The Astrology of July 2023

Hey, everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we are going to take a look at the astrology of the month of July. All of the biggest transits of the month, those transits that we will be breaking down on this channel one at a time as the month goes on. I do not cover as you guys know, I don't cover every single transit that is there in the month ahead; I pick those that I think are going to have the biggest impact. So sometimes I leave out transits that are super fast and brief and maybe not that potent, and I try to pick those that are going to be like the obvious big hitters for the month.

Then, as the month goes on, we usually take a look at those individually in archetypal breakdowns. So a lot of good transits to look at this month. I mean, the big headline of the month is that Venus is going to be turning retrograde in the sign of Leo. Your horoscopes for the month of July will be focused on the Venus retrograde. So we'll be looking at that for all 12 signs and giving you a sense of where the action might be for Venus's long retrograde in Leo, which starts later in July. So that is our agenda for today.

As always, don't forget to like and subscribe. If you are new to the channel, you can click the notification bell for updates when you subscribe. Occasionally I go live; you can find a transcript of today's talk if you want to read what has been said on the website nightlightastrology.com, where you can also check out my readings and courses. If you have any questions about anything, any of the readings, or the courses section, email us at info@nightlightastrology.com.

Well, I am not able to do my recording with Alex this month. He'll be back next month. So I'm flying solo through horoscopes and overview for the month. We'll miss Alex. But anyway, let me get the real-time clock queued up here, and I'm going to put it up on the screen, and we're going to go through all of the transits and talk about what to expect. Now, these are not full breakdowns of the transits. That's what I do as the transits come through. This is just an overview to kind of get you prepared for what's coming.

So let's go through them starting July 1. Mercury will be cazimi in the sign of Cancer, and you can actually see that right here if we back this up just a little bit. This is pretty early in the morning that the cazimi is taking place, depending on where you're at; I have the cazimi coming through, actually just a little after midnight central time on July 1, so you could say that this comes through, you know, Friday into Saturday.

But either way, the Mercury cazimi is taking place; it's an empowered moment for Mercury, who is essentially starting to recover from the combustion and is now moving out ahead of the Sun, and we'll separate and start reappearing as the Evening Star and in a recovery phase. Especially in the sign of Cancer, if you've been working through, let's just call it, the realm of emotional communication or emotional intelligence, family dynamics, the more vulnerable sensitive places in your relationships, and if there's been some challenges thinking or communicating clearly in those areas, you might start to notice an improvement or a clearing or healing.

Something coming through that with a cazimi that can empower you to find find the sweet spots of resolution or closure, or healing, especially around family and close emotional bonds. It's one way of looking at what Mercury's cazimi in the sign of Cancer might be up to around the first of the month. It's a pretty fast transit. So you may notice it on July 1, maybe into the second a little bit.

On the second is one of the bigger transits of the month, which is Venus in the sign of Leo, making a square to Uranus in the sign of Taurus. Now, this is actually going to come through two more times because of Venus's retrograde. So this Venus retrograde is a very Uranian Venus retrograde in the sense that patterns around love, beauty, relationships, friendships, and sexuality are going through some upheavals, some revolutions, some awakenings, greater liberation, and freedom. Freeing up pent-up energy comes to mind.

But also, you know, the unexpected twist of fate that comes when and whenever a planet squares Uranus, and you get that kind of liberation of pent-up energy meets unexpected, shocking, disruptive challenges to the status quo. So Venus-Uranus meets on July 2, and this is one of the bigger transits of the summer again because of the fact that it will come back a few times.

So, for example, let's just show you how this happens. We're going to take Venus all the way through Venus stations and turn retrograde around the 22nd into the 23rd. The retrograde then comes backward, and you're going to see that Venus hits the square to Uranus right around August 9 or 10th.

Venus's retrograde then takes it backward through a square to Jupiter, which comes through on the 22nd. So it's gonna get that second square to Jupiter; we already got the first one earlier in June. Then, after it stations and turns direct and early September, Venus will go back through the square to Jupiter, which is around mid to late September, and then Venus will come once more through the square to Uranus, which is around September 29 into the 30th.

So this Venus retrograde is repeating the square to Uranus several times, and the square to Jupiter, which came through in early June, will hit two more times as well. So when you have that in the air of this particular, let me just go back to July 2.

Now, when you have that kind of signature in the air around a Venus retrograde, it's actually pretty exciting because you have not just the Uranian signature, which can be liberating and awakening and sort of revolutionary for things like love and sex and friendships and art and beauty and so forth. But you also have Jupiter in the mix, which tends to grant a real positive, uplifting sense of opportunity and potential and belief and faith and hope, and it offers.

It also adds a little buffer or a little padding for any of the harshness that Uranus might provide. So, this Venus retrograde is bringing, you know, a change, an opportunity to revise, redo relook at things around love and relationships in different areas of our birth chart. But it's also doing so in highly Uranian ways and also Jupiterian ways, which really provides us with some pretty special breakthrough opportunities to really move into a new space that's defined by greater potential and freedom and hope and pretty uplifting themes in the air around this Venus retrograde.

Now, that doesn't mean there won't be challenges, but well, let's move on July 3; the early first couple of days of the month are pretty packed. We've got a Full Moon in Capricorn that's coming through, and so you have that kind of quintessential Cancer-Capricorn access that comes about, and a lot of people will find themselves exploring parental dynamics or the karma of parenting and family matters when Cancer- Capricorn is active, as well as you know, the need for greater maturity as well as greater vulnerability, more groundedness, and more openness.

So the push and pull between the earthy Saturnian nature of Capricorn and the fluid lunar nature of Cancer will be on display for that full moon; you may notice or feel some of those tensions in your life right around July 3.

Now we're skipping forward a little bit; on July 9, we're going to see Mercury in the sign of Cancer moving into a trine with Neptune in Pisces; very watery, very sensitive, very compassionate, very fluid, imaginative, and romantic, the possibility for emotional, powerful emotional spaces to get opened up within ourselves in our relationships in our families, especially for compassion and healing to be major themes for nostalgia, romance reflectiveness and things to come up unconsciously that spill over into our emotions or in our bodies.

So watch for some of those dynamics around July 9. Now just a little PSA, Mars moves into Virgo on July 10, which is nice because then we get kind of get a different Mars energy, and Venus retrograding in Leo will be probably the Venus energy, and Leo is a little less tumultuous once Mars gets out of Leo and moves into, you know, feminine mercurial sign.

However, Mars is moving into an opposition with Saturn that we'll talk about in a little bit, but I'll tell you why I'm actually optimistic about that. Anyway, I like having Mars out of the same sign as Venus, as Venus is preparing to turn retrograde.

So Mars moves into Virgo double bodied earth sign Mercury sign, and then, on the next day, Mercury enters the sign of Leo. So we're having kind of now a confluence of energies coming through the sign of Leo.

We take this forward a little bit more on the 17th; one of the next big transits of the month is Mercury square to Jupiter. So Mercury in Leo will be square to Jupiter in Taurus. We're going to talk a lot about that transit as the month goes on. But one of the reasons I like that one is that there's big dramatic ideas with flair. There's a kind of loud, proud, big theatrical energy around this transit.

I like it for the building and development of confidence for the need to develop something that's both like sort of that has that some something that sort of showy and solar, that gives you a sense of pride and personal meaning, but it's also practical and perhaps long-lasting with a square to Jupiter in Taurus. So this is a really substantive and interesting transit. Of course, you might see the, you know, like the cockiness come out with this one; this can be a transit that amplifies the tendency to boast or brag or to be sort of self-centered and loud. But I also like it for big, exciting theatrical ideas and plans and projects.

All right. Well, on July 17, we also have the new moon coming through in the sign of Cancer, which you can see forming right here at the bottom of the chart. So this new moon in Cancer places emphasis on an entire lunation cycle. While Venus is starting its retrograde and bringing the lessons around love around friendships, relationships or sexuality or art, and creativity, we're going to see that the cycle is also somehow rooted in the topics of home family ancestry in the past, or dwelling place, land property, or the connections that we have to family or people that share something of where we live or how we live day to day.

So a pretty interesting combination with the moon cycle being in Cancer; you could see that the lessons, the early lessons of Venus and Leos retrograde, are looping themselves into the more emotional waters of Cancer.

On the 20th, you're going to see the Sun, then make the trine to Neptune, the same one that we saw Mercury make, and some of the same themes about emotional healing and vulnerability, emotional outpourings, and sharings. More ease and flow, grace and communicating complex emotions with the people we know or love, as well as the need to gain something like emotional clarity. That comes out really nicely.

Interestingly, on July 20, Mars in Virgo will then oppose Saturn in Pisces. So now you have this very powerful dynamic from Mars and Saturn. Mars is like the gas pedal, and Saturn is like the brake pedal. And when the tour opposed, it's like, we're trying to push forward and do something, but we're, we're hitting a spot of resistance. Okay, so we have to work through that with discipline and focus, and patience.

But Saturn opposite Mars can also be a sign that there is a great labor that requires some form of sacrifice, or that maturity and discipline are needed to study the impatient, restless qualities of Mars, or that a more fluid way of doing things or working around obstacles is needed. But either way, it's a contact that suggests that some good piece of work of more contractive heavy, difficult passage is taking place and that we can move through it and effectively get something done, but it requires a real mature way of dealing with obstacles and challenges and work and sacrifice.

On the 21st, we can see that the same themes are being amplified by the fact that the Sun will then oppose Pluto. So we're going to have the Sun and Cancer opposite Pluto, and that dynamic is just again, as Mars is just separating from Saturn that we're experiencing a moment of catharsis and trance, greater transformation, and it's a long a water earth access again. So we're changing practical things and earthy things; forms and structures are changing as we are also getting in touch with watery and more fluid dynamics and finding room for their expression more easily and naturally.

So it's a really powerful moment with Mars opposing Saturn across Earth and water and then immediately Sun opposing Pluto across Earth and water. It's like we're trying to learn how to redirect a river and have to build tributaries, and we're working, you know, maybe we're building a dam over here and opening up a waterway over there, emotionally and psychically.

Now, right around the 22nd, we're going to see that Venus is stationing and turning retrograde. So the retrogradation is going to head just depends on which, you know, the way that you're measuring the retrograde, but this is into July 23. So you know, the 22nd into the 23rd, we'll call it broadly that Venus turns retrograde in the sign of Leo, and we commence a retrograde process that will take us, if we look at this takes us all the way into early September.

Here you can see Venus stationing on September 3, turning direct between the third and the fourth of September. So nice long period of Venus's retrograde, taking us into long lessons about the heart and love. If you look back at my channel, recently, I did a talk on the heart as a renewable resource, sort of preparing us spiritually and psychologically for what Venus retrograde in Leo is all about. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about that this month as the transit approaches.

So more on that to come, but a long process of Venus in the sign of the Sun, the sign of the heart, doing some pretty deep work, and a lot of it pretty amazing with the squares to Uranus and Jupiter, a lot of real tremendous heart, heart level breakthroughs.

July 22, of course, the Sun will follow suit. So the Sun will follow suit on July 22 and also enter the sign of Leo. You can see that right here. Let's just push it forward a little bit more. There we go. There's the Sun entering the sign of Leo. So really, like almost like a proclamation of heart that's coming through.

On July 23. Mercury and Leo will square Uranus and Taurus. This is another one of the bigger transits of the month. As we have Mercury-Uranus dynamics are often really great at creating mental and intellectual breakthroughs or breakthroughs on a level of understanding planning, strategy, communication, philosophy, and so greater freedom.

But this is also a mind-heart kind of freedom. It's about self-understanding, creative understanding, and creating more space and freedom to be and speak what is authentic to who we are; it goes right along with Venus's retrograde in Leo. Then July 27, Mercury will conjoin Venus in Leo, bringing that Uranian message forward to the Venus retrograde and sort of sharing it with her, which is really cool.

I think this is going to be a moment of really finding something unique to be realizing and communicating. This is like a heart-mind connection, where the heart and the mind are on the same page and sharing some kind of insight that will help us move past self-doubts, the shadows of our ego, etc.

Now, on July 28, Mercury will then enter Virgo, and the reason that's noteworthy is that Mercury is now tremendously dignified in its own sign and domicile as an evening star, a really powerful place for Mercury. Mercury will then have the occasion to turn retrograde later in the sign of Virgo, and that is by late August. But just in case you're wondering, that's not going to be happening for a while.

So, at any rate, those are our major transits of the month; like I said, we will be taking time to be looking at all of them as the month unfolds individual and, in some cases, a series of videos. I think one of the things that to me gets me excited about the month ahead is the fact that so much of the month ahead revolves around the heart of the Zodiac in the sign of Leo, the place of the Sun, ancient astrology was a science of shadow and light and the place where the Sun is the brightest is also where, you know, we cast the longest shadow, so to speak.

The shadow is around love, ego, heart individuality, a feeling of personal and individual specialness, and especially how those feelings of Are we worthy and honored and special in our relationships, that those themes are going to be so powerful and such opportunities to grow stronger and more confident, to feel more love coming from people in ways that maybe we haven't allowed ourselves to feel and also to give more love and ways that maybe we're going to learn how to love more, I should say because we're going to be opening our hearts more.

Anyway, there's a lot more to look forward to. I can't wait to get into all of these transits with you. I hope that you guys will have a really great month of July, and I look forward to being there along the way with you to unpack all these transits. Alright, that's it for now. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.