Leo New Moon Two Week Report
The Leo New Moon was exact yesterday (Friday) morning, and the window for ceremony and setting intentions for the month continues through Sunday night with the first visible crescent Moon.
Leo is all about that elusive ability to see the divine light in ourselves, to love ourselves unconditionally–in both our light and shadow. Leo invites us to understand that as we dedicate ourselves to practices and thinking that generate self love we will automatically gain access to heart-centered generosity, abundant energy, creative genius, and innate leadership ability.
Through this month (and truly over the next 19 months of the Venus in Leo Cycle) we might wish to ask ourselves: What would it take for me to truly, deeply, in my bones, understand that I am a divine being capable of generating immeasurable love and light?
What would it take for me shrug off the centuries, generations of accumulated shame, guilt, “not enough-ness that I adopted because it’s what my parent’s did, and their parents, and theirs before?
The imprint of “original sin,” which has promoted a deep belief that we are inherently flawed and so must continuously punish ourselves to become better is heavy, and we have carried it far too long. An Exercise in Self Love
Think of someone you love easily. Someone who does not appear perfect to you, you are aware of their faults, their shortcomings, you see them very clearly. Yet somehow you love them with such ease, so fully, you appreciate them, you see their light, you see their perfection.
To you, the parts they see as shortcomings or flaws are so deeply wedded to their precious, one of a kind true nature that to cut off one would mean destroying the other.
When you see how this dear friend berates and judges himself or herself you understand instinctively that there is a better way, a kinder way to gentle this beloved friend’s inner monsters, to honor this friend’s intricate, chaotic beauty, to transmute the wounds into mastery and love, and self knowledge.
I think you know what and who I am talking about. Now imagine for a moment that you could perceive of yourself this same way. Can you do it? If not, why not? Perhaps because we need each other… yet I believe it is also because we are so deeply trained to believe that in order to become better people we must bludgeon ourselves.
LEARN MORE ABOUT CULTIVATING SELF LOVE IN MY LEO VENUS CYCLE ARTICLE HERE. Wackiness Abounds–the Mystery and Madness of Retrograde Venus and Uranus, and the “In and Out Game” of Venus, Uranus, Saturn, and Mars.
The Leo New Moon was conjunct retrograde Venus and trine retrograde Uranus, which in my view not only sets the tone for the month ahead, but echoes the very strange, otherwordly dynamic we’ve been experiencing since about July 20. This was the time when we began to feel both Venus and Uranus prepare to station retrograde, which they BOTH did on July 25.
On its own, Venus Retrograde can draw us inward and support us in a massive integration process, but when it occurs alongside Uranus’s Retrograde, as we have seen, it can generate an experience like Mercury Retrograde on steroids.
I’ve observed that for myself as well as many others it has been very challenging to line up times and events in ordinary reality. Activities that require a lot of focus and energy have felt more difficult than usual, and take twice as long. Setting up simple appointments can seem impossible!
What I’ve discovered, reluctantly, is that I simply can’t accomplish as much as my linear mind believes is necessary. There is simply too much right now to integrate and assimilate internally and too much external focus on productivity is very disruptive to that essential process.
When we continue to push the river it backfires, and we end up spinning our wheels, realizing reflectively–I guess it WASN’T so urgent to accomplish x,y,z because I simply wasn’t able to and surprise, the whole Universe did NOT tumble apart around me.
My sense is that the Uranus trine to the New Moon (and mind you Venus is exactly with the Sun today and they are both trine Uranus still), is a softer, gentler Uranian dynamic that supports us in allowing change to occur around us while not needing to orchestrate all change.
Magic is afoot and we need to slow down and pay attention to track it. I can’t even tell you HOW MANY TIMES in the past 3 weeks I have looked at a clock and seen the numbers line up like 1:11, 2:22, 4:44, etc. Number magic abounds, as does other magic!
Venus and Jupiter are BOTH in the Underworld now. A great metamorphosis is taking place. When Venus is in this strange limbo-land completing one cycle and beginning another, we are truly steeped in Great Mystery. The best strategy, again, is to do less, listen more deeply, pay attention.
Mars emerged from his long Underworld Journey August 5, and similar to Venus’s rise from the Underworld December 4, 2014, we see and feel that he (and we) are tender and raw in some places from the deep work we’ve been doing in the Sun’s bright glare.
This back and forward movement over the past two weeks—Venus and Uranus station retrograde, followed by Saturn stationing direct, followed by Mars EXITING the Underworld followed by Venus and Jupiter ENTERING the Underworld–is it any wonder we feel a bit depleted?
Again, it is essential to understand, as the planets mirror for us, that there are sometimes natural cycles at play where we are doing a tremendous amount of work beneath the surface, deeper work essential for our wholeness.
During these periods the best we can do sometimes is to keep it simple, ask what is TRULY essential on our To Do List, and continue to try to do less, do less, get aligned within. Do less. Sleep in more. Play with loved ones more. Cull the “shoulds” and pursue what is most elemental and feeds and nourishes you from the inside out.
My sense is that this need to slow down and integrate as much as possible continues until Venus stations retrograde on September 6, after which time we begin to feel more empowered and grounded to accomplish more in the external realms.
Night Sky Magic Did you enjoy the Perseids? I hope so! I have loved them since childhood in Missouri where we always made it a party to go out and watch them. Mom would wake us up at 3:00 and we’d lie out in the front yard in our sleeping bags, eating home made popcorn, drinking hot cocoa from thermoses.
This year for the first time in so long we had clear skies here in New Mexico to see them. Tom and I went out at 2:00 am and camped out in our front yard, and fell asleep with the meteors streaking across the sky!
Moon Magic The waxing crescent Moon should be visible by Sunday evening, the time where the New Moon was celebrated in ancient cultures. For example, in early Judaic custom, with Jewish months being lunar, the Sanhedrin, a holy council, had to observe the first crescent Moon to determine the beginning of the month.
The tradition remains alive today in the Muslim world with Ramadan beginning with the first sighting of the crescent Moon. On Friday, August 21, look for the Moon, near First Quarter, approaching Saturn in the evening sky. By Saturday night it will have passed it.
Mercury is in the evening sky near the horizon after sunset, but barely visible in the northern hemisphere. It is increasingly bright and visible as it approaches its greatest elongation for the year in early September–IF you live in the southern hemisphere!
Retrograde Venus is exactly conjunct the Sun as I write and will remain invisible “in the Underworld” until the big day where she rises as Morning Star at or soon after August 22nd, depending on your horizon line and darkness of your skies. This is the moment where she begins her new Leo Cycle, which I have written about here.
Mars emerged from his long Underworld journey (which began in mid April) on August 5th. He is now visible in the morning sky with low horizon and dark skies before sunrise. On August 20, Thursday, look in the morning sky to see the red planet near the Beehive Cluster (Praesepe) in the Crab Constellation.
Saturn is at quadrature (in a square) with the Sun on August 21, meaning that after sunset you will see Saturn near the top of the sky, or at least along the midpoint of the ecliptic (the invisible line the Sun and planets travel from our perspective across the sky).
Jupiter followed Venus into the “Underworld” and is now hidden in the glare of the Sun. It will remain so until about September 9, when it appears in the Morning Sky with Mars and Venus.
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