Leo, the Lion Awakes

The New Moon peaks on August 6, 2013 at

5:51 EDT/2:51 PDT

This early August New Moon is in Leo. Other aspects and transits include:

Trine Uranus 12/22 in Aries

Sun and the Moon are both at 14/35 Leo

Jupiter 9/13, , Mars 16/15, and Mercury27/23 remain in Cancer

Venus is at 18/25 Virgo (sitting exactly on my Moon).

Neptune is at 4/30 Pisces (retrograde)

Pluto is at 9/27 Capricorn (retrograde)

Saturn is at 5/32 Scorpio

North Node is at 12/03 Scorpio

Some thoughts by Leos. They do want to speak for themselves. What are some of your favorite Leo quotes?:

“Never forget who you are.” The Lion King

“Hazel, Ogham name Coll, rules 5th August to 1st September. Around Connla's well grew the nine Hazel trees which contained all the knowledge of the world. From those trees dropped nine nuts, which imparted this knowledge to the salmon living in the well who ate them. Fionn cooked the salmon for the chief Druid to eat, but burnt his thumb on the cooking fish and sucked it to ease the pain, gaining the wisdom instead of his master.”

“I spend a lot of time wearing a crown on my head.” Halle Berry

“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” Coco Chanel

“It’s alright to let yourself go as long as you can get yourself back.” Mick Jagger

Chiron, the Wounded Healer, 12/44 Pisces  in exact trine with the North Node in Scorpio.  Chance to activate an area of our lives leading us to greater healing and repair of damaged or broken ties. Also a time to pursue a new direction based on what we have learned, healed from and processed on the spiritual, mental, and emotional levels of our being. The North Node in Scorpio represents that part of your life and spiritual journey that opens before you as the gateway to the next level and stage of your path.  The trine between the North Node in Scorpio and Chiron in Pisces links you to the areas in your life where your healing is leading you to a new beginning. With all beginnings come choices and endings. What you release and leave behind, has served you up to this point, and now your healing signals a major change in your direction. What you carry forward will stay with you; this is a time to discern the healing that has been taking place in the deeper realms of your being, and to accept that what is opening before you is the path that can bring about more intense understanding, healing, and spiritual development.

The Sun remains in Leo until August 22 representing the archetype of the Lion, that part of us that wants to shine and be noticed, appreciated, and not necessarily encouraging teamwork.  Not content to go along with the crowd or take the backseat to anyone else, especially in your chosen field of work, your most valued roles, or your most intimate relationships. Leo time casts its light on areas of our lives where we most shine. We may feel more dramatic or touchy, more inclined to want to perform or act out, and more likely to want to add some flair and color to our lives, to spice things up a bit in order to express ourselves and be noticed.  Any area where we feel we have been slighted, we may feel particularly inclined to call attention to ourselves.  We experience our emotions as a spectrum, ranging from one extreme of polarities to the other (an everything in between). Notice how your emotions vary at this time, and note whether or not we are responding from our shadow sides (those parts of us that are undeveloped, unconscious, or in some way repressed). Our emotions seem as if they are rising to the surface and bubbling out during this period of time.

Mercury remains in Cancer until August 8, and then makes a path into Leo until August 23.  In Cancer, Mercury, the archetype of all forms of communication and local influences, we have been taking in information and learning how to find our inner balance amid while becoming aware of our emotional depths and needs. 

When Mercury moves into the fire energy of Leo, communication takes on an entirely different form of energy. In Leo, we seek to express ourselves in expansive, dramatic, and more forceful ways.  We seek to develop our communication skills and to expand the breadth of how we communicate. Story telling, narrative, dramatic reenactment, psychodrama, oratory skills, and creative expression of all types. Writers, artists, musicians are stimulated by this energy, and those who feel less creative, find themselves drawn to expand their ways of thinking, seeking, and expressing. We are all creative in some way, and when we allow ourselves to explore new ways to express ourselves, we learn to face our fears and to discover hidden talents, skills, and desires. Only those who don’t, can’t. 

Venus in Virgo, from July 22 to August 16, has grounded our experiences of  love in pragmatic and down-to-earth expression.  It’s not what you say or believe about love that matters at this stage; it’s what you do about your feelings of love, and how you express yourself from the heart through actions that can be clearly understood and felt.  We worry less about grand gestures, and more about the details of life for ourselves and those we love. It is a time when we take better care of ourselves as well. The more we take care of ourselves, the better able we are to take care of others. Martyrdom is one expression of this transit, though not necessarily the healthiest one. Often self sacrifice comes out of the shadow expression used to manipulate others or justify an unwillingness to face the real responsibility of dealing with the life you have created for yourself through your choices. This transit, depending upon other aspects and a person’s intention and focus, could lead to  great deal of negative nit-picking, complaining, and critical hedging on the side of poisonous destructive communication and attacks. 

A more constructive way to use the energy or archetypal lessons of Venus in Virgo would be to take care of our health, the business of life, our responsibilities and obligations. Rather than picking apart others, we might make better use of our time to focus on building up our relationships and the roles we have chosen to fulfill our life purpose and goals. Venus in Virgo finds us more likely to be clearing up any messy spots of our lives, and sorting through and clearing out unnecessary aspects of our behavior, actions, involvement. Taking care of ourselves involves tending to hygiene, health and dietary practices, exercise and recreation, and taking care of the business of our homes and work. Getting enough rest, taking walks, hikes, or long-needed vacations, are all ways we can improve our health and relationships.  As Julia Cameron once noted in The Artist’s Way, if all we ever do is keep our nose to the grindstone,  at the end of our life all we will know is our nose and that grindstone.  Look up from the details, and expand your life to include an appreciation of the bounty before and around you. Express your gratitude for the people in your life who sacrifice, care for you, and like you just the way you are. Show your appreciation with concrete expressions of love. Listen to what others truly want from you, and then reach beyond your own limitations to express love in a way that meets their needs, not just yours.

Mars in Cancer from July 13 to August 27 has awakened our desires, and created within us, a felt sense of needing to do something about our desires. The more suppressed our desires have been the more we may feel this energy as defensive and edgy.  One evening in a yoga class, in checking in I said that I was feeling edgy, and another yogini replied, “You mean you feel like you could wring someone’s neck?!”  I had to laugh, but fire energy like mars, repressed or muted in a water sign (with a lot of water in the Grand Water Trine), may have felt anything but calm, cool, and collected. We may be processing a lot of this Mars energy inside us, dealing with our security issues.  We long for a sense of feeling at home or comfortable in our own skin. This might be a good time to pay attention to what is signaling us by Mars’ passage through whatever house it is transiting in our charts, what needs and desires have  been suppressed, and how is that affecting us, those around us, and other areas of our lives?

On August 4, the Sun in Leo formed a trine to Uranus in Aries, another aspect signaling the possibility of beginning a new phase of life. Creative changes, adjustments, and new discoveries are during this transit. We may experience some very unconventional and surprising changes in the way we both what we perceive and how we approach old and new experiences.  This is a very creative period, one that opens up a greater flow of movement, change, and creativity to projects, paths, and relationships that are meaningful and important to us.

The Sun in Leo formed a quincunx to Chiron, the Wounded Healer late yesterday, and may still have an impact on our sense of self confidence. We may slip into a psychological pattern of blaming (ourselves or others), feeling neglected, and generally feeling sorry for ourselves. All this comes from a rising awareness of the areas where we still need to heal and improve the ways we take care of ourselves and the business of living. Guilt, self-imposed or not, joins Worry, Fear and Regret form the four horsemen of self pity and poor self confidence.  We all know we need to eliminate them from taking us over; however, some times this is easier said than done. This semi-square may have triggered some of this energy and now is the time to allow yourself to pay attention to what the real underlying message of this passage is rather than slipping into a negative pit of self doubt.  Look at what needs to be done, and then start setting you direction to slowly but surely take care of what needs to be taken care of.

On Tuesday, August 6, Mercury Sesquiquadrate Chiron, put a harsh angle on communication.  What we express and how we express it may do little to disguise the meaning and intention behind what we say. Likewise, the way we process and understand how  and what others communicate with us, may be equally complex and full of misunderstanding.  Particularly when we have not been honest about our feelings, or others have not been with us, the shadow side of communication comes to the surface.

On Wednesday, August 7, Jupiter in Cancer forms an opposition with Pluto in Capricorn.  This has been forming, and we may have been noticing a great deal of inflated rhetoric, pie-in-the-sky goals, and an overly ambitious sense of optimism that fails to take into account practical considerations.

This aspect also indicates that our plans, dreams, and desires may meet head on with those of others.  We may meet with opposition from those whom we counted on for support or from those whose own plans interfere with ours. It is vital to set our own priorities, based on what we can practically do.  

Time to take account of our resources, energy, and time, and set our goals and the tasks to achieve those goals, accordingly. We may not be able to convince others to support or join us, particularly if we are not clear and focused ourselves. We need more than Jupiter’s exuberance and abundance of ideas to achieve our goals. This is the time to determine what we have learned so far  from Pluto, the Great Transformer’s transit through Capricorn and that area of our life/chart. How do we best set priorities, use our resources, and pace ourselves. How do we discern who and what we need to support and accompany us on the next leg of our journey?  This aspect also focuses our attention not only on long-range planning, but also on the day-to-day details that provide the base for living more fully. 

Venus semi-square Saturn on August 8, finds us betwixt and between, feeling we cannot seem to understand nor be understood by others. This transit requires that we do an assessment of how our attitudes, beliefs, behavior, patterns, and development have been affected by the choices we have made for love and intimacy.  This semi-square stirs up what we need to pay attention to. Venus-Saturn transits support taking a more realistic view of our relationships and intimacy issues. We now find it easier to see the obvious differences and conflicts of values, needs, and mutual attractions and differences.  Time to find the weak links in the relationship and commitment chain. This may be a time when relationships are put to the test, or times when we feel a need to reappraise how we are or are not getting our needs met and giving and receiving love in our relationships. While some relationships may have fallen apart recently, the lessons are still being tested  in all relationships.  

One of the main problems we humans have in relationships has to do with how well we know ourselves.  Often, especially when we are younger, we learn about ourselves through our relationships with others. Only when we come to understand who we are, separate and apart from others, can we begin to recognize how knowing ourselves can have such an impact on the relationships themselves.  If we are only attempting to find out who we are through others, we fail to get to know who we are.  Examining our own beliefs, values, needs, desires, talents, skills, goals and dreams enables us to enter into relationships more mindfully. 

Understanding what we need and desire is not the same as finding someone who meets those needs. We fall in love, are attracted to, or find ourselves in relationship with people who meet our needs and desires at one point in our lives. We tend to see them as we want to see them. We also tend to believe what they tell us about who they are, or in some cases, totally ignore what they have told us in favor of the version (I will change that person or vice versa).  Relationships grow and develop based on what it is that holds together. When relationships begin to fall apart, it is generally because people are growing in different directions or when one person recognizes that who they thought they loved was a figment of their own imagination. Also, in some cases, when trust is broken in a relationship, it may do irreparable damage to that relationship. Knowing one another’s values, beliefs, ideas about commitment, loyalty, and other important issues, are important. 

During this transit of Jupiter and Saturn, these are the issues that stir things up in your life. What applies to our intimate love relationships also applies to any area of our life where Venus  and Saturn rule. This transit has a major influence on our self esteem and sense of our self image.  The conflict or challenge may be between what we feel to be true within as opposed to what seems to be true of our external selves and lives.  Inner growth, sparked especially by Saturn’s journey through Scorpio, Neptune and Chiron’s journey through Pisces, and all the planets and the Sun through Cancer. This is a time of great inner change and development and external reactions and responses to such alterations.  

The New Moon and the Sun in Leo, Uranus in Aries, and Mars’ entry into Leo are setting the stage for the next 6 months of activity, creativity, and self expression. The Nodal axis, Scorpio-Taurus, forming a powerful, fixed t-square  with the other planets, lending an air of fatedness to whatever we are involved in now and in the next 6 months. Look to see where Leo is in your chart, and this will give you some idea of the area of your life that is about to burst wide open with the creative fires lit and the juices flowing to give life to whatever is being born in you at this time.

With so many planets in their retrograde phases, we find ourselves going back over familiar ground. Lessons, changes, new perspectives, and projects and relationships in their infant stages or in the process of releasing or regenerating, mark this period of time. What began to be set into motion last year at this time, is ready for a new stage. By this time, what we need to know, release, learn, and change, has become evident. What is required now is the reassessment, the time to prepare, rest, and ready, and the energy to commit, connect, and begin anew. Look to connect the Divine Feminine and Masculine within, and open and be receptive to how the Divine Feminine is ready to infuse, define, and direct our collective and individual energy for a Divinely inspired transit through the gates of change and transformation.