New Moon Eclipse in Leo

See here

This is today, the 11th August, around 11 am GMT.

It's a partial solar eclipse, the last one of this year's eclipse season. And it's in Leo, sign of creativity, showmanship and self-expression. Leo is a big shiny extrovert sign! It needs to perform, to shine, to be admired and loved.

But this new moon eclipse has a real introvert vibe. We have six planets retrograde at the moment: Uranus stationed retrograde on the 8th August, and there's also Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto. All this speaks of an inner illumination rather than an outer one. So if you're craving external validation, you're not going to find it here – it's more about finding your own light and your authenticity, and figuring out how to live from that.

I don't mean this in an airy-fairy “spiritual” way, I mean it in an immensely practical way. Like, how do you pay the rent and eat while doing something you actually enjoy and are good at? How do you channel your energy so that you have enough of it to devote to what you love? How do you arrange your life so that it supports your happiness and uses your particular talents?

It's all entirely possible! It's your life, you're the one in charge of it. But it takes creativity. You have to be willing to try something different and step outside your old comfort zone. This is your year for coming up with a better operating system for your life.

But this isn't the month to be putting anything major in motion – shifts are happening deep underground, and largely outside of our conscious control. Mercury is retrograde till the 19th August, and Mars is retrograde till the 27th, so it's going to be hard to push forward with new plans. It's actually inadvisable to start anything new until these retrogrades end, as you'll be banging your head against a wall.

This is more about germination: new creative ideas are germinating deep underground at this eclipse, with far-reaching practical consequences for your life. (The eclipse is the focus of a yod, an aspect pattern that has to do with abrupt, fateful shifts.)

I think it's important to just let the seeds germinate, entertain new possibilities – you'll find out what's actually viable in the real world soon enough. It should become a lot clearer at the full moon in Pisces in two weeks' time, where we'll be separating fantasy from reality. And then by the end of the month, Mercury and Mars will be moving direct again and you can start moving forward with your plans. But for now, plant your seeds and see what comes up! 

Retrograde Mercury is conjunct the new moon, meaning there will be difficulties and blockages with self-expression. But this doesn't have to be a bad thing! As it's happening in Leo, it looks to me like it's about refining your creative expression - any form of artistic expression requires introspection. (It's interesting to note that a lot of writers have retrograde Mercury in their natal charts: writing is a solitary, internal form of communication, and great writers edit their self-expression mercilessly.)

Jupiter in Scorpio will be exactly squaring Mercury, and again we are looking at this theme of going inward, cutting away the layers of dross that are obscuring your light and your individual voice. This Mercury – Jupiter square also speaks of research and investigation: this is a good time to really research your options. Look under every rock, in order to find out what can help you design a more authentic, creative life for yourself. 

There is a cardinal t-square involving Venus, Chiron & Saturn in effect, meaning you are likely to be feeling some painful insufficiency and deprivation, especially around relationship and money matters. With a cardinal t-square, it's obvious that something has to change. If you're feeling unfulfilled, use this new moon eclipse to look at practical yet creative ways to rectify your sense that something is missing.

The point is really your happiness. How do you build more joy and creativity and fulfilment into your life; what kind of practical measures will you have to take to make a more authentic life a reality; what are your actual options? You can't keep trudging along in your same old rut this year. It's time for a radically new chapter. This month is where we start dreaming it up in earnest. 

Full Moon in Sagittarius

This is on the 29th May, 3:21 pm UTC.

It looks kinda mentally jangled and all-over-the-place, but pretty nice overall! Things will feel lively, to say the least. It's an upbeat, sociable time.

We'll have the moon in expansive, optimistic Sagittarius opposite the sun in thinky, hyperactive Gemini. The Gemini-Sagittarius axis is all about information and communication (Gemini), and how we draw the disparate bits of information into a guiding narrative (Sagittarius). It can also be about alternate interpretations, misinformation, and truth vs. lies. When we get a lunation along this axis, we usually see a lot of issues around information and communication coming up, and knowing what's true and what's false can be challenging. So it's fitting that we have the European General Data Protection Act coming into effect at this time, nobody seems to exactly understand what it's about, and there are a lot of scams connected with it. We also have weird reversals in international diplomacy – the US-North Korea summit is cancelled, oh wait, maybe it's back on, WTF is happening?

There's just a lot going on and it's confusing. And recall that this full moon comes on the heels of Uranus moving into Taurus at the new moon on the 15th May, which symbolises a thorough shake-up of the status quo, with long-term effect. Things are in mega-flux, you're probably coping with enormous change in some area of your life, and it's entirely appropriate that your mind should be reeling a bit.

Aside from the fried neurons, this full moon looks pretty nice and beneficial. It's part of a harmonius aspect pattern called a mystic rectangle – this one features Mars in Aquarius and the north node in Leo, as well as the sun in Gemini and moon in Sagittarius, which all together is a lot of air and fire. Air is thought and communication, fire is energy and inspiration, and they work well together. So this is clearly a time of revolutionary new thinking, progressive ideas, excited communication, blazing creativity.

And compounding this theme of accelerated mental shift, Mercury (planet of thought and communication) shifts signs on the day of the full moon. He moves from slow, conservative Taurus to the sign he rules: frenetic, free-associating Gemini. And he'll be moving into a trine with revolutionary Mars in Aquarius (exact 1st June). This means fired-up mental agility and a drive to think outside the box.

At the same time though, we'll be dealing with a yod, which is a tense aspect pattern that speaks of mutual irreconcilables. The focus of the yod will be Saturn in Capricorn, a force for structure, order, authority and conservatism. It looks like the weight of the past and of tradition will sit uncomfortably with the drive for new, creative, progressive thinking. Also, the task this year is to build a whole new operating system for some aspect of your life, from the ground up – and this is tough when things are feeling so unsettled.

Helpfully, we have a grand trine in the water signs forming at this time, as Venus moves into middle degrees of Cancer. It'll be exact from the 1st to the 2nd of June, and it looks really lovely and lucky. It involves Venus and Jupiter, the two “benefic” planets, and also Neptune in his home sign of Pisces.  This speaks of a great flow of intuition, compassion, healing and love. It should feel pretty good.

So if you find yourself confused and unable to make sense of anything mentally, you can use your heart and your intuition as a guide at this time. These will tell you what to put your faith in and which way to flow.

Full Moon in Aquarius

 

 

 

This is tomorrow, the 18^th August, at 10:26 am (GMT). It is – very marginally – an eclipse, which ramps up the usual full moon intensity a bit.

It doesn't need to be any more intense – this looks like a zinger. Aquarius is about shock, novelty, upheaval. For this full moon, the sign's ruler, Uranus, is beneficially aspecting the sun and moon, meaning the shocks involved may be liberating. You might just go off in an entirely new direction; you might just take a big gamble, and it might just work out.

But it looks very crazy and unpredictable. All bets are off! This full moon is part of a yod – a tense, weird aspect pattern. This one looks like it's about a need for personal freedom and authenticity (moon in Aquarius sextile Uranus in Aries), conflicting very uncomfortably with dutiful, routine-bound Mercury and Jupiter in Virgo. It's nervous breakdown stuff.

If that were the only nervous breakdown stuff we were dealing with, it'd be enough. But there's more! There's Neptune on the south node, pulling us backward into utter escapist madness and addiction. There's Mars conjunct Saturn in Sagittarius: truth, consequences and inescapable, harsh realities re. the road ahead. There's Venus in Virgo harshly aspecting all these planets, making relationship and money issues feel simultaneously delusive, unreal, constraining and inescapable. There's Chiron in Pisces opposing Mercury and Jupiter in Virgo – a big existential wound to our minds and capacity to find meaning in existence.

All in all, a total headfuck – and it's not going to just disappear. This is some heavy mental shit and it will get heavier as we move toward the new moon eclipse in Virgo on the 1^st September, which looks frankly awful for anyone of a sensitive or nervous disposition.

That eclipse ushers in a month of mental health weirdness, but the next couple of weeks are no picnic either. We have a Mars-Saturn conjunction on the 24^th August, which will feel like hitting a wall of karma – lies and hype will be exposed. We have Mars squaring Neptune, exact on the 26^th August, which will make heroin addiction seem like a viable life option. We have a Mercury retrograde through Virgo starting the 31^st August, which will probably feel like this:

 

 

 

only even less comprehensible.

And then after the new moon eclipse, we will have Saturn squaring Neptune on the 10^th September – a profoundly disillusioning (and disorienting, and depressing) influence.

I know I am being very dire. I could try to put a positive spin on it all, but I don't see what good that'd do anyone. This stuff looks very painful and disturbing, and it is in play till the end of the year – and people should be aware of it.

Mutable sign people especially (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) – please don't commit suicide. Try to ride the next few months out, one day at a time. One foot in front of the other; one small, mundane, routine task after the other – even when your brain is a mess and you can't see the purpose of any of it. If you try to look too far ahead you're liable to get dizzy and lose your footing – so keep the focus narrow, on what needs doing in the here-and-now.

And if you need some outside help, please GET IT. From friends, therapists, religion, meds, the suicide hotline - whatever works. Don't try to keep your craziness all bottled up and expect it will just disappear. If you start to feel the walls closing in on you, talk to someone. You are not the only fuck-up on planet Earth.

OK, having said all that – it's not all bad. I wrote at the new moon in Leo a couple weeks ago that our theme this month was new beginnings beset by roadblocks.

Those new beginnings are still pretty solid! Just we are hitting the roadblocks about now, and they are considerable. And some karmic backlash is hitting, for those who've been pretending to be what they're not. It's a shock allright.

 

 

The important thing is to follow your personal truth, your vision for the future – YOURS, not anyone else's. And to keep on truckin', even if your onward progress is stalled for now. Keep the faith – small, careful steps will carry you toward the goal, even if you can barely make out your own feet through the fog.

Full Moon in Leo

by Yumiko Kayukawa

This is on the 3rd February, around 11 pm GMT.

But first the run-up. As of today (1st February), we have a bunch of planets in beautiful, dreamy Pisces. Venus is conjunct Neptune in Pisces, and squaring Saturn in Sagittarius – the square was exact a couple days ago. Venus-Neptune aspects and Venus in Pisces are about impossible, boundless, delusive love and sweetness...and Saturn is about reality and constriction. So this is a potentially painful awareness of limits in love and money matters – a reality check.

And we also have Mars in Pisces conjunct Chiron - an asteroid symbolic of the “wounded healer” archetype. And this is also painful – but potentially an aspect of great healing and spiritual awareness. It is a sacrificial kind of aspect – what gets sacrificed here is personal will and ego.

So we are looking at some major dreamy love-and-loss and sacrificial holy devotion in the sky right now, yikes. And the moon in Cancer is trining these planets in Pisces today, adding emotional force – as if more were needed. It's all too bittersweet and soulful.

We also have a cardinal grand cross involving the moon in Cancer, Uranus in Aries, Pluto in Capricorn and the north node in Libra. This was the same set-up we were dealing with at the full moon in Cancer last month.

So it's a revisiting of that scenario, to some extent – whatever it was about for you. Except that scenario was very stark and violent. In this one,  healing and forgiveness are on offer. Emotional release, kindness, catharsis. It all goes very deep.

It's a day to forgive others – or yourself. I think it's incredibly beautiful. Have faith. Pisces is about faith...and trust in the larger design. Have faith in life no matter how much it hurts.

OK, so this sets the stage for our main event – the full moon in Leo late on the 3rd February. And tricky and intense as this thing looks, I really like it.

The moon will be conjunct Jupiter in Leo – and this is a happy, bouyant, creative, emotionally generous kind of emotional tone.

And the moon and Jupiter will be bound into a very beneficial 'mystic rectangle' formation involving the sun and Mercury in Aquarius, Uranus in Aries and the north node in Libra.

This is about new ideas, liberation, creativity, energy and enthusiasm. Radical new approaches to intractable problems are likely, especially in relationships. And at the same time, we'll have this stellium in Pisces, which is about deep faith, love, healing, sacrifice...

It looks pretty nice. That's not to say it's easy: there will be plenty of weird juxtaposed feelings and mutual irreconcilables. We'll have two yods going, and these are tricky aspect patterns, all about irrecconcilable imperatives.

Yod 1 involves Pluto in Capricorn sextiling the Pisces stellium, and inconjunct the moon and Jupiter in Leo. So here we see dedication, very deep seismic change, deep love and faith, austerity and truth... vs. lightheartedness, fun, partying, good times! Obviously these poles are hard to balance...and the point about yods is they DON'T balance; you cannot get them to balance and it's no good trying.

Yod 2 involves Jupiter and the moon in Leo sextiling the north node in Libra, and inconjunct the stellium in Pisces. And this is about creativity, fun, generosity, social harmony, happiness in relationships...vs. siren songs, impossible loves, soul-deep wounding. Again, the poles don't compute – you cannot balance them.

Just know you don't have to decide in favour of anything. In fact you'd be better off NOT deciding. You can let all these mutual irreconcilables hang spinning in the air. Let them balance themselves like a gyroscope.

Diplomacy is possible, reconciliations are possible, balance and fairness are possible – and remember that with the north node in Libra, these are the aims of the story right now. But with all these planets in Pisces, you have to let things flow. There is no need to push anything. Don't rush for premature closure, don't try to argue things out. Try to stay open and tolerant of ambiguity, hard as that can be.

Focus on staying internally free and true to yourself and to your own heart. Uranus in Aries and the sun and Mercury in Aquarius are about personal integrity and freedom of expression, and the Moon in Leo is about emotional generosity and open-heartedness...and remember these points are all beneficially aspecting each other.

I guess maybe the best way to approach this is to just have a good time with it and have faith (Pisces) that the whole crazy mechanism will balance (Libra) itself out somehow. (It will, too! It always does.)

Like the gyroscope above, which is a totally weird yet simple contraption. I can't get my head around how the thing works, but it works.

Having some faith in the larger design looks important for the days after the full moon – the moon in Virgo will be making all kinds of tense aspects to the rest of the sky. Don't let your worries get the best of you. Steady as she goes. Remember moods are only a kind of weather...They pass. Be a gyroscope – spinning around your own internal center to keep steady.

--An aside on Saturn in Sagittarius, which I've been thinking about lately, as we are at the beginning of this transit. Saturn is about solidity, and Sagittarius is about philosophy, meaning. And I think to get through the next few years, people will have to concretise (Saturn) a personal philosophy of life (Sagittarius)...and live by it.

Saturn will be squaring Neptune for much of its transit of Sagittarius – and this complicates things. Neptune dissolves boundaries and structures, and makes it hard to know what's true and what's illusion. But it also dissolves ego – it is an intensly spiritual, mystical influence.

So we have pragmatism (Saturn) squaring off against idealism (Neptune). Given these skies, I think the task is to find a workable, realistic philosophy of living that is rooted in our highest spiritual ideals....and to maintain it in the face of disillusion and despair.

Stoicism is what springs immediately to my mind. A philosophy (Sagittarius) of endurance (Saturn) – of equanimity in the face of life's ups and downs.

If you allow yourself to live at the mercy of your fluctuating moods and emotions, you are pretty much screwed. You will be doubly screwed under the Saturn-Neptune square, which is an inherently disillusioning kind of energy. We're all going to need something stronger than mere emotional reactivity to get us through the next few years.

I think your personal philosophy is a good place to start. What can you actually put your faith in? What in you endures, beyond hope and fear? What do you commit yourself to, even in the face of disappointment? What kind of future do you envision, and what will you do to secure it?

These are Saturn in Sagittarius topics and I think they're worth thinking about!

Anyway...

As we move on through the 2nd week of February, Venus will be catching up to Mars in Pisces. The two of them will be 3 degrees apart in Pisces for freakin' Valentine's Day, which is a real dreamy romantic love scenario, yikes.

All this Pisces stuff can be very delusive, but Venus and Mars will be moving into harmonious aspect with Saturn in Sagittarius – so whatever this is about, it looks like the real deal to me. Grounded and true. Quite lovely, really.

And then we have our weird new moon late on the 18th February. I say 'weird' because it's a bit of a departure from the last four new moons, all at zero degrees of their signs. This one is at the very end minutes of the end degree of Aquarius...so technically it is a new moon in Aquarius, same as the last one. A herald of intense change.

Except with this one, the sun and moon meet in Aquarius around 10 to midnight (GMT), then immediately move together into the next sign, Pisces. They will be together at zero degrees Pisces at the stroke of midnight on the 19th. It's like a fairy story – very heavy on the magic and romance. At the stroke of midnight, we move from emotionally distant, rational, clear-sighted, future-oriented Aquarius...to dream cities at the bottom of the sea in Pisces. To the otherworld.

It is something incredibly beautiful and powerful, I can't help feeling. And it shifts...everything. The next day (20th February), Mars and Venus and the moon will be together at 0 degrees Aries – this degree is called the Aries point, the most potent significator of rebirth in the zodiac. When the sun reaches this point, it means the start of spring in the Northern hemisphere.

This is a burst of raw, fiery energy and will, and it signifies new beginnings, in relationships especially.

(It could also signify the beginning of World War 3, but I'm trying to be positive here.)

I'll write more about the new moon closer to the time...but all in all, the next few weeks look really interesting. Get out the popcorn, we are watching a big weird movie!