Leo New Moon – 8 August 2021

Let your joyful heart sing of independence within a loving community.

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Leo – the heart’s celebration of life

.       In this New Moon chart, the Sun and Moon are lifting our hearts as we discover new ways to express ourselves that fit present circumstances. The heart is expanding with a sense of possibilities – like ‘We can do this!’ But the joyful heart is held in check by our dilemmas: lose your health or your freedom. And there’s another: lose your friends or your integrity. Are these really the choices we face (as Saturn squares Uranus)?

Independence versus community?

.       Fear, guilt and shame are emotions that lie deep in the conditioned personality, and we all have access to them. They can be stirred up by thoughts of appalling loss or pain, our own or that of family and friends. Once stirred, they rise into the unconscious driving force of our behaviour. Perhaps this is a good time to allow each of those words – fear, guilt, shame – a conscious moment or two to feel into what would bring each one into your own inner experience. What are the triggers in your conditioning, your survival instinct?

.       We need to know these triggers, because otherwise we are open to being tweaked into behaviour that doesn’t fit our true heart-felt integrity. We might not have consciously chosen what we find ourselves acceding to and, having it questioned, we can resort to defending our position in ways that have little rational substance. And all this has nothing to do with which behaviour we are acting out. There are many choices, and no judgement here, as long as the choice stems from informed consciousness, and not from those deep subterranean assumptions.

.       Astrologically I’m speaking about Uranus, who represents the outsider with a detached independent perspective, observing with curiosity, able to change position to get a better view, difficult to pin down. Uranus is in Taurus for a few years – the principle of observing and changing the material world, the practicalities of life, and our bodies as physical stuff. This year, from February till late December, this detached position is being challenged by the principle of Saturn in Aquarius, representing the way safe management of society, either through rules and structures or through a sense of responsible community. And it feels at present as though there is something incompatible about these two principles.

Conflict doesn’t have to be life-or-death

.       What matters is that we allow ourselves to express both independence and community without losing either one. This requires continually observing our behaviour clearly, while being prepared to try out different ways of managing the circumstances. That implies being open to experimenting with different methods rather than simply continuing the same solutions regardless of results. And it also means that we need to be fully awake to what we are choosing, acknowledging that our choice is not just for the bit we want. Every choice has consequences and it’s the whole bundle we’re choosing, even if we don’t like some of it!

.       We can practise choosing consciously in our personal lives. Rather than sticking to the choice we made months ago, try how life would be if, say, we approached people with a different expectation of their response – or no expectation, just curiosity. Notice where we personally get tweaked – by someone’s body language, or the news, or one of the multiple videos that enter our phones or computers, and so on. Experiment, and enjoy!

Celebrate what IS in your life

.       The Full Moon chart shows a good way to combine both. Say we are holding in our left hand, with compassion and care, our relationships with each other as part of the same community (Venus in Libra trine Saturn); while the right hand holds involvement in new ways of helping and organising that community (Mars with Mercury in Virgo trine Uranus). We need to identify ourselves with our centre, balancing the two hands from a detached and caring perspective. With constant emotional triggering, it’s almost impossible to do this. This is our opportunity to recognise the triggers, and practise holding to our spiritual heart (Sun in the last degree of Leo!)

.       Just now, it’s as though all the outer principles, guides and light helpers, are looking on at humanity struggling to exchange old ways for new and appropriate ones, shedding a brittle old skin and slipping into a more flexible human movement (all the outer planets are retrograde on one side of the Zodiac opposite the Sun and personal planet). I have no sense of malice or darkness from the cosmos, just a waiting and watching while we work it out within ourselves. Being human, we are looking for stability and, on a changing planet, it is not to be found in rigid control, but in adaptation and flexibility – and trusting the support of those wonderful light beings. They hold our hands, with inner guidance, while we work out what we really value most.

.       Be supported by that which IS in your life, the taste of food, the wind in trees, the smile of a passer-by, your beating heart and the breath of life. We each, as spirit, chose to be here now – let’s appreciate and enjoy the earthly experience in all its complexity while we have the opportunity!

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Contemplation for this New Moon in Leo

What can we give you to make you smile?
Sad faces spread grey mist, the fog of unconsciousness.
Let not this world be for lost souls –
there is another place where they can be saved.
On earth, as you work to awaken, you save yourself.
So look up, shed the film from your eyes and be clear.
You will see the bright light of love all around you.

There is no judgement for your forgetting,
but rejecting the light will be your downfall.
Do not lie down in the murk of your despair –
stand shoulder to shoulder in loving companionship.
Help each other and life will draw you forward
into greater and greater joy.

There is no end as you fear it,
only new days, further horizons, light beyond light.
The end for your small self is the peaceful dissolution
into conscious spirit, for which you have longed,
like sleep in the arms of your True Nature
the light of love in perpetuity.