♪♪ Sound snacks to satisfy your auditory appetite: Aquarius Full Moon Playlist ♪♪
This Leo season starts with a full moon right out of the gate. At 10:37pm (eastern) on July 23, the Moon will oppose the Sun right after they both change signs. A special moment, for sure. What makes it even more special is that the lights are flanked by the malefics. The Sun is co-present with Mars in Leo while the Moon will be co-present with Saturn in Aquarius. This tells us that opportunities will be presented (which may feel like we are being challenged) to learn and grow from the more complex situations and circumstances we find ourselves in.
As with each full moon, we are now seeing the total form of an idea born with the preceding new moon, which happened two weeks ago. For a wide angle view, we can also look back to the last new moon in Aquarius, which happened on February 11 of this year. The lineup of planets that surrounded it was pretty intense and the energies that it signaled were certainly not for the weak of heart. It felt at once ripe with magical opportunities and fraught with booby traps. With Saturn retrograde in Aquarius and Pluto retrograde in Capricorn conjunct our current full moon on either side, we may be feeling like the momentum of whatever we started then has slowed or even come to a complete stop. That’s super frustrating. Alas, this feels like the moment where the appearance of old coping mechanisms actually inspires us to restructure how we perceive the issue at hand. We are facing long time patterns and learning from them rather than getting lost in them. We are coming to remember and accept that we are not in control of everything we wish to be. We are not meant to be.
The outer planets’ retrogrades have a sobering effect on this full moon. Really, all retrogrades teach us about the duality inherent in human existence and consciousness. When a planet is direct (appears to be moving forward from our vantage (this is called primary motion – the clockwise movement of the planets rising in the east, setting in the west, and so on apparent to Earth’s inhabitants)), what it symbolizes, or its will, is present in our lives. When a planet is retrograde (appears to be moving backwards from our vantage (this is called secondary or universal motion – the movement of the planets around the Sun, which appears as west to east when the Earth passes them in its orbit)), it does not get to do what it wants. It gets to do what the Universe wants.
So, we experience the dilemma of free will vs. fate. We’re making plans, getting shit done, living our lives, and then something unexpected happens. That something has the power to change everything, for better or worse. A delay, a hindrance, a halt. Regardless of whether we perceive this event as positive or negative, it has the ability to bring us into greater alignment with the cosmos– the big, BIG picture. In this moment, we get to make a choice. We get to choose between 1. investing in our anger, frustration, grief, shame, etc. and 2. watching those feelings rise and fall, like our breath, softening and opening us to what is presenting itself even if it isn’t what we thought it would be or wanted it to be. What we are offered by the taking away of something else can be good too. It can actually be even better. (**Life has no guarantees.**)
We have control over so much and yet so little. We create our own realities in an abstract sense, but when our egos push for what is not for our highest and greatest good, a little wake-up call from the Great Beyond is merited. I think of the book Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey, which is built around the theme of human vs. nature. The story opens with a description of the wild and fervent blackberry brambles of coastal Oregon; always at the ready, swallowing up any inch of land the human folks turn their backs on for an instant. The main characters were always defending their home and logging business from those insidious briars. The point being that nature, a sustaining force beyond ourselves, is stronger, more patient, and will have the last word.
I liken this story to the invisible, omnipotent hand of the Universe redirecting our paths because sometimes what we want or what we think we want is not something that will have an ultimately beneficial outcome. You can do all the math you want, but there is no completely definitive way to know what a given outcome will be until it is reached. Something that looks to be in the name of progress or for our betterment could end up having a negative affect on another spoke in the wheel that we have not considered. This shift is meant to bring us balance. What’s happening now is that we are seeing our past projections and fears clearly. Whatever challenges are bringing them up have been designed so that we no longer feel the need to carry them with us. We are growing up.
Some themes this moon signals:
- Emotional maturity, self control, responsibility/integrity
- Isolation, introspection, being hermit-like
- Punishing oneself for past transgressions
- Emotional intensity, dark feelings, catharsis
- Renewal/catharsis around home life/family
- Outbursts that are a product of childhood programming
- Deriving great pleasure from completing difficult projects/labors
- Emotional detachment as a response to early childhood trauma
I hope that wherever you are feeling stuck, you are able to breathe into those spaces. I hope that you are able to invite softness into the places that feel rigid. I hope that when you have had enough and you finally release your grip, it brings you peace. I hope that when the same old issues arise, you are able to be angry or sad or indignant, feel it, move with it, move through it, and then let it go… and when you let it go, I hope that the void left by those emotions fills with the calm, quiet stillness that you deserve to have in your life from time to time.
stars in the salad 