Solar Eclipse in Leo

Eugenia Loli

This is on the 21st August, 7:32 pm GMT.

It's our second new moon in Leo this summer - a total eclipse of the sun in the sign ruled by the sun.

Leo is concerned with pride, joy, romance, generosity, risks, creativity, play - all the stuff that makes us feel alive. There's a stellium in the sign for this eclipse: Mars, the north node, the sun and moon. Plus Mercury is retrograding back toward the exact degree of the eclipse (He stations direct at 28 degrees Leo on the 5th September.)

Uranus, the liberator, trines the eclipse exactly, denoting a beneficial internal change.

All of this looks like an exhilarating wake-up call, and a massive reset. What is blocking your light? What are you going to do to get back your joie de vivre? What makes you feel happy and alive? What do you love, and why aren't you devoting yourself to it?

Hopefully you've been asking yourself these kinds of questions since the new moon in Leo last month. With this eclipse, it's time to make the changes you know you need to make, and to be extravagantly daring in following your heart. This is an entirely new chapter, and it's meant to be nothing like what's gone before.

If you're still plodding away in situations that bring you no joy, this is your cue to stop already, and do things differently. I mean DIFFERENTLY. Be a rebel, an innovator, a weirdo, an individualist. The key is being true to yourself - having integrity and living by your own lights. There's no point sitting around worrying about other peoples' opinions while life passes you by.

Saturn stations direct after the eclipse, on the 24th August. This eases the boundaries blocking us from new roads, meaning things should feel a lot less stuck. It's absolutely time to get moving.

This eclipse reminds me of hexagram 55 from the I Ching. It's about an eclipse that confers a heavenly mandate and is the signal for great changes. Against the fear eclipses have always evoked, the hexagram advises: "there is no reason to be anxious for fear of a change. Be like the sun at noon."