Apalachicola, Florida. This is where I’m reunited with the woman I love, after three weeks apart.

She’s been sweating a nine-to-five in Bremen, Germany. She’s been trying to sleep without me, in a place where the summer sun doesn’t hang it up till almost midnight. I’ve been here in the States, roaming through one lesbian community after another. I’ve been having long intense conversations with women who have dramatic lives and overly enthusiastic dogs. I’ve been trying to sleep without her in a succession of guest beds: the aerobed, the granddaughter’s room with the teddy bears, the sofa by the lake.

And now we’re in Apalachichola, Florida, where the palm trees define main street, and the masts of the fishing boats tell you when you’re at the end of town. We’ve eaten oysters and grouper and shrimp. We’ve driven by the brightly painted wooden buildings, and the blocky cement ones, with names like Sugar Shack and Chez Funk. We’ve had hotel room dinners, with brie and triscuits from the Piggly Wiggly. We’ve gotten dive-bombed by seagulls, as we’ve crossed the long, low causeway to St. George’s Island. We’ve sat on the sand and watched crabs take sideways strolls down the shore.

I could stay in this hotel room forever, in this interim place and time. Just her, just me. I would be content to drink Shiraz out of plastic cups forever. I wouldn’t ask for more.

I’m probably not the only one feeling self-indulgent as the July new moon arrives. The two feel-good planets, Venus and Jupiter, are ranged across from each other. Jupiter has been uncharacteristically ascetic in Capricorn this year, and everyone has been facing more reality than usual. But Venus, the planet of love and pleasure, counters that Capricorn maturity. She beckons to us, draws us in, encourages us all to be sensual and playful.

Things are moving again, now that Mercury has unknotted itself from its June retrograde frustrations. I had a cell phone that was fried in the heat of a rustic lesbian conference in June, and as soon as my partner touched it, it sprang to life. How did she do that? Of course, I came to life as soon as she touched me too. She’s an Aquarius; she’s got a knack for those electromagnetic rays.

The new moon in Cancer sets the tone for the month, and so July is party time. Cancer is a sign of strong appetites, and it will be a little harder to say no, to yourself or to others. For people who are wrestling with addictions, July is trickier than usual. That little voice keeps piping up, “Why not? If it feels good, it can’t be bad!”

July’s indulgences could provide a nice balance for people who have been working too hard and being too sensible. 2008 has been a reasonable year, and we’re at the threshold of a reasonable decade, as Pluto moves through Capricorn. Every where I’ve gone, people are downsizing, simplifying, paring down, scaling back. Even for me, my old decadence isn’t much in evidence any more. This little interlude at the beach is just a taste of something that used to be a way of life for me. There was a time that I lived with the Caribbean on my doorstep, and now I live in the cold northlands.

In July, all this Capricorn pragmatism will be replaced by nostalgia for our old carelessness. Remember when we used to just cruise around in the car, going wherever we felt like going? For some of us, that was the sixties, and for others, that was last year. Couldn’t we do it again, just for a little while? Can’t we close our eyes and forget all those big bills we’ll be forking out at the pump?

The Venus/Jupiter opposition occurs in the economic sectors of the US chart, and so the costs do come home. And as always, there’s a underlying contradiction between the desire to keep the long party going, and the increasing understanding of climate change. On the one hand, we occupy Iraq, at enormous cost, just so we can have access to oil. On the other hand, we know if we keep burning this stuff, it’s going to kill us. Is it midnight yet? No? Well, party on.

In the US chart, there’s lots of movement, with Mercury in Gemini right on top of the US Mars. This probably reflects the campaign rhetoric, which will sharpen, slicing both candidates down to sound-bites of difference. Obama still has Uranus opposing his Mars, an accident-prone aspect, so he will need to rely on his intuition to keep him safe, both physically and psychologically. He’s running on the raw edge of his nerves.

Why do we make presidential elections into these marathons? Do we learn much from these manic, robotic candidates? They can’t possibly be creative, or even human, under these circumstances. They watch every word, while the packed reporters at their elbows pray that they’ll make a faux pas to relieve the boredom of a hundred repeated speeches. We live in a world that endlessly replicates everything, and we expect our candidates to make endless copies of themselves too, and spread those copies thin over the land.

It’s not healthy, and I have to say that I’m worried mostly about Obama’s health, with Saturn square his moon and opposing his Chiron. He means so much to so many people, and I’m counting on those massed prayers to keep him safe.

In July, there is a sobering aspect, and that’s the Mars/Saturn conjunction in Virgo. It’s evident at the new moon, although it isn’t exact till July 10. This aspect is like a sudden pause in the frenetic high spirits of July. The fireworks are over, the smoke clears, and the landscape looks a little desolate. This creates an opening for healing work.

In Apalachicola, all that seems very far away. The sunshine is bright, and the sudden rainstorms don’t last long. We have all the time we want, and a car to take us anywhere we want to go. Around us, the palm trees are unthreatening and unchanging as memories.

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