My darling lotuses,
I am writing this with the sun finally out after weeks of rain – and that is not just a metaphor. Here in my valley it has rained for days on end, the paddocks flooded, the roads closed, the whole world grey and dripping. And this morning I woke to frost on the fences, a sky rinsed completely clean, and sunlight pouring across the hills like the universe had finally exhaled.
Which is exactly on schedule. Because today – the very day I am writing to you – is the cazimi: the midpoint of this Mercury retrograde in Cancer, and the single most magical day of the whole cycle. Cazimi is an old, old word meaning ‘in the heart of the Sun’ – the moment the retrograde planet passes so close to the Sun that it sits inside the Sun’s own heart, washed clean and renewed by its light. One day of perfect clarity in the middle of all the churn. The ancients treated it as sacred, and so do I: today, insight can arrive through any channel – a dream, a feather on a path, a stranger’s words, a letter like this one landing in your inbox. Pay attention. The Sun is holding the messenger in its arms today, and the message is for you.
And if the first half of July has been rough for you, darling, you are not imagining it. This particular retrograde promised us returning exes, and it has delivered with a flourish: the actual ex, the old job, the old friend, the old family pattern – or a previous version of yourself, turning up unwelcome at your door, on your phone, or – if the universe is feeling especially theatrical – on your Tinder. (Ask me how I know. Actually, don’t. That story is for another letter.)
But here is what I want you to understand about this moment, because Cancer is the sign of home, and this whole retrograde has been about exactly that: coming home. Reclaiming your home – and reclaiming yourself. The returns and the reappearances were never an invitation backwards. They were the universe holding up the old chapters one last time and asking, gently but firmly: are we done here?
And we are. That is what these past weeks have really been: not just the closing of a chapter but the finishing of a whole book series – the final cycles, the oldest patterns, completed at last and put back on the shelf. Washed away with the floods, absolved by all that rain – the tears from the sky and the tears from our own eyes doing the same clean work. No trace left. Swept off to be transmuted back into stardust, which is where everything we no longer need belongs.
So right now, at the midpoint, in the sunshine – pause. This is the integration point: the past honoured and released before the future begins. Sit in the sun today, even for five minutes. Bask. Revel. Feel the warmth on your face and be fully conscious of this rare and sacred moment where there is nothing to fix and nothing to chase – just beautiful emptiness, blank space, and the ability to simply be.
The blank page is not a lack, my darling. It is an invitation.
Because what is coming is the start of an entirely new chapter – and this time, the sky has published the timetable. In two days, on 14 July, a New Moon in Cancer opens the door: set one intention that is entirely about your own nourishment – not what you will do for anyone else, but what you truly need to feel safe, whole and fully yourself. Then, over 18 to 20 July, something genuinely rare unfolds: Barbault’s Basket – named for André Barbault, one of the great mundane astrologers of the last century, who studied the vast planetary gatherings that mark the turning of eras. In this window the planets draw together in harmony like fruit gathered into one basket, in a configuration some astrologers are calling the greatest transit of the century – and Barbault himself wrote of this very period as carrying the energy of humanity surpassing itself: the beginning of a new age. And whether you believe all of that or not, my darling, here is what I know, in my bones and my stardust: something magical is coming. The second half of July is not more of the same. It is a threshold.
If you are still down in the mud – hold on. Your butterfly is coming. I promise you, from the far side of the deepest mud there is: it is coming.
If you are in the chrysalis – mid-mush, half-made, not who you were and not yet who you will be – stay in there, sweetheart. It is all going exactly as it should.
And if you have already broken free and you are sitting in the sun right now drying your new wings – this letter is especially for you. Because what comes next is not for the timid. No more doubt. No more second-guessing. This is not the moment to step off – it is the moment to step up. There is an elevation coming for every single one of us who is open to it, and it will ask for all of you.
So this is not the time to keep your petals shut, my loves. The world that is coming needs every petal we can offer it – fully open, fully visible, full blooming, lotus style.
I found a way to sparkle. I found joy. This is me taking you with me.
From the surface, with love,
Sarah
P.S. – The sun really did come out the morning I wrote this, after weeks of grey – on the exact day of the cazimi. Watch for your own version of that this week. The universe loves a well-timed metaphor.