Jun 2016
Secrets and Lies
We’re being teased, again, with that great cosmic riddle: How to tell the real truth from what passes for truth. The Saturn-Neptune square — the biggest deal of the year, astrologically – is exact again on 6/17-18.(1)
Even if we feel we’ve already been tested, we’ll be tested again. During the first week of the month, Venus and the Sun set Saturn and Neptune off, creating a T-square with Jupiter.
From the 1st through the third, the Sun and Venus – conjunct through the 6th, in Gemini 
— square Neptune while opposing Saturn. At the solstice,(2) Mercury opposes Saturn, squaring Jupiter and Neptune.
Each of these triggers gives us a chance to go plumb more deeply, as individuals and as a collective, the paradox of apparent reality vs. Truth.(3)
Two stations
And there are two important stations in June: Neptune stops mid-month and turns retrograde. Mars, which has been retrograde since April, stations direct at the end of the month.
Neptune’s retrograde station on June 13th (1:43 pm PDT) indicates a shift that we may or may not experience externally. It’s a pivoting, in the inner realms. It’s as if our dream self forgot something in a dream, and has to go back and look for it.
Transit trackers, scope out the thirteenth degree of Pisces in your chart, and see what it aspects; or have your astrologer do it. Here is where a prodigious wave of unconscious contents is flooding in.
Our goal should be to put it to creative use, rather than to suppress or repress it. When integrated, Neptune contacts can make a black-and-white phase of life glisten in living color (discussed in depth here.)
Mars’s station, on June 29th, is at 23 Scorpio, the sign of secrets. Of all the personal planets, Mars is the surest bet to trigger events; and when it stops in the sky, it’s especially likely that something will happen. Important lessons tend to spring into form. Fights arise about things you didn’t even think you cared about. Sagging projects get revitalized.
Mars stations can unleash a torrent of productive energy when our ego is in good shape. If there are planets in your chart around the 24th degree, especially of fixed signs, an event may land that’s been circling overhead for a while.
What house of your chart is Mars passing through? This is the area of your life where there’s a burst of forward motion, propelled by your — or somebody else’s — ego. This is where you’re probably more attached than you thought you were; which is not a negative thing, if you understand your own motivation (discussed here.)
It is self-misunderstanding that gives rise to Mars’s less desirable manifestations. Unless suppressed or displaced, our ego attachments are nothing to worry about. In fact, we need them: they give us the strength to reach out for what we want.
The Mars station isn’t until the second to last day of the month. This gives us several weeks to get in 
touch with where we’re attached and why.
Notes
1 I talk about the psycho-spiritual lessons of this transit in my webinar “Crisis of Faith.”
2 This year’s Summer Solstice is a powerful one. The Sun enters Cancer on June 20 at 3:35 pm, about twelve hours after the exact Full Moon.
3 Mundane implications of the transit are discussed in my podcast “In Charge but Not in Control.”
