Weekly Astrology Forecast, July 23-29: Understanding What You Need

This article originally appeared on Yoga Journal

This week brings particularly beautiful invitations as Chiron retrograde begins and Mercury enters Virgo. As Chiron travels through our inner shadows of past wounding, we unlock our access to wisdom.

Chiron Retrograde

Chiron retrograde begins this week on July 23, 2023, where it will continue its apparent backward motion until December 26, 2023. Chiron is not technically classified as a planet but rather any of many things, including a minor planet, a comet, or an asteroid. Chiron first entered Aries in 2018 and will remain there until 2027.

First discovered in 1977, Chiron is relatively new to our study of astronomy and astrology. In mythology, however, Chiron holds a rich history and wisdom that we can call upon as we seek to understand this minor planet with greater ease.

In mythology, Chiron was a centaur who was abandoned at birth by his mother. Although he grew into adulthood feeling unloved and unwanted, his journey is a powerful one as he began teaching combat to some of the most well-known Greek heroes. Despite--or perhaps because of--his psychological wounds, he created his own path of power.

One day, Chiron was accidentally wounded by a poison arrow. Due to the pain, he began studying and even mastering a variety of healing modalities. He learned with such depth, wisdom, and knowledge that he then began teaching these healing arts to the gods, while still being unable to heal his own wound. Chiron became well known across the seas as a powerful healer, teacher, psychic, and philosopher, and came to be known as the “Wounded Healer.”

In evolutionary astrology, it is suggested that the role Chiron plays in our life and the wounding it represents are the wounds or karma from past lives that we came into this life to work on. In psychological astrology, Chiron is looked to as wounding from childhood. Either way, there can be a felt experience of a wound with Chiron. Yet as shown by his story, Chiron is also a portal into deep wisdom, compassion, and value. As the famous Persian poet, Rumi, once said, "the wound is where the light enters."

As Chiron begins its retrograde, it invites us to explore some of those wounds. It invites us to turn inward at what sits within, waiting for our attention and love. It invites us to reframe our experiences, perceptions, and relationship with those wounds through the knowing that it is here that we can access our greatest wisdom.

Chiron's glyph, or symbol, is shaped like a key. A key that unlocks doors within us. A key that unlocks compassion, wisdom, knowledge, and deep value. Our experiences are one of the many aspects that make us who we are. This retrograde is an opportunity to decide whether we regard them as empowering or disempowering.

Mercury Enters Virgo

In astrology, Mercury rules our mental realms. It shapes how we take in information, process it, and share it. As an archetype, it represents learning, logic, communication, information, technology, and planning. Mercury in Leo the last few weeks invited us to bring passion into our ideas, our communication, and our planning. It brought us artful thinking and bold expression.

As Mercury shifts into Virgo, however, the pace begins to change. Mercury rules Virgo. They hold the same intentions and desired directions, and when their energies come together, they create a cohesive invitation. Virgo is an earth sign known for its affinity for details, rituals, organization, practical thinking, and intentionality in all things. As an archetype, it has a beautiful gift of refinement.

Mercury in Virgo is a beautiful energy that we are gifted. It builds on the passion and fire of Leo and discerns the best direction forward into our dreams and desires by dissembling them into precise and doable steps. The invitation is to explore day-to-day rituals that best support you.

Your Invitations

Like all retrogrades, this time is more about integration and reflection than action and forward movement.

Virgo has a deeply empowering connection to ritual. Consider the habits and practices that best support and hold you. This could be your yoga or meditation practice. It could also be affirmations or movements that build your sense of self and confidence. Consider what rituals buoy you into becoming your happiest self. Done daily over time, rituals work quietly in the background, yet create profound shifts from within.

Learn more about the influence of astrology in your life, including astrological events the Moon cycles, your Sun and Moon and rising signs, how journaling can help you connect with the current influences, and more with Jordane Maree at Girl and her Moon.

About Our Contributor

Jordane Maree is the founder of Girl and Her Moon, a platform and community exploring Soul through the lens of astrology, tarot, and energy healing. She is a writer, intuitive astrologer, energy and soul guide, and host of Girl and Her Moon, The Podcast. She is inspired, every single day, to be the mirror for you to see all that you truly are, you in all your infinite abilities, in total expansion, in infinite opportunity and love.

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