Full Moon in Leo Squaring Off with Uranus: How do you get pulled off of your center?
I seem to be obsessed with the Moon these days. I can trace the path in my own chart, illuminating why I am so profoundly tugged by these particular tides at this particular moment. As I turn my gaze inward I am filled with a sense of coming home to myself and immensely grateful for the reunion of places within that I had unwittingly neglected over time in the busyness of life.
As I have said before it is very ironic that everyone basically knows their Sun sign but we live our daily lives from our Moon. It is our home. The place where we take our clothes off and are able to be our most vulnerable. Our softest place.
Ideally over time, our lifetime, we are able to consciously integrate and blend the energies of our Sun, our developing self with our Moon, the repository of our past experience and everything familiar. This begins by being hospitable to ourselves and our experience. In essence, when we are hospitable to ourselves we are able to feel safe enough to fully share the beauty of our vast inner world authentically with the outer world. This truly is the great work of our lives for all of us. To nakedly be ourselves. And to feel safe and nurtured in doing so.
A reminder, a lunar event ultimately is an opportunity to refocus, to in essence come home to yourself. A New Moon is the darkest phase of the moon’s cycle, a point of pure potential and an invitation to begin.
This Wednesday, August 16, at 2:38 am PDT/5:38 am EDT, we have our annual New Moon in Leo. Leo is the sign governed by the Sun. The Sun is the heart of the solar system, it is its own energy source and radiates light from within. The Sun literally is what gives us life, without it, we would all perish. Everything orbits around it, mysteriously drawn in by the enormity of its gravitational pull.
Honoring, respecting, and living from your heart takes courage. The root of the word courage completely aligns with this. It comes from the Latin cor meaning "heart" When you live from your heart, you love deeply and unabashedly go all in on life.
To me, this New Moon is an invitation to sit within our own hearts and contemplate what truly gives us life and feeds our joy. To take some time to note when we instinctively turn toward it and as it is in a stressful aspect with Uranus to look with clear eyes at how we get pulled off center. Uranus, nicknamed the awakener, tends to disrupt things by bringing unexpected events. Events that can wake us up if we allow them to…or they can simply be disruptive. Our awareness and the resulting meaning we give anything is ultimately our own choice.
This has the potential to be a fiery creative Moon for all of us. Leo is a creative sign, connected with pleasure, play, self-discovery, and the simple joy of being alive. Wherever we have Leo in our chart, and all of us have it somewhere whether it is emphasized or not, we are learning to shine like the Sun radiating our own light. At its core though, the essence of the spiritual practice of Leonine energy is about understanding what it truly means to love and appreciate ourselves. All of ourselves, particularly the places where we feel most vulnerable and can let our pride get in the way of living the life we dream of experiencing.
In particular, direct your gaze towards any unworthy notions of yourself that arise when you consider wholly throwing yourself into life with abandon. Which inner voice prevents you from fully expressing the authentic core of your being? Notice it but don’t repress it or vilify it, we actually compound the problem when we chastise or reject this part of ourselves. This part of you, and it is part of you not all of you even though it might seem really loud, is scared and coming from a misguided idea of how to keep you safe. This part of you needs a dose of self-compassion. Honestly, this is probably one of the most important things I have learned over the years. As Rumi said, “The wound is where the light enters you.”
Think of your inner core as a sacred flame that needs to be fed. Passionate, mysterious, forever changing its shape, as it dances and plays with the surrounding world. We need to tend to it. One of the most powerful ways we can do that is by cultivating the realm of our imagination. As poet Mary Oliver says “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
Leo New Moon Ritual:
Set the stage by finding a quiet place to center yourself. Light a candle, symbolizing your inner flame, take a deep breath, and go within. Imagine a glowing light in the center of your heart and allow yourself to bask in its warmth. When you can feel its warmth flowing throughout your being invite your inner doubts, toxic habits, obsessive thoughts and feelings, and any notion of unworthiness into the warmth of your heart’s love. Invite these places of fear into the light. Into the transformative power of love. Bring them in from the cold and darkness where they have felt so rejected, into the warmth of your inner core. Breathe deeply, and welcome these parts of yourself that are simply expressions of where you have experienced rejection back into the fold. Breathe this warmth that you have gathered into these places until you experience a sense of unity and completion knowing that all parts of you are sacred simply because they belong to you.
