Storyteller's Night Sky 2025-07-09 (Uranus, Saturn, and summer's first Full Moon)

There’s something of a culmination in the stars this week, with Uranus changing astrological signs on Monday, and Saturn beginning its four-month retrograde after midnight Saturday, and in between, the summer’s first Full Moon, a remarkably fertile time when the Moon reflects all available light to us from the thickest region of Milky Way stars. With the movement of Uranus at the beginning of the week, the culmination comes after the seven-year sojourn the planet took through Taurus, a sign associated with the physical material world, worldly possessions, economy. Uranus first entered Taurus in 2018. With Saturn, it’s not so much a culmination as it is a review: the retrograde motion of any planet makes it appear to us as though the planet is moving three times over one region of zodiac; forward, backward, and forward again. In the case of Saturn this week, it’s beginning the second leg of the journey, reviewing the starfield it has traveled forward through since early April 2025. Saturn will make this review over the next four plus months, then, in November, it will resume direct motion and cover the same star field for a third time, finally leaving this region in March next year. The Moon is much more immediate than either of these two, setting a regular rhythm into our days that allows for quick assessments of where we are, where we’ve been, and what we need to do to get where we’re going. And it’s suffusing us with light, breaking open anything that’s stuck and crystalized so we can carry on. So which is these three bodies gets the upper hand this week? My attention is drawn to Uranus, and an imagination on its astrological symbol, which includes two vertical lines, curved toward each other, as though they are in face-to-face encounter. A horizontal line joins these two curved lines together, suggesting a threshold or liminal space, one above, one below. Already this begins to suggest that Uranus is connected to social encounter, to meeting the true nature of oneself, and the experience of meeting the self in the other. It is Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians ch 13: “Now I see through a glass darkly, then, face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known.” But it doesn’t end there, because the Uranus symbol also shows a straight vertical line bisecting the horizontal, as if to affirm that any true communion between individuals, or between my lower and greater self, does not mean a loss of self but in fact requires an increased sense of selfhood. A small line crosses this vertical dividing line, horizontally (sometimes drawn as a circle), which is one way of symbolizing Earth. So here we have this symbol of Uranus, which seems to depict true encounter, the kind that can take place in the physical, material realm of the Earth, the ultimate achievement being to know that the world and my soul are one great unity. And the planet Uranus is moving into Gemini, a social sign that draws attention to the everyday encounter, to our daily routines and rhythms, to that place in ourselves that was formed in earliest childhood by the impressions we received from our immediate environment, before memory began to operate. Uranus stirs this to wakefulness and asks us to find inspiration in the mundane. Astrologically this time is described as one that may electrify our encounters and see innovative communications technologies. It’s here for the next seven years. So with Uranus, consider the time from 2018 to now to get a sense of its mood. With Saturn, consider the path you’ve been on since early April this year, and think on what intentions you carried in the spring that want summer’s warmth to come to fruit. And as for the Full Moon, it’s always good for dreaming, and bringing new light to bear on things that may seem stuck.