‘She is in the Earth, she is of the Earth… and she shows us what it is about: Earth, which we always miss & pass right over. If we attune to her consummately, she shall correct that flaw & let us in on the fertile track of truth, the one our mind could never grasp…. She carries this manna that pulls us right out of our heads & into the womb wisdom that bears new worlds intact….. In the now, she comes in any & all forms, & she promises a way of being that will bring us to our senses in a very profound union between cosmic core & earthly substance.’ Extracts from Elias Lonsdale’s Star destiny degree for Pluto’s current placement.
Astrology expresses through cycles within cycles within cycles. These next two weeks bring us to one of the rarest planetary configurations for many years. This peaks during the period 15th – 29th July, particularly 20th, then 27th-29th (Full Moon at 6 Aquarius 15.35BST on 29th). It’s a foundational time that carries through into 2027.
As an astrologer, attempting to express the complexity of the astrological placements, along with the numinous frequency feeling/knowing inside me of their potentiality, feels like a finger pointing at the Mystery. It’s the same with your numinous inner knowing, isn’t it? For we are that Mystery unfolding and how may we truly understand it? As such, I’ll attempt to point towards the astounding planetary wake-up of these times (even given what we see playing out in the world).
To share the current planetary complexity, a telescope of focus is essential within the vast evolutionary cycles that we are involved in. Looking with focus, 2026/27 indicates a harvest from the shifts of the mid 1960’s when planetary giants Pluto & Uranus connected by conjunction. The meeting of these two planetary bodies always heralds a new cycle of approx. 120 years, where the evolutionary focus is on cultural revolution, technological advancement, and societal upheaval.
In the collective, in the mid 1960s, this catalysed deep deconstruction of traditional norms & delivered a powerful desire for liberation and radical transformation of ‘the system’. Vast change ensued in social movements: civil rights, anti-war demonstrations, feminism, environmental awareness, and the sexual revolution. Yet it was only the beginning. For transformation of ‘the system’, even given the dissolution of the last sixty years, takes time here on Earth.
A conjunction of major planets is always an inception point collectively. As we move through the mid-2020s, the 1960’s inception point is expanding through the Uranus/Pluto cycle & its connection with other planetary bodies, to herald a major collective shift. You may have heard of this planetary configuration known as ‘Barbault’s Basket’ through other astrologers?
Andre Barbault (1921-2019) was a mundane (focused on world events) astrologer. He accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the pandemic (using that specific word) before he died in 2019. The term ‘Barbault’s Basket’ comes from his research on the planetary configurations of 2026-27, which he suggested signify a major evolutionary shift in the collective.
Planets involved in this ‘basket’ include Neptune in Aries – the birth of soulful participation; Uranus in Gemini – radical innovation through science & technology; Jupiter in Leo – leadership with Heart; Pluto in Aquarius – power to the people. Many astrologers are speaking and writing about this. It heralds a massive opportunity. I am focusing on the more subtle, personally felt, aspects here: Asteroids Psyche & Hygeia conjunct Jupiter at 4/5 Leo, & Asteroid Juno in Aquarius conjunct Pluto. For it’s through what seems to be our ‘personal world’ that evolution is experienced. The frequency waves of new life pouring into the collective shifting individuals through unique tides of opportunity & challenge that grow us. We are all of this Earth, held in the field of her seasons, & grown through the universal tides of planetary participation.
The Leo Placements
Planet of growth & opportunity Jupiter entered Leo on 30 June. This opened a new phase in the expansion of conscious creative individuality centred in the Heart. Through it, we are supported in the stabilisation of deeper heart-centred presence through the current intense processes of change. This grows embodied knowing & trust that security is not external, it lies in your heart. It lies in your self-connection as being divinely human.
With Jupiter in Leo for a year, deepening embodiment of your heart’s magnetic field is the growth field. It’s to become rooted in whatever your individuality is here to express, as an attractor, through frequency. Did you know that the heart generates the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field, approximately 5,000 times stronger than the brain’s? So, the quest is to unfold in the new frequency of authentic individuality that will bless us all; the courage of authentic individuality that naturally serves the collective. Staying in and acting from your heart-field will naturally draw that in. It’s about living with sovereignty.
In this quest, Asteroids Psyche & Hygeia, (read more about them in my books) are intimately involved, conjunct Jupiter. Asteroids roam the solar system between the orbits of Mars & Jupiter so they are connectors between our personal & social worlds. Who you are becoming actually is an effect in the world around you. As you will see, when I link this to Aquarius placements, this extends into the collective and vice versa.
Psyche in Leo
Derived from the ancient Greek word for ‘soul’ or ‘breath’, the word ‘psyche’ refers to the spiritual essence within human life. It is the name of a female archetype in Greek mythology – a young woman who became immortal. Asteroid Psyche was named for this. From ‘psyche’ come words such as ‘psychology, psychic, psychedelic’ & their many associations.
In psychology, the psyche is deemed to be the totality of what makes you you. It represents the non-physical, immaterial essence of an individual—the centre of thought, emotion, and behavioural motivation. When I tune into ‘psyche’, I connect an intimately sensitive, subtle beauty. I know it to be the truth of what a human being is in essence. Greek mythology points us to this through the myth of Psyche, a mortal woman who personifies the soul & embodies the journey into full maturity & immortality. She becomes her divine essence living.
Pioneer of psychology, Carl Jung expressed the human psyche as being four primary structures or archetypes centred around the ego: the Self (the unified whole), the Shadow (hidden, repressed aspects), the Persona (the social mask worn to the world), and the Anima/Animus, (unconscious feminine/masculine traits). He also broadened this structure to include ‘collective unconscious’— universal symbols & archetypes common to all human beings, which shape our collective psyche. Leo/Aquarius is the astrological axis symbolising this.
Given these pointers, Psyche’s involvement in the current aspect patterns delivers the quest to be the expression of your wholeness. Like the myth, to journey from innocence (of your truly divine nature) & immaturity through various trials to reveal the strengths of your true capacity: your sovereignty. In the Psyche myth, at the completion of her quest, Psyche was gifted immortality by Zeus (aka Jupiter) king of the gods. Her conjunction with Jupiter now points to all these themes. The opportunity to engage new frequencies of living divinity within your humanness.
Hygeia in Leo
Equally potent in this planetary set-up with Jupiter & Psyche is Asteroid Hygeia. In Greek mythology, Hygeia is the goddess of purity, health & cleanliness (NB our word hygiene). She is the daughter and help-mate of her father, the medicine-god Asclepius, supporting the recovery of those who were sick in the healing temples dedicated to him. These temples are purported to be where modern medicine originated. However the temples had rooms for ritual bathing, sleep, for dreaming & divination, for sacrifice & the administration of herbs & cures, a theatre, & places for exercise. The whole person was involved in the healing process, rather than focus on the symptoms as with modern medicine.
Asclepius is reputed to have had the miraculous ability to raise the dead. This comes from the blood of Medusa (representing collective trauma), which was gifted to him and/or Hygeia by Athena on Medusa’s beheading.
The blood from Medusa’s right side could heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, whilst the blood from the left side held the power to destroy. It is said Hygeia made a healing elixir from Medusa’s blood that was deeply restorative. Serpents are linked with both these feminine archetypes. Snake venom is used in both natural & pharmacological medicine. Their symbology is vast in terms of both physical & energetic alignment. (Interestingly, Asteroid Medusa is also active in the Fixed Cross configuration I mention later)
Hygeia linked with both Jupiter & Psyche reveals the evolutionary bridge we are crossing in so many ways: transmuting our poisons (personally, collectively & environmentally); healing and/or the power of life/death in our hands. Choice points of crisis that can lead one way or another. How our individual choices (Leo) impact the collective (Aquarius) and vice versa.
The Aquarian placements
Lord of the Underworld Pluto entered Aquarius fully in November 2024. After sixteen years in Capricorn, with the systemic deconstruction of our established systems & norms, Pluto now sits in the sign of innovation, revolution, & individual autonomy within the collective. The energy released from our outmoded systems is freeing up. Pluto moving from Capricorn to Aquarius shifts the emphasis from the material world to energy. It’s about frequency over form. What you are giving energy to, not how the forms appear. This requires you be both participant & witness in your own evolution; to take response-ability for your power of transmission to the whole. With focus on frequency, the old forms dissolve, releasing their held energetic patterns to emerge as innovation. We could call it ‘magic’ but it’s magic we must be actively involved in. Pluto’s role as ruler of Scorpio is to promote rebirth through destruction. In Aquarius Pluto delivers his potency as the phoenix, rising from the ashes.
Asteroid Juno sits with Pluto in Aquarius now. As Queen of Heaven in the Greek pantheon, she holds the power of sovereignty, wholeness. In Aquarius that sovereignty is for us all. Astrologer Adam Gainsburg is calling this a time of ‘collective sovereignty’. For me, this speaks of the recognition that we are not alone in this evolutionary shift. Leo is where individuality sits; Aquarius where we collaborate. We are partnering each other. Now we must engage that partnering more actively, recognising the play of divine in different frequencies in us all as a collective. It’s about partnering as conscious choice through the challenges that seem to separate us. Its about individuality (Leo) sitting sovereign at the heart of community (Aquarius) – whether that community is your immediate family, your tribe or humanity.
A Fixed Grand Cross
The Leo and Aquarius placements I’ve described are part of a Fixed Grand Cross configuration active at this time. It includes the signs of Taurus, Leo, Aquarius & Scorpio, sitting with the collectively orientated Barbault’s Basket placements in Aries, Gemini, Leo & Aquarius.
A Grand Cross provides friction and/or insights to make you question, acknowledge, & transmute ‘stuckness’ disguised as security or stability. It engenders trust, faith, integrity, courage, finding your new place of belonging within the collective field.
With Wounded Healer Chiron at 0 Taurus we are faced in new ways with healing the wound of separation from our true Earth nature. ‘We are nature’: acknowledging this individually, our shared collective response-ability & trauma, is key to the evolutionary trends for the next eight years. Asteroid Medusa is in wide conjunction with Chiron, bringing the focus to trauma healing. Chiron promises the arising of Earth medicine on many levels, a new embodied state of being for humanity with all of nature. Competition, material greed, & ‘reaching for the stars’, will ebb to bring a more active focus on resources, what makes us truly wealthy & healthy, particularly from spring 2027. It’s seeding now.
In this Grand Cross configuration, Dwarf planet Haumea (Hawaiian Creator Goddess) sits at 2 Scorpio. She offers honesty about what is truly needed now. How our disconnection from true abundance fuels distorted need & greed. We’re looking everywhere but to ‘the source’, whether that source is the divine or our Earth. Haumea rules volcanoes, thus is intimately linked to destruction, yet fertility & new life. She offers us the gift of birthing new life from old.
Gathering up
With the plethora of planetary input right now, it could be easy to become overwhelmed, to sit & wait, see what happens. However, with Jupiter opposing Pluto let alone other placements, it’s time to sit up & take notice of how you are living. Fully or not? And what does that even mean? To you? Your place & participation in our collective way of being is in question here.
You may already be seeing what’s shifting in deeply fundamental ways within you. In my life over the last six months there has been a profound change. Over a lifetime, inspiration was my primary motivator; now that makes way for nourishment & enjoyment as my guide. This fundamental shift changes everything about my self-relationship & life, the way I live it and express in it. I’ve become more lovingly embodied, & surely that’s a worthy task for us all? It also links with the collective impulse calling us: higher frequency engagement in being fully divinely human. How might you make this more real in your life? What aspect of self or life is calling? It starts with you. You are supported by us all.
‘ This deep, feminine, earthy force also comes to meet us from worlds yet unborn. There she metamorphoses into myriad forms & guises. All of these say: The core nature remains to be tapped; it has never been lived in a true sense.’ extract from Elias Lonsdale’s Star destiny degree for Pluto’s current placement.
The Astrology
Barbault’s Basket: Neptune at 4 Aries, Uranus at 4 Gemini (with Sedna), Jupiter at 4 Leo (with Psyche/Hygeia), Pluto at 4 Aquarius (with Juno)
Fixed Grand Cross
Chiron at 0 Taurus (with Medusa); Jupiter at 4 Leo (with Psyche/Hygeia), Haumea at 2 Scorpio, Pluto at 4 Aquarius (with Juno)
20 July: Jupiter opposes Pluto Rx exact 4 Leo/Aquarius
27 July: The Sun opposes Pluto exact 4 Leo/Aquarius
29 July: Full Moon at 6 Aquarius
