spicer
Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the
water hardly moves
You might get out through all the waves and rocks
Into the middle of the poem to touch them
But when you’ve tried the blessed water long
Enough to want to start backward
That’s when the fun starts
Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural
You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown
Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth
But it takes a hero to get out of one
What’s true of labyrinths is true of course
Of love and memory. When you start remembering.
Jack Spicer, 1925-1965