Commencing with the sign of Cancer and the longest day of the year, Summer is the season of light. Light stands as the ultimate metaphor for spirit, consciousness, love, and other intangible, yet experiential truths. Here, “light” refers to the radiant energy of the Sun, which bestows not only light for vision, but also heat for warmth, and fuel for growth. Summer and its attendant gifts reach their apex as the Sun moves into the sign of Leo. This year, the Sun and Moon rendezvous twice in this sign of self-expression, willpower, love, and creativity.
In the days leading up to the first new moon, the Moon moves through the sign she rules, Cancer. The Moon then meets the Sun less than a day after it enters the sign of its rulership, Leo. With the rapid approach of the Moon, the two conjoin at what is known as a critical degree--0° Leo. The zero-point of any sign holds a special seed potential, a pregnable gateway from which one may draw additional power from the unseen realms. With the two luminaries meeting at this potent threshold, suspended momentarily between the two signs of their rulership, the Moon provides palpable access from our individual hearts to the heart of the Sun.
As the Sun is the planetary ruler of the sign of Leo, in the body, Leo rules the heart and the spine. Its symbol is the Lion. Of all the animals included in the zodiac, only the Lion has been granted a dignity of character that is generally reserved for humans, and has been assigned such noble attributes as confidence, loyalty, and autonomy. These qualities are metaphorically linked to the body parts mentioned above. While the strength of our spine allows us to maintain a commanding posture, the strength of our heart allow us to maintain a compassionate position. Within Leo, we discover the intersection of our integrity and our benevolence. Here, the hierarchy of authority is naturally leveled by magnanimous generosity, as the elevation of the confident and civilized ego is instinctively diffused by a fierce and feral loyalty in love for others. Harmonizing the vertical and horizontal axes of the body, the heart is the pivotal organ to uniting one’s spirit and material bodies, and thus is the key to unlocking one’s fullest potential.
Symbolically, the heart is the pulse that propels us on our journey. It is the engine of our willpower, driving us towards realizing our desires. Likewise, the Sun is the heart of our solar system. The energy emitted by the Sun is the Source of Divine Will, which unlike an omniscient agent of destiny acting upon the Earth, seems rather to become apparent as a constant by which we may measure the motivations and manifestations of our personal willpower. Like the numeral zero, the heart is the essential reference point, where all matter finds its level and all spirit finds its source. Each heart-center is the nucleus of a self-conscious unit spiraling through sensation, empowered by the understanding that Truth is Love. A Fire sign, practice with Leo energy teaches us how to use the precious and precarious power of its element in a manner that allows our inner Sun to shine in a way that is both lasting and nourishing to ourselves and others.
This new moon has an added vitality and volatility. The former is due to its conjunction with Mars, himself only in the first degree of Leo at the time of the new moon. The latter is due to a loose square with Uranus, whose current position has been serving to destabilize several recent astrological interactions. Uranus in the Cardinal Fire sign of Aries incites us to revolutionize our identities. The Sun and Moon in the Fixed Fire sign of Leo reveal a steady mirror by which to see how that chosen identity defines a pattern of behavior that directs our manifestation. Uranus encourages us to radically revision how we can utilize the raw force of Aries to fuel our Leonine personal power.
Although Uranus’s unpredictability can be difficult to weather, it proffers the unanticipated aberrations that allow us opportunities to change staid patterns. Uranus is the modern ruler of Aquarius, which lies opposite Leo on the archetypal wheel. The seed of this new moon culminates in a full moon lunar eclipse in Aquarius, with the Sun and Moon at the exact center--the heart--of each respective sign (15 degrees Leo and Aquarius). When the Moon once again meets the Sun during the August eclipse, they will be in exact trine with rebellious Uranus as well as the traditional ruler of Aquarius, Saturn.
Earlier this year we experienced a celestial shift, as the nodes of the Moon changed their alignment from Virgo-Pisces to Leo-Aquarius. The Moon and Sun will both cross over the North Node a few days prior to the eclipse in August. While the lessons of Leo involved tapping into our creative potential to find our authentic self-expression, in Aquarius we focus that expression outward, as we are called to share our unique gifts with our larger community. The lesson of this new moon is in the flashpoint, the zero-point, the heart-center. If we utilize the concept of the Sun as Light--truth, love, spirit--as our constant, we have a yardstick by which to measure the capricious clues of Uranus, and realize the light of liberation through radical self-expression that is, in fact, the seeds of self-revolution.
