On July 16th, we’ve got a Full Moon Partial Lunar Eclipse at 8:38 PM PST. This is the last lunar eclipse of the year. The majority of North America will not be able to see it, but we might feel it—many of us have been feeling this eclipse season in various ways. Whether you feel fantastic or rough, excited or grief-stricken, meet yourself where you are.
The July Full Moon is sometimes known as the Thunder Moon; some Algonquian peoples called it that. There are many other names, depending on where one was: the Ojibwa called it the Raspberry Moon, and the Cree called it the Feather Molting Moon.
This lunar eclipse is in the sign of Capricorn, the sign that corresponds to Saturn: planet of boundaries, rules, limits, and time. Themes of external/internal, structures, movement, ambition, and inner wisdom may be surfacing in your world. When there is a full moon, the Sun and Moon are opposite one another. The light of the Sun projects onto the Moon; we get an opportunity to see things another way, to unpack a struggle or an emotional need in order to gain clarity. Let this full moon, at the height of summer, open yourself up to become more of who you know yourself to be. Let this partial eclipse help alchemize an area in your life that will offer you many gifts down the road.
The astrologer Dane Rudhyar wrote that at a full moon lunar eclipse, the past is obscured by the present. Karmic patterns from the past—our emotional patterns and defenses, our earliest or most profound wounding—can be acknowledged and accepted, which can help heal them. The harmful wounding of the past can be up for a full release. This process takes months, if not years, but it can begin during a lunar full moon eclipse, if one is open to it.
Eclipses have the ability to shine light into crevices that we don’t always have the ability to see. Or, that we don’t necessarily want to see. The edges of our shadows become sharper. The bigger patterns and pictures of our lives come up for review and revision. Certain impulses we have, and why we have them are more available to understand. Reasons why we react the way we do, or slip into defensiveness, are ready to be transformed into a more graceful way of flowing with our life.
If we are thinking about eclipses as being amplified energy, than a full moon lunar eclipse might heighten your psychic abilities or make you feel more connected with a universal consciousness. It could also make you feel much more on edge, wired, and emotional. Remember to take breaks, double-down on the necessities of self-care such as hydration and rest, and to not overbook or schedule too much for yourself.
A lunar eclipse is a great time to really zoom out on your life. Get truly honest with yourself. If you’ve been getting lost in the putting out of fires, if the repetition of your life is starting to make you feel like Groundhog Day, a lunar eclipse could be a beautiful time to try to get unstuck. You can start by really identifying what you enjoy and what you don’t enjoy. What is stuck or stagnant in your life? Be specific. Get to the roots, the heart of the matter. It could be time to cut out certain behaviors or relationships that are taking up too much time and energy. Remember, emotions are energy. Where are you wasting your precious energy? Where is it time to call it back?
Be incredibly careful and intentional with your energy and your actions around this time. Align yourself with where you are going. This would be the perfect time to check back on your resolutions for this year. What have you progressed on? What needs more attention? What needs your attention now?
Repeating patterns or themes may be coming up for you around this time, themes and patterns that have been circling around your interior or external for months, or years. These are ready for review. These are ready to be transformed. Sometimes we need to look back in order to move forward. Then, we accept that the past is over. Forgive yourself and others as needed. Step into a new way of being.
Part of partaking in lunar work is to notice those themes, to name those patterns, and work towards healing them. Define what needs healing in your life. Be clear about how you will be able to know if you are healing. For some, this might be subtle. It might just be that your experience of a challenging situation isn’t so heightened. It might just be that what used to really bother you, barely registers. It might be that you will have the courage to begin working towards your most lofty goals, with your whole self on board. We all have the opportunity to become enlightened, to focus on what is most important.
When all else fails, come back to yourself. Be still. Just be. Allow your cells to drink in your beauty, your softness, your changing cycles.
The following tarotscopes and suggested spell ingredients were channeled for you. Feel free to read your Sun, your Moon, or your Rising. Take what you’d like and leave the rest.
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Aries
2 of Swords
Aries, this time period marks a truly new beginning. This full moon lunar eclipse could illuminate your relationship to yourself, your mindset, and your intuition. Over the last few years, you’ve been trusting yourself more and more. This hasn’t always been easy. You have grown and learned invaluable lessons about what you are capable of when you decide to follow your instincts. Now, you are ready to completely rebuild the next phase of your life. It all starts from within.
If you aren’t feeling it, this could be because you’ve been putting your attention on all that isn’t happening. That sucks your intuition away: that quiet voice that lives in tiny pockets of time, that gestures to you in-between a long inhale and a longer exhale. In order to move energy, you’ve got to make a choice on where you are investing it. Our thoughts are energy. Our emotions are energy. Our relationships are energy.
There could be a layer of exhaustion around this full moon lunar eclipse. This is normal, it happens whenever we are reprogramming. The tiredness you could be feeling is because you are a.) running your energy into the wrong directions and you are being drained or b.) you are intuitively processing your next steps and reprogramming different pathways. The outcome is a deeper intimacy with yourself.
True intimacy means loving yourself — or others — even when there’s no tangible reward. Yet. Keep listening. Keep paying attention to your thoughts and redirecting them as necessary. Trust that your intuition will give you the answers you need in the moments you need them.
Suggested spell ingredients: Fluorite, herkimer diamond, long guided meditations, psychic dreams, equanimity, oat straw, ashwagandha root, a pond where you look at your reflection at night under the full moon
Taurus
The Devil
This could be a very interesting full moon lunar eclipse, Taurus! When the Devil shows up to play, it usually makes for a memorable experience. This is the card that correlates with Capricorn, the sign that this full moon is in: a sign that correlates with structures, ambition, and the various mountains we climb in order to reach our clearest wisdom. This lunar eclipse could be having you thinking about your desires and how you’ve been led to believe you aren’t allowed to fully experience them. You could be questioning your work in the world. And where you are getting in your own way of experiencing success wholly on your own terms.
When we are breaking through obstacles, there can be the tendency to want to return to our comfort zone. Stay brave and keep it moving. If reminders of the past come across your path, let them pass. You’ve already been there, you’ve already done that.
You might be resisting temptation. Not necessarily the usual earthly temptations, but the ways you keep your desires manageable so as not to disappoint yourself. Impulses to play small are very strong when we are on the brink of a breakthrough. Impulses to settle are practically etched in our bones. You didn’t come here to play small, and you didn’t come here to settle. Admit to yourself how you’ve been getting in your own way. Speak out loud all that you know you are and all that you require in order to feel fulfilled. Commit to your real, exciting, wild, brave desires. That is the first step to getting what you truly want.
Suggested spell ingredients: Obsidian, ruby, burning spells, a list of dream jobs, a hike up a mountain or a view from a skyscraper — anything that will give you another perspective, lots and lots of water, juniper, willow
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Gemini
The Tower
You’ve finally gotten there, precious Gem. To the place where you are allergic to lies. To the place where only your most resonant truths can ring out. You now truly understand what beliefs you are destroying and what new paradigms you are consciously creating.
The Tower is the card of extreme transformation. It is the leveling process that we all must go through in order to step into a more realized version of the self. The seeds of who you are becoming are already growing up through the earth. In order for those seeds to take root, you must get rid of what is stopping them from truly blooming.
If this lunar eclipse ends up feeling hard, well, that’s because it might be. Changing is hard. Endings are hard—even if they are for the best. Healing is hard. Sometimes it hurts. It requires patience and bravery. It requires the pulling up of pain. Dismantling the unhealthy parts of our ego feels extremely uncomfortable. Our ego kicks and screams; it is an intuitive energy that can anticipate its demise. Be loving to yourself through this process, knowing it is inevitable and knowing it will pass.
Tower energy can come in as setbacks or delays. For some, it shows up as one or more external things being taken away or ending. At this time, please view any and all setbacks as a gift. There might be ample chances around this full moon lunar eclipse for breakdowns, miscommunications, and situations that test your patience. Use everything as an opportunity to make better choices. Reconnect to self-care and beauty through the discomfort. Anything for you is already on its way to you. This is the part where you aren't supposed to know when or how. This is the time of your surrender.
You are now being challenged to trust your intuition and to tap into your own wisdom. Anything distracting you from your truest purpose must fall away.
Suggested spell ingredients: banishing spells, uncrossing spells, peace spells, bismuth, Angelica, blue vervain, desert rose, grounding exercises, cucumber water, face masks you’ve placed in the freezer
Cancer
The Emperor
The Emperor comes up at this full moon lunar eclipse to remind you of how powerful you are. Whether you can see this or not, you are becoming a different version of yourself. More and more, you are tapping into your raw, unfiltered energy. You’ve reached a certain level of inner knowing: who you are now is not who you were even 3 months ago. Now it is time to translate this new identity into action. If your ambitions feel daunting, that’s because you are finally getting real with yourself. Moon child, you are more than capable. Just because you haven't been able to do something yet doesn't mean you can't or aren't going to be able to eventually. Try to discern how much of your uncertainty is just remnants of past fear tangled up in the present. Don’t back down from moving ahead into new territories of expression, creativity, and resolve. Assert exactly how much space and focus you need to make this next phase of your life materialize. Clarify how you will know you are a success. Keep your eyes firmly fixed upon your dreams. Keep your actions moving forward to meet your bright future.
Try playing around with taking actions first, then processing later. Writing down lists of your action plan and all the tasks you must fulfill could be helpful for the next few weeks or months. Nurture yourself and your personal goals. When in doubt, get out of your own way.
All you have to be is yourself, sweet one. In fact, the more you share your unique gifts and personality with others, the easier it will be to build the world that is growing inside of your heart.
Suggested spell ingredients: tiger eye, carnelian, a pot of basil, an altar you create that celebrates all the accomplishments you are summoning over the summer, a gold charm that symbolizes power, the best boundaries you’ve ever had, courage, a red candle with a sigil etched into it to symbolize determination
Leo
Ace of Wands
Leo, excitement and pleasure are all around you. This full moon lunar eclipse is asking you to step into a way of being that is invigorating to your heart and soul. A life where fun and joy are the new normal. No matter what. Prioritizing what lights you up every day is key. If you’ve needed a permission slip to start a new project, behavior, habit, magical practice, look, business, or love affair, than this is your permission.
This all starts with the level of enjoyment you bring to your days. It is time to mix things up. Is your world set up for rewards only after a day of long work? Change up the order: have a pleasurable morning. Find ways to make the work the reward. Do you withhold creativity for after all the chores are done, and then you are too tired to do when you really want? Leave the dishes in the sink more and chase the lightning bolts of inspiration as they come. Someday is today.
The Ace of Wands symbolizes a fresh start into renewed passion, into intriguing ideas, into creativity. Fan those flames into emotional fulfillment. All summer long you will be even more magnetic than you usually are. Remember that as you make what you want happen with refreshed energy. Remember that as you use your irresistibility for good. Make your life a work of art, and a work of art is what your life will become.
Suggested spell ingredients: A new sex toy, a dance class or dance party, laughter, lemon quartz, honey orange blossom iced tea, an orange candle, the Kama Sutra, fresh ripe mangoes with plenty of juice to run down your chin
Virgo
2 of Cups
This full moon lunar eclipse could be highlighting what you need and what you receive. What you give and what you get. If there’s a gap between the two, you could be feeling the emptiness acutely. What does your heart need to get into balance? Let your pain lead you into compassion. Love yourself enough to be honest. The more honest you are with yourself, the easier it is to know what you need. When you know what you need, the easier it is to communicate this to others. Be willing to believe in how hard others want to adore you.
However, this card is also about being ready and willing to step into healthy love, healthy relationships, and healthy ways of treating yourself. The work you’ve been doing around this is paying off. If that is the case, enjoy it, bask in it, and celebrate your glow. Everyone else can see it too; use that goodwill overflow to serve others.
When the 2 of Cups comes up, there is also the suggestion of merging and combining different aspects of yourself, of your practice, of your desires. Your art might need a dose of spirituality. Your spirituality might need a splash of science. It could be that you need to practice sitting back and letting others take the wheel for a while. What can you try incorporating now that could lead to more flow? This full moon wants you to be vulnerable enough with yourself to give yourself the love and relationships that you deserve.
Suggested spell ingredients: A clean room, an altar filled with wild flowers and foraged herbs, rosehips, Hawthorne berry tincture, lepidolite, a warm bath, compassion, a really delicious mixed drink
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Libra
3 of Pentacles
Dear Libra, this full moon lunar eclipse finds you preoccupied with what you are presently building. Themes of what aspects of yourself you are showing the world, and how others see you could also be coming up as well. If you need to make some adjustments to your public image, if you know you need to let others see different parts of you, now is the time. Figure out how you will do that in a way that feels slightly out of your comfort zone.
Coins are on your mind as well. Can you work smarter, not harder? Think about ways you can pave an abundant future. Reach out to others and tell them what you need. This also applies the future of the collective. The clearer you are about who your community is, and who your work is for, the less cluttered your way forward will be.
The 3 of Pentacles is a card about material manifestations through collaborations. For some of you, it is time to examine who shows up for you and how. Be conscious of the energy you are giving out and if it is balanced with what comes back to you. Are you the one pulling the majority of the weight in your most important relationships? Why? There could be some trust issues hiding underneath your surface. This is the time to heal those. There could also be some self-worth blocks. If your worth is tied to how much you can do for others, loosen that attachment. You only need to be yourself for others to value you, lovely Libra.
At the end of the day, how you value your time, your energy, and your talents determine your self-worth. Your self-worth often determines how and how much you get paid. Proceed as if you are priceless. Because that is most certainly what you are.
Suggested spell ingredients: pyrite, pentacles, prayers, pitches, presentations, mirror magic, self-love, repetitive singing or chanting, a place to spend time in where you feel connected to others and honored for who you are
Scorpio
9 of Cups
Scorpio, you are strategic. You are beyond strong. You are well-versed in reinvention. At this full moon lunar eclipse, please use that strength and strategy for your emotional contentment. Please use your innovation to create long-lasting altars that remind you of what you love, and how lovable you are.
The 9 of Cups, the card that was pulled for you, is often called the wish fulfillment card. This is an archetype the resonates with showing off your gifts. This moon, and this month is not the time for modesty. For the rest of the month, examine how you sell yourself short, where you underplay your accomplishments, when you feel the need to deflect compliments or recognition. Instead, speak up for yourself. Let your excitement shine through. For those of you that have been on a roll, use your momentum to keep your dreams hot and cooking in your cauldron.
This is also a moon around practicing gratitude. Blessings met with stress will never feel like the gifts they are. How much of what you have now done did you want a year ago? Remember to savor the small moments, over and over. This is how you step into lasting success. This is how you trust that sweetness can be long-lasting. Developing a conscious practice of gratitude will allow you to enjoy the many fruits of your labors. Something you’ve been working on is culminating now: make the intention to enjoy it. This will create a ripple effect that could reconcile some resistance you may have around receiving. Emotional healing is available to you. The more you value yourself outside of any external recognition, the closer to fulfillment you get.
Suggested spell ingredients: A joyful gathering where you can dress up and strut your stuff, lemon quartz, kunzite, rose petals in your bath water, rose tincture in your seltzer, citrine in water in your most beautiful chalice that you drink to embody your most abundant self
Sagittarius
The Magician
This full moon lunar eclipse could be showing you what it is time to leave behind. There are one or more projects, dreams, dramas, or relationships that need to be weeded out of your garden, gentle archer. It is easy to get derailed by needing the moment to be perfect, by needing the tools to be the very best, by wanting the shiniest, biggest fireworks to flash in front of your eyes. The Magician is the symbol to remind you that YOU are the one you have been waiting for. The perfect moment is when you are aligned in body, mind, and spirit. You already possess all the tools you need inside. The resources you need are the ones you already have: a friend of a friend, a skill set you already know, a path already in your field of vision. Be as picky as possible about where you are spending your time, your energy, your awareness. Your environment feeds your energy. If your environment cannot always be what you choose, spend time around this full moon lunar eclipse making the parts and the places you can control a haven for your magic.
Whittle down your goals for the next few months into just one or two feelings, words, or affirmations. Keep it simple. Focus on one thing at a time. Pour all your resources into making that precious project the very best it can be. By doing this, you will develop a mastery beyond any of your wildest expectations. The gift of obtaining total trust in self and total self-love is a priceless one. This will absolutely unfold as a result of making your process pristinely intentional.
If this is a full moon around healing a pattern that stops you from claiming all that you deserve, focus on that. Lean into the essence of the element or elements you need to embody. If you need to access the flow of water, stand under a spigot. If you need the clarity of air, turn your face to the wind, breathe in long and deep. Use what is already around you. Don’t put off saying yes to your desires. You are the spell. Cast yourself.
Suggested spell ingredients: The four elements, one or two words you charge with intention, lapis lazuli, clear quartz to program with your dream, a room of your own to create/work/make magic in
Capricorn
Ace of Swords
This full moon lunar eclipse falls in your sign, Capricious Capricorn. It is an electrical dose of your own mirror moon. In general, folks love to freak out around lunar eclipses. But you know better. I believe that this full moon lunar eclipse can give you clarity and can give you a boost of momentum. I believe that it can amplify your experience: the good, the great, the weird and the painful could all surface to the top of your consciousness around this full moon eclipse. At the very least, it could finally make you tired of your own bullsh*t. Tired enough to make some needed changes. At the very best, it could open you up to opportunities around leadership, writing, publishing, media, promotions, and using your voice to spread awareness.
Intriguing ideas and insights could come pouring into your psyche. When they come in, record them. If they feel potent, share these with others.
This full moon lunar eclipse could be an opportunity for healing old stories, for healing your self-esteem. One way to heal old stories is to write new ones.
What if, for one day, everything you said was in perfect alignment with your highest vision and values? What if, for one hour for the next week, you spent writing out the most fantastic dream scenario you could imagine. Not just for you, but for the collective? Not just for the next month, but where you’d like to be, and what you’d like to see, for you, and for all of us, in a few years. Remember that spelling is a spell. Remember the universe is listening to you so use your words intentionally.
Suggested spell ingredients: Dalmatian stone, tourmalinated quartz, a hand drawn map of where you wish to go, a spell made out of poems and songs and your favorite qualities, recordings of dragonflies landing on reeds in a river
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Aquarius
10 of Swords
In Buddhism there is the concept of the second arrow. The feeling about a feeling. Shame on top of sorrow. Blame on top of grief. It creates a further weight on a harmful thought that could just be fleeting. Be aware that for the rest of the month you have an amazing opportunity to pull out all the second arrows you’ve been hanging onto for a long time.
This full moon lunar eclipse is a ripe one for you to dislodge harmful mental loops that keep you trapped and exhausted. The time is ripe for you to get rid of self-sabotaging tendencies that have accumulated inside your mind like dust on gold. At this time, the ways you’ve been keeping yourself trapped will show themselves to you. Most likely, themes and patterns in mindset, belief, and communication will come up in order for you to let them go. Letting go means letting them pass by without reacting. It could mean walking away when usually you’d stay. Releasing when usually you’d grasp. This could mean noticing and redirecting: picking something else joyful, or at the very least neutral, to pay attention to, instead of self-harm. While the process could be painful, on the other side is a sweet freedom you’ve been longing to get in touch with.
Be gentle with yourself, Water Bearer. More gentle than you have ever been in a great while. The arrows that have been lodged inside of your psyche will not come out with force. They will not come out the same way they were put in. They will come out with acceptance, with clarity, with love, with patience. They will come out with compassion, with softness, with space. They will fall away the more you hold yourself and celebrate the truthful songs of your still beating heart.
Suggested spell ingredients: a forgiveness ritual, rose quartz, cinnabar, selenite, sweetness, pictures of butterflies, a breathwork session
Pisces
The Fool
Over time, our responsibilities pile up and so does our armor. Our habits crystallize and sometimes we walk through our days on autopilot. We can forget that there are endless possibilities in this world, far beyond tangible reality. Luckily for you, a new cycle is beginning. You are in the gestation period and you can work with the energies of this eclipse to push yourself through to another side.
This full moon lunar eclipse is one to remind you that your life gets to be whatever you say it is. You have endless chances to begin anew. This is a perfect time to begin reprogramming yourself. Allow yourself to dream. Act in ways that are in accordance with where you wish to go to get there more quickly.
Taking risks are favored for you at this time, cosmic Pisces. A risk is simply something you’ve never tried before, but have wanted to experience. A risk is simply something you can’t know the outcome of yet. Accept this. You are figuring out a different path for your life. Of course it will be unknown! Find a way to let the mystery be thrilling: something to figure out rather than run away from.
Let this lunar eclipse serve as a portal into another realm of your existence. Let curiosity and hopefulness be your companions guiding you. Take the next step and feel the universe rise up to meet you in your rebirthing process.
Suggested spell ingredients: marigolds, orchids, lotus roots, bee pollen, honey calcite, green opal, a music playlist in other languages than your own, a genre of literature you have never read, a picnic in a place nearby you have never been.
Written by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener
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Sarah Faith Gottesdiener lives and works in Los Angeles. Sarah is an artist, designer, writer, teacher and Tarot Reader. Sarah’s artwork and designs are based in the spiritual, feminist, and mystical. You can shop her intersectional feminist line of clothing, accessories, art and paper goods through her store, Modern Women or on the HausWitch site here.
Looking for further reading? Time for some tarot! Diana Rose Harper's spread for July will help you get through those seemingly impossible hurdles life's been throwing your way.
