A Good Dinner at a Strong Table – Big Sky Astrology

The Bucking Bronco

Venus squares Uranus this week (July 13, 2026, 7:26 am PDT) at 4°18’ Virgo and Gemini. Encounters with Uranus can be like trying to hold on to a bucking bronco, so this might be the equivalent of deciding you’re going to start eating healthier and then, the very next day, having a friend show up at your door with your very favorite dessert. Or committing to a strict budget for your household in the coming year, only to have your car immediately break down.

Beyond diets and budgets, relationships are an important part of Venus’s terrain. And this week could bring a new and stimulating business or personal connection – or surprising developments in existing ones. When Venus and Uranus connect by square, tension arises around the appropriate balance between togetherness and independence, between affection and freedom. Finding that balance is often a tall order, especially in relationships where partners live in the same house together. But this aspect can also wake us up to desires we didn’t realize we had, and to people whom we might have begun to overlook.

A Good Dinner at a Strong Table

When you’re young, there are usually some relatives, a house, some possessions that connect you to the place where you started. If the people who raised you did a good job, there are also places inside of you that act as an internal GPS, long after those people and those places are gone.

Cancer, the sign of home and history and heritage, is your astrological GPS, the umbilical cord that connects you to the mother ship and nourishes you to viability. It’s home – the place where you started out in life, the place where you begin each day, and the people and things that have been there with you along the way.

As my generation of my family are contending with all the financial worries, health problems, and various existential crises of our 60s, there is sometimes the sense that without the sustaining superglue of an elder generation, the wheels are about to fly right off the bus, sending us careening into a ditch.

But however wobbly we might be, we’re the next generation’s GPS. They sit at an old table with us and listen to our stories, and struggle to remember their grandparents, so vivid and dear to us. They need nourishment, a sense of place, and a tribe.

We get to experience Cancer from the other side, now. We are the ones who have to try to summon words of wisdom, celebrate the achievements, put the losses into perspective, and try to suppress our anxiety about the future. We’re the ones who safeguard a past so that the next generation can head off into the future feeling a little more secure.

The Cancer New Moon (July 14, 2026, 2:43 am PDT, 21º59’ Cancer) is the soulful season of belonging, family, and home. It’s a big round table where we’re all sitting, more or less together; and even those of us who grew up with wise elders and stable households are still frightened children, sometimes, when we’re the ones who have to fry the chicken and set the table. This New Moon squares Saturn, and some days the pressure of being a grownup feels like a lot.

At this Cancer New Moon, I wish you a good dinner at a strong table with people who care about you. I wish you memories of how you’ve been loved and places where you’ve been happy. And if you don’t have those things, go ahead and set your table, make supper, and invite someone you know to share it with you. We’re strangers, most of us, but we’re sitting at that big table together, just waiting to become a family.

Cat’s in the (Barbault’s) Cradle (Part One)

Between July 15 and 24, a rare “cradle” configuration will form involving outer planets at 4 degrees of their signs: Jupiter at 4 Leo, Uranus at 4 Gemini, Neptune at 4 Aries, and Pluto at 4 Aquarius. A cradle configuration includes one opposition (Jupiter/Pluto), two trines (Uranus/Pluto, Jupiter/Neptune), and three sextiles (Jupiter sextile Uranus, Uranus sextile Neptune, Neptune sextile Pluto). Some are calling it Barbault’s Cradle, after French astrologer André Barbault. Decades ago, Barbault famously forecast that this period would bring in the most beautiful alignment of the 21st century, auguring a major reset and a new global civilization.

Me, I’m skeptical of any aspect or configuration that’s touted as ushering in a period of peace, togetherness, and love, mostly because in my nearly 65 years of life I have never seen anything like that. But let’s consider this positively. Particularly with Jupiter in a fixed sign and all the planets at the 4th degree (a number of stability) of their signs, this configuration shows the potential, at least, to develop inner stability and boost personal strengths. It’s a time to address weaknesses and move toward purpose.

During this two-week period, look for peak events that signal major societal shifts, grassroots movements, technological advancements, and questioning of the establishment. To find where this configuration will impact you, look to the houses of your chart where Jupiter at 4º Leo, Uranus at 4º Gemini, Neptune at 4º Aries, and Pluto at 4º Aquarius lie. This week, two of these major outer-planet aspects are exact; we’ll look at the rest next week.

Tending the Soulful Side

We worry about technology these days, but a change in technological tools can be inspiring. When I get stuck writing at my computer, I can often get unstuck by pulling out a pen and paper. For a while, I had an old portable typewriter that unhinged a different compartment of my writer’s brain. Even texting stimulates my smart-alecky side.

From one form of technology to another, the part of me that’s a creator remains fundamentally unchanged. I imagine Neptune as my muse, the planet that amasses ideas and feelings, nostalgia and dreams, then relies on me to put them out into the world in some kind of order. In the same way I once fantasized that a different guitar would make my songs better, some days I hope that switching to a different technology will open up new possibilities in my writing. And Uranus is, I suppose, how inspiration is channeled.

Uranus sextiles Neptune this week (July 15, 2026, 1:36 pm PDT, 4º23’ Gemini-Aries), the second of five such aspects between August 2025 and June 2027 and their first major aspects since their 1993 conjunction. That’s when the World Wide Web became accessible outside its military and academic uses and changed the way we communicate and connect in no time at all.

And today, in the same way skipping from pen and paper to a typewriter, to a word processor, and a website changed creative expression and interpersonal connection at that epic conjunction, artificial intelligence is offering new possibilities at the sextile.

AI is controversial. Some are absolutely opposed to it in any form. Others appreciate its lightening of the load, making everything from drafting a piece of ad copy or writing a tactful note to a troublesome neighbor a lot easier.

But while Uranus trine Pluto in air signs makes this technology feel inevitable, the aspects they make to Neptune are sextiles, which feel somewhat optional. Sure, we can abandon our own creativity to the robots if we choose. But if what we want to do is to share our souls, rather than just shorten our workday, there are no shortcuts.

Over the next two years, Uranus sextile Neptune will bring new ways for us to share information and creativity, and to connect with others. That doesn’t have to be terrible. But it’s up to us humans to stay in touch with who we are and what we have to say, and to tend the soulful side of things.

Disruptors and Controllers

Uranus and Pluto are both planets of change, but there’s change, and then there’s change. These two have vastly different styles and aims. Uranus seeks to disrupt the status quo “just because,” and Pluto wants to consolidate power.

This week’s trine between Uranus and Pluto (July 17, 2026, 9:43 pm PDT, 4º29’ Gemini-Aquarius) is the first in a series of five powerful aspects (Nov. 29, 2026, June 15, 2027, Jan. 12, 2028, and May 9-10, 2028). It’s the latest chapter in a story that began around 1965, when the two formed an era-defining conjunction during the Vietnam War. Their sextile in 1996/97 saw the handover of Hong Kong, the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, and the Clinton-Lewinsky Affair. And a series of seven powerful squares in 2012-2015 saw disruptive political movements (Occupy, Arab Spring), the rapid advancement of technology, and whistleblowers that exposed corruption and broken systems.

This series of trines will hopefully represent the gradual reengineering of those systems. But a trine doesn’t necessarily mean that things turn out especially positive; generally, it just means that there are fewer moderating forces to negotiate between the two planets involved. Uranus is a disruptor, and Pluto is a controller, and it remains to be seen whether what is disrupted by Uranus’ chaos provides fertile ground for those in control to seize more power.

Aspects like this one take a long while to unfold as they come within orb. Arguably, this one has been building since Pluto entered Aquarius in March 2023, and intensified as Uranus entered Gemini in July 2025 (and again in April 2026). Don’t expect it to play itself out in its entirety this week, or even this week and next. But let’s hope for a positive development, some bright moment of collective hope and freedom.

Forcing the Issue

When you’re faced with an obstacle, it’s sometimes more effective to use gentle tactics such as persuasion or diplomacy to overcome it.

Well, this is not one of those times.

This week, nestled amidst more dramatic aspects, Mars sextiles Saturn (July 19, 2026, 11:10 am PDT, 14º42′ Gemini-Aries), suggesting that in order to move past what’s been blocking us, we’ll have to choose to force the issue a bit. If we’ve not been successful up to now in moving forward toward our important dreams, it could be that we haven’t really been doing everything that it takes to succeed.

Mars can get a little carried away, and you want to be careful not to swerve into hurting others to get what you want. But to the extent you can give every bit of energy and determination that you have, this is a week when Sisyphus can move the rock a little bit.

Helpful things…