New Moon in Leo

My last post was about shifts and endings. Well we are in the thick of them now, heading up to the new moon in Leo on the 26th July. And I guess I underestimated just how heavy and dark these weeks would feel: how much revision they would entail of old issues.

I left out some important shifts and influences, because I didn't want to run on too long. Let's look at them now.

For one thing, Mercury moved from flighty Gemini to emotional Cancer on the 13th July, and he's now facing off against Pluto in Capricorn. This is a dark and brooding mental focus – intense thought, a preoccupation with the past, mental and emotional profundity.

And Venus left Gemini and entered Cancer on the 18th July, which deepens the general emotional tone. It's kinda mushy-gushy, dreamy, vulnerable (and defensive) weather out there, till mid-August.

Venus is moving into an opposition with Pluto in Capricorn as well: the opposition comes into full view two days after the new moon (28th July). Venus-Pluto aspects are about power plays in relationships, manipulation and control issues, love and money...also the ghosts of dead relationships coming back to haunt you and generally screw with you. Great fun.

And then we had Saturn going direct in Scorpio on the 21st, followed by another important shift: Uranus went retrograde the day after Saturn direct, in lockstep. One forward, one back. Very tight inconjunct aspect between them: Saturn at 16 degrees Scorpio; Uranus at 16 degrees Aries, exact almost to the minute.

So...karmic necessity (Saturn) grinds onward, while personal metamorphosis (Uranus) moves underground and inward.

All of it seems to me to signify a very tight, uncomfortable focus on personal psychological issues, blocks and blind spots – it's laser-like really. A painful sort of inwardness and inertia courtesy of Saturn direct and the Uranus retrograde. A sense of entrapment, whichever way you move. And the Mercury–Pluto and Venus–Pluto oppositions described above, swinging into place like lead doors. Nowhere left to look but into the heart of darkness.

Well you're supposed to look into it, that's the point. Think about what came up for you around the 21st July, as Saturn began moving forward again. What buried old muck did he churn up for you? What skeletons did you see grinning from the closet?

HI!!!

There's your focus: you know where the rot is. You can't move forward in your life without wrapping that stuff up and giving it a proper burial. The Uranus retrograde in Aries, sign of new beginnings, drives this point home. This is about a shift that has to happen at root level, deep beneath the surface.

And yeah, it is fucking uncomfortable, as signified by the exact inconjunct aspect between Saturn and Uranus. How do you move forward, when you are dealing with this level of psychic damage?

It's easy to minimise the difficulty involved...to talk glibly about the necessity of detaching from the past and moving on. But how do you move on with a ten-ton weight attached to your heels? How do you move at all?

--Well I guess you just do. Nothing else to be done. You have to.

You can easily get stuck in your own issues here, unable to move forward or back. But remember this is about regeneration and transformation. If you feel stuck, try to think of it as a kind of dormancy. Changes are at work: important underground ones, out of your conscious control.

A caterpillar encased in a chrysalis is in a stuck position as well, and to an outside observer it looks like nothing is happening.

Rest assured, there are deep changes afoot. You probably know that already. If your life hasn't been dramatically upended over the past few years, you're in a minority.

We are 5 squares into the series of 7 exact squares between Uranus and Pluto, which began in June of 2012 and will end in March of 2015. We are a little less than 2 years into Saturn's transit of Scorpio, which will end in December of this year (with a brief revision period between June and September of 2015). And nobody gets out of this period unscathed or unchanged.

Granted, change is always what's happening – but the hallmark of these years is the level of psychological depth and trauma involved. The difficulties and losses people are dealing with are profound – there's really no going back. The landscape will be permanently altered, coming out of this.

Uranus square Pluto machine - see here

Anyway, it may feel like we are stuck down in the trenches, struggling through the muck right now, but we have some hopeful, shiny stuff underway. 

For one, the sun moved into Leo yesterday evening (22nd July), straight into a conjunction with Jupiter. This is a big jolt of energy and enthusiasm, much needed. 

And then we have our new moon in Leo on the 26th July, around 11:30 pm GMT!!

It's a fiery portal and a new beginning. Sun and moon in Leo conjunct Jupiter: this is fun, exciting, full of drama and bravado. It's Jupiter in Leo's big opening night – you'll get a sense of what this energy will mean in your life over the next year. 

It'll be Saturday night in GMT-land, and it looks like a lot of fun. A big, glitzy, happy, trashy night. Are we gonna put on our bling and go out looking for trouble? Yes we are! 

SPARKLE JELLY SHOES!!

Except going out looking for trouble is really kind of a bad idea. You probably won't need to look. Staying out of trouble will be the achievement, on a night like this. 

Because Jupiter ('the great benefic') is involved, I am determined to see this new moon as a good thing, even though the sun-moon-Jupiter conjunction makes no easy aspects with other planets. In fact it makes a very tense aspect with Mars, which will have ingressed into Scorpio just ahead of the new moon. And yeah, this can go badly wrong.

Leo and Scorpio are both proud, fixed signs...hard to budge. Jupiter conjunct the sun and moon in Leo can mean inflated egos; squaring Mars in Scorpio we might see some OTT ego-driven drama and nastiness. A stupid fight where neither side will back down. 

(Leo smackdown mode)

Given the amount of political conflict going on around the world right now, the mood of this new moon doesn't bode well. On a more local level, it looks like a big bitch smackdown... or cokeheads fighting in a nightclub.

Don't be part of anything like that, if you can avoid it. If ever there was a night to STAY AWAY from the cocaine, this would be it. Saturn direct in Scorpio means - heavy consequences.

(Rick James providing some object lessons.)

Let's think our way a little deeper into Leo, because for the next year, this energy is a focus. 

Leo gets associated with pride, ego and exhibitionism...and these things have a bad rap. But on a deeper level, the sign is about individual personality as an expression of the divine. And in that light, there's nothing wrong with a bit of pride. If you, in your individual life, are actually a once-off expression of the divine, a never to be seen again work of art (and you are!) - well you ought to be holding your head up high.

Leo's ruling planet is the sun, which no one would ever accuse of being egotistical or an exhibitionist. It shines because that's its nature – it has to radiate its essence outward. Same as you, this year - you have to shine. Guilelessly, like a damn care bear.

AAARGH!!

Leo is about play, romance, children, innocence, fun...and art. What kind of art are you making of your life?

It doesn't have to be art in the traditional sense. Anything you do that is truly an expression of your own nature is a kind of art.

And you have to express your nature - that is your job on Planet Earth. To do you. No one else can, and no one else ever will. 

And really, the stakes couldn't be higher, with all this Uranus-Pluto and Saturn in Scorpio stuff going on. Being true to your own individuality and expressing yourself are actually matters of life or death now. No one profits from people's conformity to a rotten social order. No one profits from you keeping your mouth shut, your art hidden, your heart locked down.

This is about art and free expression as a means of personal and societal salvation. 

Come on baby won't you show me what you got / I want your salvation!

Some relevant quotes:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.” --Martha Graham

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” --Gospel of St Thomas

--Well yes, it's heavy. But don't let it make you all grim. Jupiter's transit of Leo should be more fun than we've had in years, and this new moon will hopefully be the start of something fierce and adorable. Like kittens.

Obligatory cat pic time!!

(More Leo smackdown)

(kittens!!)

(smackdown.)

Full Moon in Capricorn

(Otherworld - Andrew Wyeth)

This is tomorrow, the 12th July, around 12:30 pm GMT.

Full moons signify culminations or endings. This particular full moon is a real exciting one, with an end-of-era feel about it. Big shifts are underway! It's a “one door closes, another door opens” scenario.

Specifically, the issues that are being wrapped up relate to old family issues, old emotional dependencies and baggage, old power hierarchies.

Some Morrissey. Don't much like this song, but it expresses the mood.

“Break up the family, let's begin to live our lives.”

Time to shut the door on something old and outworn in your life...some closet full of rotting family mementos and clothes you wore 10 years ago. Fiery new portals are opening all around: opportunities for new alliances, creativity and self-expression, fun and mayhem.

But you can't step through a fiery portal of fun and mayhem carrying all your old crap and your parents' old crap and their parents' old crap...that doesn't work.

So what is the story here? We have a cardinal grand cross again, but it's looser this time than the ones we've been dealing with all summer. So tension is still in effect, but it's starting to break up.

We also have a grand water trine involving the sun, Saturn and Chiron. It actually makes a kite formation with the sun-moon opposition as the axis.

So we are looking at jagged tension, drama and power struggles via the grand cross. But also inward emotional strength and deep feeling via the grand water trine.

Plus we have some madcap social stuff going on: Venus and Mercury in Gemini trining Mars and the north node in Libra. That's easy communication, mental energy, lots of romantic options, excitement.

All in all, a big weekend! If you have scores to settle, this is the right time to settle them. And hopefully without too much ugliness either. There'll be plenty of emotional restraint available, and shiny new doors opening for every door that's closing.

Underlining this theme of shifts and endings, we have three major shifts happening in the weeks after the full moon, leading up to a brash new moon in Leo on the 26th July.

First Jupiter switches signs, then Saturn goes direct, and then Mars switches signs. This is what I mean by new doors opening.

Let's look at these changes.

Shift 1: Jupiter moves from Cancer to Leo on the 16th July. This is huge! Jupiter has been in Cancer for a year, so the emphasis this past year has been on home and family stuff. Nurturing those closest to you, dealing with turbulent emotions, taking care of your nest, makin' babies, wiping snotty little noses, lying around on the couch eating comfort food and watching boxed sets, etc etc.

But now our faith / hope / luck (Jupiter) shifts to Leo, which is about self-expression, drama, creativity, fiery self-regard, fun.

What this means is for the next year, it's not about dealing with your crazy family and their issues anymore... We've done that for a whole damn year and now it's over for another 12 years, thank god. The emphasis for the next year is going to be on YOU and how freaking amazing and special you are. How you are making a unique work of art of your own life. That's where your luck is going to be at.

Shift 2: Saturn goes direct in Scorpio on the 21st July after a retrograde period that started in early March. Karma comes due and starts being a bitch again.

If you've done your Saturn in Scorpio work and cut away the deadwood in your life, this will probably come as a relief. If you are still hanging onto crap that no longer serves you, it will hurt.

Saturn in Scorpio is about a kind of emotional ruthlessness – with yourself first and foremost. It's about taking responsibility for your pain. There are trade-offs to be made here for the sake of survival...the stakes are very high.

It's like, if you're walking around with a gangrenous leg...you are going to have to amputate the leg, and it will hurt like hell, and you'll have to learn to live differently. But if you don't amputate, this rotten thing attached to you is going to poison and kill you. It's that stark.

For 'gangrenous leg', substitute whatever in your life you know is rotten or unsound – it could be a relationship, a habit or addiction, a way of thinking. Bite the bullet.

(That expression comes from the days when wounded soldiers were given a bullet to bite while undergoing amputations without anesthesia. Very apt here.)

Shift 3: Mars will leave Libra and enter Scorpio early on the 26th July. He has been in Libra (the sign of his detriment) since December of last year – 8 damn months already. (He usually spends around 2 months in a sign.)

This was a long time for the planet of raw male energy and war to be stuck in the sign of peace and social harmony....like forcing Mike Tyson to sit around drinking tea in a never-ending BBC regency drama. And his stay in Libra was made even more fraught by the cardinal t-squares and crosses he got involved in there. Just a very drawn-out and frustrating time.

Well anyway, that's nearly done and he's moving out... to Scorpio, which is more his style. We go from passive aggression, enforced politeness, metrosexuality and wussiness to...film noir. Mars in Scorpio is a private dick (ahem) out of film noir: obsessive, secretive, probing, boiling with concealed passion.

Here is Mars in Libra:

And this is what he looks like in Scorpio:

And I know which of the above pictures I'd be happier in, if I were Mars.

--So anyway, these big shifts are underway and you'll feel it. The full moon tomorrow represents the last stand of the issues we've been dealing with all this summer – and really since the start of the year. Look back to the new moon in Capricorn in January and think about what you've been slogging through since then. Time to draw a line under all that stuff and move on.

--OK, I could leave it at that, but I'll write a little more background on the full moon tomorrow. The sun at 20 degrees Cancer will be facing off against the moon at 20 degrees Capricorn. 

Capricorn is about the old order: the tried and true. Authority, stability, duty, responsibility, following the rules. And Cancer is about home and family, roots, nurturance, emotions, the past.

They are also about public life vs private life: Capricorn is the outward image or persona, and Cancer is the inner world. Career and worldly status vs. home and family life.

They are very 'parental' signs: Capricorn is patriarchal, and Cancer matriarchal. Ideally these polarities should work together: the point about polarities is they are two sides of the same thing, requiring each other. So Capricorn's rules and discipline can turn into cruelty if they don't originate from a Cancerian will to nurture and protect. And Cancer can get lost in emotional turbulence and sentimentality without a dose of Capricorn's restraint and pragmatism.

Anyway, Pluto in Capricorn is widely conjunct this full moon, meaning part of what's lit up here is the corruption and abuse underlying the old, patriarchal order. And the sun in Cancer is applying into a conjunction with Jupiter in Cancer, meaning truth (Jupiter) is on the private, emotional side of the equation. And these poles are bound into a grand cross involving Uranus in Aries (individual revolt) and Mars in Libra (fighting for justice).

We have been dealing with this scenario for awhile, and this is just another iteration of it. One way of translating it is to say that it represents a stand-off. The corrupt old forces of outer power / authority / respectability / status... vs. your own inner emotional truth.

Pretty tense. Again, Jupiter (luck) is on the side of the inner truth stuff, so I would pay attention to that. If you have some kind of stand-off in your life between what is expected of you, what you 'should' do and what you truly feel...well your own feelings are the thing to trust here, of course.

But with a caveat: restraint and an awareness of limits are called for. There are responsibilities to be attended to even if you don't like it.

The sun and Jupiter in Cancer are disposited by the moon in Capricorn, which represents emotional containment. Don't go spilling your messy emotions all over the place...now's not the time. Try to be realistic, pragmatic and disciplined about what you feel and what you need.

Bearing this out, we are moving into a conjunction between Mars in Libra and the north node, exact on the 14th. The story for the next few weeks is still about enacting a balance, fighting for fairness and right relationship.

A full moon is a balancing act really: you have two opposing themes (in this case Cancer and Capricorn) that must be reconciled. Hopefully in yourself: the point of all this astrology stuff is self-understanding. Otherwise you mindlessly play out one side of the equation and someone else comes along to play the other side and it's just a battle of puppets.

The real work is this alchemical thing of reconciling the opposites within yourself. This is tricky and takes a lot of awareness. And it's also always a work in progress: you have to keep at it forever. But ultimately there's no other way to be free.

With this full moon, we're dealing with these parental signs, Cancer and Capricorn, and a conflict between emotional truth and practical necessity. And then Jupiter moves from Cancer (which is about the undertow of childhood, mama and the past) to Leo (which is about the self, YOU in all your glory). And we have Saturn going direct in Scorpio, which is about the sloughing off of an old skin.

So I think the story here is about taking responsibility, becoming your own authority, your own parental figure – and that means you rely on what you know to be true deep down, not what the powers that be try to force down your throat. 

And also you get rid of the psychological baggage of the past: the stuff you can't bring through the fiery portal. Your granny's lovely tablecloths, moldering in the attic; your father's sense of inadequacy; your mother's rage; whatever. It's not yours and you don't have to carry it anymore. Something new is trying to be born - your life, maybe. 

(Yeah. Always.)

We are the sons of no-one, bastards of young!

And here is some Tsunami. I used to listen to this when I was a teenager. Sitting in my room, waiting for my real life to start - ha.