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Full Moon – Aquarius (Sun in Leo) – 20 August 2024
Mercury retrograde (6-29 Aug – retroshade through 12 September)
How did the Mars-Uranus conjunction go for you last month? Did you claim your truth or did some truth claim you?
This month finds Mars moving steadily through Gemini to meet Jupiter on August 15th. This can be a time when our strongest Will and our highest Wisdom join or it can be a time of great hubris and the belief that might makes right. Give an orb of about 5 on either side. This alignment might find its trigger point on the 18th when the Moon conjoins Pluto. Similarly watch what is happening in the world at large as when Mars and Jupiter are exact. Forming both a tight square to Saturn in Pisces and an opposition to the Moon in Sagittarius, makes for spiritual maturation lessons coming to a head. If we lead with our heart and aim for the Big Picture we can get some real perspective and insight on how to make our highest aspirations manifest. Or we can just choose to lean into our most infantile urges with a lot of emotional self-righteousness claiming questionable high ground. How many have died and committed great atrocity claiming that ‘God was on their side’? Last I checked Unconditional Love means that there are no ‘sides’.
Before that however, our first lunation stimulates this upcoming Mars-Jupiter conjunction, while Mercury is one minute from stationing. So this New Moon sets the stage for that conjunction. A good use of this Leo New Moon would be to honor your own authentic self and choose to stop trying to pretzel yourself into some imaginary improved version of you...whether that version is coming from inside of you or outside of you. With the Mercury station it is less about roaring and more about listening. Use this time to piece together clues you might have missed. It is about pausing and taking stock. TRUTH is far too big for any one person to carry – we each have just a piece of it – and the only one who can hold up your end of it IS YOU! Imagine what we might manifest together if we all showed up in that spirit as true ourselves? Go Team!
When Mercury is retrograde, the rule of re’s rule. It is a time to review, revisit, renew, revise. So slow down and remember to take a beat when you feel the heat. Its a great time to return what does not belong to you and to remember to pick up what does.
The Full Moon finds Mars slowly separating, but still active especially if you have anything natally around that 17 degree mark of the mutable signs. Full Moons are about acknowledging where we are – where we have come from and where we have yet to go. It requires that we release what no longer serves so that we can make space and refocusing our attention to what we have yet to do. This releasing is key for the 2 weeks that follow any Full Moon as it is what makes room for the New Moon seed planting. Think of it as preparing the soil. The natural opposition of the Lunar and Solar energies is what provides the perspective and insight to see what is needed in the next phase.
This lunation is co-present in Aquarius with Pluto. Retrograde Mercury conjoins the Sun in opposition from Leo, so together they all form a T-square with Uranus in Taurus. So its about the opposition of Leo and Aquarian energies – fire and air, being hit sideways from Taurus - earth. Oppositions provide tension, but they also give perspective. So Aquarius can teach Leo how to better individuate and Leo can teach Aquarius how to put more heart into what it seeks to accomplish. Leo can listen too much to the crowd and loose its own authentic thread and Aquarius can be too cold and aloof for its networking aims to really take root. The squaring element is a challenge, a lesson, a need to broaden perspective. T-squares take the two dimensional aspect of an opposition and force it to grow through the addition of a 3rd point. And when Uranus is the squaring energy we should definitely expect something from left field as he is the Change-maker and the god of Surprises. One of the best ways to activate a T-square is to enter them through the polarity point of the squaring energy – in this case, Scorpio. So for this Full Moon, pay attention to the underbelly and at the thing you naturally cringe or shy away from. Uranus in Taurus is about a reality check. Fixed earth truths, that surprise and upset the stories we have come to tell ourselves. Truths like: Resources are finite. Everything matters. There is no planet B. Our insistence on human exceptionalism is a big part of the problem. So the challenge here is to look at the truths we have been avoiding our our role in it. Lean hard into Scorpio and own that not only does your shit stink, you poop a lot too! By doing this we can rise to meet the challenge Uranus presents and use that opposition of the Lights (Sun and Moon) to really grow and see what is needed to address where we have been slack or misguided. By doing so we raise the bar and activate our own spiritual evolution.
Neptune is in the anaretic degree of Pisces, which while considered a wide orb by some, is in any case beginning to be activated by these planets in the 27th degree onward. This will be the case going forward until Neptune leaves the anaretic degree of Pisces and moves into Aries. The 29th degree is always the final exam for any energy and Neptune in Pisces is the most holy of holies. Can we meet the challenge of spiritual maturation? The clock is ticking Team.