As July begins, the atmosphere is heavy with the portents of the recent Solstice (6/21): an annual milestone that marks the astrological beginning of summer.
It was especially poignant this year, as it coincided with a station of Neptune. A double water emphasis set the tone for the three months that follow.
Neptune sets the tone
Like clouds heavy with unreleased rain, the collective mood is weighted with vague, amorphous emotion. To consider how it’s showing up for you individually, identify where in your chart the 19th degree of Pisces resides.
We humans tend to be uncomfortable with this kind of soul-deep restlessness and ambiguity. Here is where the transpersonal approach comes in handy. Rather than taking it personally, we might think of Neptune’s disquietude as a lesson about the nature of illusion.
The lines between reality and unreality are blurrier than usual this summer.
Disquiet
Most of us pin our sense of disquietude on something in the external world. And, thanks to the Law of Correspondences, events do tend to arise, right on schedule — both in the headlines and in our personal experience — that offer us plenty of options for blame.
This is because the outer world is illustrating our state of being. To believe in synchronicity, rather than causality, is to understand that external circumstances are reflections of our experience, not determiners of it.
Events are energy made manifest, but they aren’t where the meaning lies. The meaning lies in what cosmic lessons we’re being taught.
In this case, it’s lessons about the nature of illusion. What natal house is Neptune transiting for you? This will show you where veils are falling from your eyes.
Security
Water (emotional security) will be pitted against earth (material security) when Venus opposes Saturn and Pluto, now five degrees apart in Capricorn (7/17-21). Especially strong for those with cardinal planets in the 16-to-21 degree range, these oppositions trigger the ambivalence of need.
Although our society shames us for feeling “needy,” ultimately we live in an interconnected world and are by definition dependent upon one another. The Cancer-Capricorn polarity asks us to consider our various dependencies, asking ourselves how healthy they are.
On a collective level, obsolete tribal attitudes will be front and center mid-month. On an individual level, we may have been conditioned to feel we belong to a family, religion or nation (Cancer), but that doesn’t mean these affiliations 
make us feel secure.
They may or they may not. The transit doesn’t provide that answer. It just poses the question.
Egoic fire
Chiron stations retrograde on July 8th at 6° Aries, inaugurating a healing process bolstered by a trine from Mars. This encourages (literally, to instill with courage) our efforts to address any and all kinds of wounds. To get our attention, inevitably, it must first provoke these same wounds.
When Mercury and Mars conjoin while squaring Uranus (7/8-11), the drive to self-express (Leo) is magnified. Everything 
depends on the state of our ego. If driven by false confidence, we’ll probably come across as reckless and childish.
But if we’re grounded in the center of our being, our efforts will be childlike, in the best sense: exuberantly creative, like an improvisational storyteller delighting an audience.
