Sun in Leo II: Isis

Andrew

Aug 1

The Sun arrives in Leo II on August 2, 2022, at 3:09 am EDT. Austin Coppock called this decan The Laurel Wreath, and it's associated with temporary or short-lived honors. This can take many forms: the pat on the back after a successful meeting with a client at 9am, followed by a pink-slip at close-of-business is a laurel wreath. So is a bowling trophy at the championships at the end of the season; and so, too, is a gold medal after a competition in which you injured yourself so badly you know you won't be able to return for another fight. The Laurel Wreath is fond of granting temporary honors and short-term recognition — it's not the permanent recognition which the lion craves, in other words, but the set of honors that must be sought, and sought again, and sought once more, without ever attaining lasting glory.

It's appropriate, then, that the traditional rulership scheme of the Decans assigns this 10°-segment of the sky to Jupiter; not the brilliant and obvious king of our Solar System's center, around whom all revolves, but the glorious prince of the outer system, whose fortunes rise and fall with his own orbital peccadilloes. Just recently demoted to retrograde, Jupiter retraces his steps to find out what went wrong, right before winning the laurels; this is not his season for triumph, but a season in which review, and retraining, are necessary.

The ancient Greeks of Alexandria gave this decan to the presidency of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of magic, fate, and the natural world. Psychopomp to the dying and healer of the living, she was widely revered from Philae n the south to the delta in the north — and deeply admired by Egyptians, Nubians, and Greco-Romans alike. Her late summer festival appears to have coincided with the rising floodwaters of the Nile River's annual Inundation reaching the neighborhood of Karnak — the season in which the rainy seasons of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda swell the Nile's two main branches, and raised the level of the river by as much as 45 feet by the time it reached Cairo. Ancient Egyptians associated the flood with the tears of Isis for the dead Osiris, and timed this waters quite precisely to the heliacal rising of Sirius on or about July 6-7; by this point in the year, about August 1, the flood had reached as high as it was going to, throughout the Nile valley — the waters wouldn't start to subside until what we now call the beginning of September. The subsiding flood at that time was associated with the first quickening, or kicks, of Horus, in Isis' belly — the tears of Isis in mourning turned to the full waters of the womb.

The Laurel Wreath thus signifies and symbolizes this transfer of emotion from the sweat and pain and trouble of competition to the exhausted joy of victory. This journey is also symbolized in the dodecatemoria of Leo II: Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. Here we see the nearly exhausted fire finally extinguished by the dark earth of the finish line; and then transformed into the intellectual knowledge of success, followed by the salt sweat and briny tears of the labors completed.

Planetary Placements

We're looking at a night chart, making Saturn and Jupiter less powerful but strengthening Mars for all being above the horizon. Meanwhile Venus, Mercury and the Moon all share the sub-horizon world with the Sun — putting creativity, communication, and imagination to work in private spaces but hiding their usefulness from public sight.

The Ascendant and Venus share the first house, creating nurturing occasions for self-presentation in secret ways — trying out new hairdos, using temporary hair color, painting toenails. Venus is in the second decan of Cancer associated with Hercules — both the gym-obsessed boy and the girl presenting cosmetic tutorials on TikTok could stand to learn something from the other gender's approach to beauty, for a change, especially if early experimentation is carried out in secret. Wardrobe updates, skincare routines, make-up, exercise for the sake of beauty, and even a little discreet gender-bent cross-dressing are all favorably begun in the current decan. However, it must be understood that these should be the sort of experimentation that children do — for a short burst, in a playful spirit, and for a limited audience; before confronting the mass of reality, in other words, remember that reality has mass.

Meanwhile, the Sun and Mercury occupy the second and third decans of Leo — the realms of mythic Isis and of Serapis, of planetary Jupiter and Mars — is the expansion of the vegetative realm and the harvesting of it for the human realm. At the same time, the two planets together are communicating a shift in ownership and possession of wealth, implying that we had best understand what we own and what we owe quite carefully in coming days.

The Imum Coeli, the context for our happiness, is closely associated with where we live and who we get along with. Wherever possible, "eat local" should be the watch word of the next few weeks, with the favors of harvest showing themselves in the northern hemisphere. Local production of goods and services, and the benefits of in-house production, should also be considered valuable as well. Don't disdain the stool made by an uncle, or the rude knife a cousin made in her first time at the forge.

The Moon is in the first decan of Libra called the Blindfold and Sword, and the fifteenth Mansion called The Covering. These are associated with the righteous administration of justice on the one hand, and the judicious application of wealth to make more wealth on the other. We had best use our imaginations in the service of law and responsibility, while also looking out for our family's needs and the growth of their overall prosperity, in the next ten days.

The Nodal Axis hungers for connections with friends, while simultaneously dumping its fecal matter in our personal fun. Summer is often a time when allies and acquaintances need a few extra hands in the garden, or seek help with pet animals while on vacation, or want extra play dates for their children — it's easy to say yes to these things, only to discover you've inconvenienced yourself or robbed yourself of a personal source of joy ... "Of course I'll take your boys to Scout Camp!" means that you miss peach or blueberry season completely, or that you miss your girls running under the sprinkler with your dogs, shouting at how cold the water is, and how blessed the relief from the heat. Be wary of taking on the tasks that steal happiness... and know that you can't avoid them all.

Pluto in the seventh, in the decan called The Throne in Capricorn, portends certain plans made against you, or at least against your interests. Communicate frequently with spouses and with business partners, and collect intelligence on the activities of your open rivals or foes — don't lean into paranoia, but don't be caught unawares either: if you have actual foes, take time to figure out what they're doing.

Saturn is retrograde in Aquarius III the Knot, a placement strongly associated with undoing, untangling, and cutting-through what cannot be sustained. In the house of responsibilities, duties, and death, this is strangely and strongly related to what John Michael Greer has been saying for more than a decade: collapse now, and avoid the rush. Elements of your current plans, program, and practice simply cannot go on as they have been, and they will have to be eliminated, cut away, or undone. For some people, this may mean downsizing from a large house to a small apartment, or scaling back from professional elder care to moving in with family. For others, it may mean refusing to do a particular job or a particular task in a given workplace. For still others, it may mean making a decision to stop watering sections of the garden due to drought. It's ok to grieve the losses, but you may have to be dispassionate about the actual decision.

Neptune continues to trouble and make murky the waters of travel and vacation opportunities in the next ten days, as well as create confusion around the program at institutions of higher learning. Expect conflicting emails from graduate programs and financial aid offices, confusing directives from airlines, challenges at airport transfers, and delays in the publication of books by your favorite authors.

Retrograde Jupiter in Aries expands our our professional responsibilities, usually by dividing and re-dividing them for the sake of corporate reorganization rather than actual skill or rational value. The logic of Jupiter in Aries is to expand through separation — a log occupies considerably more space as chopped firewood than it does as a living tree... but once it's rendered into cordwood, a great deal of its potential has been cut off in favor of a single use-case. Be conscious of how supervisors and bosses both chop you down to size and atomize your reputation into its component parts these next ten days, and act accordingly.

Taurus acts as the eleventh house in this chart, which sees the most action of any of the houses. The Lot of Fortune, the North Node, Uranus and Mars all invigorate the middle decan of Taurus The Lingam-Yoni. Implying challenges both indirect and forceful, contrarian and authoritarian, peaceful and violent, these four together indicate that relationships with friends, associates, allies, and professional colleagues are subject to unusual and unexpected upheavals. The longing is to spend more time hanging out with friends; the reality is that these relationships are fraught with old animosities and buried resentments rising unexpectedly. Lines of demarcation are being drawn, as various people in your social circles choose their own perceived best interest over casual alliance. Recognize that you have your own choices to make — but not all of them need be blabbed from the courthouse steps, posted to the church door, or broadcast over social media. Act with discretion even when you don't want to.

Horoscopes by Rising Sign

Horoscopes of the second decan of any sign are reserved to my Patreon supporters at the $3/month tier or higher, or regular Ko-Fi.com supporters at the same price structure.

Cancer:

Leo:

Virgo:

Libra:

Scorpio:

Sagittarius:

Capricorn:

Aquarius:

Pisces:

Aries:

Taurus:

Gemini:

Colophon

I have a Patreon account for those who want to support this column as it continues its third year. I use Patreon funds (as well as my own funds) to support artists and artisans and thinkers that I regard as contributing to the well-being of the world. if you don't want to become a regular patron, you can also buy me a Ko-fi in $3 increments, and any column I write after receiving a Ko-Fi donation will be open to the public. You can also schedule an appointment with me using Accuity Scheduling, for a natal or solar return consultation.

I use iPhemeris for my charting software, and screenshot it to make charts. I want to thank the team that develops iPhemeris for the addition of Terms and Decans to their charts, appearing here for the first time! I use Hugh Tran's Physis typeface to craft logos for this blog, as well.

I use Christopher Warnock's The Mansions of the Moon as the basis of my Moon placement delineations, and Austin Coppock's 36 Faces as the basis of much of my planetary delineations. Neither gentleman endorses me. My own book, A Full Volume of Splendour and Starlight, is now available as PDF download from my Etsy website, as is my Almanac for 2021. Any errors in these columns are my own.

If you'd like to schedule a consultation with me, you can find additional information on the Services and Classes page.

If you want to read some of my other astrologically-oriented poetry, To the Mansions of the Moon is a collection of hymns to the angels of the Mansions mentioned in these columns. For the Behenian Stars is a collection of hymns to the first/brightest sixteen stars. The Sun's Paces are hymns to the thirty-six Hellenistic-era deities and ascended souls of the Greco-Egyptian Decans-calendar. While not astrological, Festae contains hymns to some of the older Roman gods and spirits from the calendar created by Numa Pompilius, the second ancient King of Rome.