Full Moon in Aquarius | August 18th - freedom, self-expression and individuality, something's gotta change

in your atmosphere by sara linn

On Thursday, we have a Full Moon in Aquarius. There is more information on it in the weekly forecast HERE. Full Moon are always oppositions. The Sun and the Moon are on opposite sides of the earth or more precisely the ecliptic longitudes of the Sun and Moon are 180 degrees apart.

The Sun is in the sign of Leo (25 degrees). The Moon is in Aquarius (Leo's polarity sign at 25 degrees). Leo and Aquarius are fixed signs - they stick with things. They are dependable.

Leo is represented by the lion. A lion is a cat. If you live with a cat you have some idea of what this 'king of the beasts' thing is all about. It becomes the cat's house. You become the cat's human. Cats rule. The male lion doesn't just get to mate with his choice of lioness. He gets all the lionesses.

(and now I am picturing a whole lineup of that little guy from Peanuts dragging his blanket)

Leo represents royalty and generosity and fun and creativity and greed. The shadow of the Leo archetype is a kind of arrogance or self-importance, but what you will find with most Leos is that they have a presence - they impress us.

It is hard to see when a Leo is not OK and needs help because they unconsciously give us a feeling that they can handle anything. So, when Leo energy (and this can be a Leo Sun or ascendant or anyone speaking from the space we carry Leo in our natal charts, ie if you have Leo in the 7th house and are talking about your partner or if you have Leo in the 2nd house and are talking about your money) is asked, "how's it going?" and Leo energy says "not great, actually I am barely hanging in there" - the other person, instead of asking "why, what's going on?" would be more likely to laugh it off and say something like "me, too" and launch into their own story. It's hard for other people to relate to Leo as "one of us". There is a reason the king of the jungle is the king of the jungle. There is dignity here.

Leo rules the space we are meant to shine through self expression, so yes the energy needs a lot of attention and needs to feel special and, yes, it cares what other people think. Because there is a need to leave a legacy here, things can get overblown. Leo has trouble with 'humble' (hence this energy leads us to the next sign the 'humble' Virgo). Leo is ruled by the Sun and must shine (the Pluto in Leo generation was called the Me Generation, pretty appropriately). It is attached and emotionally reactive.

Aquarius energy is the opposite side of the same coin. It's the energy of "we". It is detached (this doesn't mean unaware or involved) and emotionally non-reactive - note I mean the energy and not all Aquarians, no one is just one thing! It doesn't need to feel special because it already knows it is special. It knows everyone is special. Ruled by Uranus it is the sign of the genius, rebel and criminal. The Aquarius space in our chart is where things will work best by being 'outside the box'. It is unpredictable. Aquarius doesn't do humble either. It's hard for other people to relate to Aquarius as "one of us", too.

So, we have this opposition at any Aquarius Full Moon this me/we energy - this heart/head energy.

And Thursday's Full Moon is even more powerful and very complex.

Besides the opposition we have a Yod (called a finger of God; ie fate, cosmic course correction) which is an isosceles triangle in the sky. We have the Aquarius Moon sextiling Uranus (retrograde) at 24 degrees Aries and the Moon and Uranus are inconjunct Jupiter, in Virgo, at 25 degrees and Mercury at 23 degrees.

With Uranus (Aquarius ruler) sextiling the Moon (in Aquarius!) - we know this Moon will have the fingerprint of Uranus - freedom, liberation, unpredictability -there is something chaotic and unexpected here. With the cosmic course correction (Yod) pointing to Jupiter (and Mercury) in Virgo we know the way through this, and the overblown information and ideas that may be brought forth, is with careful consideration, attention to details, attention to our health and a focus on being of service to others.

Virgo will help us ground this electric energy (be cautious with machinery, computers, fire, stored data - anything that can spark including our temper).

With Uranus ruling this Full Moon from its retrograde position we might find someone from our past resurfacing -

this could also be a familiar ego or archetype energy in the form of a new or unexpected person or situation, with a resonance to something from the past. 

This would be something we need to release or reclaim that has to do with the Full Moon's themes of self-expression, freedom and individuality. 

This could relate to change we are resisting or some responsibility we are resisting. This could be about releasing something our ego has self-identified with that needs to go before our new chapter kicks off (Mars/Saturn) next week.

Within the energy of unpredictability and change Aquarius offers the space to step back and look at things dispassionately - to step outside our own drama.

With Jupiter conjunct Mercury information could be overblown. There could also be 'words of wisdom' now.

Let's slow down and take our time here. We might want to leap and there is certainly support for leaping, but with that Yod pointing to Virgo and opposing Chiron (wounded healer in compassionate Pisces) it feels more like a birth from an ending - something fated that needs to happen. Right after this Full Moon we get another mutable t-square. The mutable signs (and people with planets in mutable signs) have had a hell of a year and it's not over.

We are headed into a very heavy duty eclipse season where some very important things are going to be brought to light and some very important actions will be taken. We won't be the same people in October that we are now (particularly the mutable signs) - this Moon is just one of the steps to getting us all there ....

As always get out and walk in it - definitely start tonight as it builds - don't worry if you can't see it, it's there. This is an air Moon so a good time to get a head cold - take precautions. An Aquarius Full Moon could make us (and others) a bit out of touch with our emotions. Keep this in mind. The gift of emotional detachment is the ability to see things from another perspective .....

Anyhoo, check your Sun and Rising sign below (if you know your Aquarius house check the house number for best accuracy) to see where any abrupt, unexpected change (or something from the past that hasn't been energetically resolved) would be most likely to show up:

ARIES (11th house) friends and associates, groups you connect with, a secret goal gets reactivated
TAURUS (10th house) career, reputation in the world, father
GEMINI (9th house) travel to somewhere you have been before or picking up where you left off with some course of study, foreigners, wedding, publishing, marketing
CANCER (8th house) something hidden or taboo, other people's money, divorce, reproduction, taxes
LEO  (7th house) equal partnerships, marriage, something reflected through another person
VIRGO (6th house) health, day to day work, maybe a new work opportunity or a past opportunity resurfaces, your daily routine shifts
LIBRA (5th house) romance, children, creativity, gambling
SCORPIO (4th house) change in home or family, visit from someone unexpected, sudden news regarding your home, be especially careful with fire in the house, mother
SAG (3rd house) changes in the way you think about things or the way you communicate, siblings, your transportation, local neighborhood
CAPRICORN (2nd house) - your values, your money, the things money can and can't buy
AQUARIUS (1st house)  all about you, move something forward in a new radical way or release it
PISCES (12th house) something hidden revealed, some wound from the past, something to do with hospitals or prisons or something that has been 'put away', deep changes here

xo all

I'm going to do a post tomorrow or Friday about the big picture next few weeks  in terms of world events.

Sun trine Uranus | Venus on the North Node - getting noticed by doing our own thing

miss kI by thephotogenesis

Today the Sun, in Leo, trines (brakes off) Uranus, in Aries.

This is a good day to put an innovative spin on something or step into the spotlight in some unusual way.

Leo is the space in our chart (what house is home to Leo in your natal and progressed charts?) where we embrace our passion and make ourselves visible to other people (Leo's polarity space of Aquarius). What looks like is just for us is really for everyone.

Now is a good time to claim our passion; claim our creativity in a new way. It's never too late to begin again! New opportunities and breakthroughs can happen now. If you have the opportunity to show a different side of yourself - take it.

Leo, and the Sun, rule our 5th house of creativity, romance, children, joy, games - it's the house of pleasure - a shake-up in any of these areas (and/or our Leo natal and progressed houses) is possible now - doing something different is the key to making the house of pleasure pleasurable.

Venus, hanging out on the North Node of Fate, is making us very attractive to our best future. She is pulling us toward our greatest and most beautiful good. Can you feel her? xo all

Astrology Forecast for Creatives | Week of August 15th - the small beginnings of a BIG eclipse season

disappear by spell-bound 170

There is some disagreement between astrologers as to whether Thursday's Full Moon in Aquarius is or isn't a partial lunar eclipse (astronomers say no).

I think since part of the Moon will be red and part of the Moon will be missing (get up super early to see this for yourself) - this is a partial eclipse but even if it isn't it can't hurt to factor this into our thinking. A Full Moon reveals and an eclipse conceals. So, just know that if something is brought to light now we may not be able to see the whole picture.

Let's take a look at this Full Moon and a brief look at what September's solar and lunar eclipses (September 1st and 16th) are going to look/feel/behave like and what the whole season will offer up.

ECLIPSE SEASON IS GOING TO BE BIG!

Now, this week's eclipse isn't a 'true' eclipse (those start in a couple weeks). Eclipses can act as a kind of cosmic reboot; like when we download new software and have to turn our computer off and back on for the newly downloaded material to function properly. Except in this case, we are the computer, and our connection to a changing cosmos gets "reset".

Eclipses are some of the most dramatic means life has to draw our attention to spaces that need to change. They allow us to move from one level to another in some area of our lives very quickly. They can have influence weeks before and sometimes kick in 1-3 months after they have happened (often to the exact day).

Eclipse or not, significant changes are not far away - this would be a good time to slow down and take the time to analyze situations. We will be dealing with energies and situations we haven't worked with before so we need to be gentle with ourselves and other people. 

It is very difficult to see what is real and what is not real right now 

and sometimes we can only navigate through our sensitivity to our own discomfort. As we turn away from undermining beliefs and habits and relationships we can find ourselves heading in the right direction almost by accident!

Let's start with a sneak peek at the Full Moon partial lunar eclipse on August 18th - this is in our Aquarius house (natal and progressed) at 25 degrees.

This eclipse includes a Yod (finger of God, yes means exactly what this would make you picture in your head, it's saying LOOK HERE) pointing at Jupiter (in Virgo).

We've got the Moon sextiling Uranus (in Aries) and both the Moon and Uranus inconjunct to Jupiter. So, we've got the Moon in Aquarius (ruled by Uranus) and also sextiling Uranus. Uranus is very strong here and sextiles represent opportunities. Uranus and Aquarius are about stuff that is "out of the blue", unpredictable, new, technology, freedom, rebelliousness, genius, humanitarian - you get the idea. Aquarius is the sign of the genius, the rebel, the humanitarian, the criminal - and yes, sometimes all in the same person!

This Full Moon offers unusual opportunities to be brilliant or to be a humanitarian or to rebel against something impinging on our freedom or to devise the perfect cyber crime! 

(although maybe skip the cyber crime because although eclipses often conceal things - this one being more Full Moon than eclipse it is more likely to reveal than conceal)

I'll do a Full Moon post, but know with this Moon sextiling (opportunities) Uranus - the planet of  "anything can happen", well, anything can happen. The Moon has Jupiter getting uber close to Mercury.

(the exact conjunction is the following Monday, so maybe if whatever happens involves a communication or conversation or an announcement it will happen then, although with Mercury's upcoming retrograde he will be hanging out with Jupiter for quite a while)

The last time we had an eclipse in Aquarius was on August 7th - 8th, 1998 (anything special happening in your life then?). August 7, 1998 was the date the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were attacked with car bombs (killed more than 200 people). If you are old enough to remember the Bill Clinton presidency, this was during the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and was just a few days before Bill admitted on national television that he had in fact had a relationship with her. Two weeks later the Clinton administration bombed (August 22nd) Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation. You might also remember there were some critics at the time who thought the whole thing reminded them of the movie "Wag the Dog" - a movie about a politician who invents a war to take people's attention off what was happening at home. Not sure what this says about what is happening in the world today - but it is interesting the time period reflected back to us now.

Before the next eclipse (the Solar eclipse in Virgo on September 1st) a lot is going to happen including Mars meeting up with Saturn in Sagittarius. This is BIG.

We'll unpack this later in the week in more detail. 

Just know that Mars is not only meeting up with Saturn (August 23) - he is going to move past Saturn. If Saturn is the old man who sends the young man off to war to keep him busy so the young man will not think about unseating him then Mars is the young man back from battle and running right at him. We can also think of Saturn as that wall we can't get past ... except now we do. And what it takes to move us past that wall is the " unknown thing" that is going to happen here. Then Mercury goes retrograde, so whatever happens we will have plenty of time to think about it. Next comes a challenging solar eclipse. Then we have the final exact Saturn/Neptune square on September 10th (the last two exact square dates lined up very closely with the Paris and Orlando terrorist attacks). Then we have the lunar eclipse.

What this will all look like is still to be determined.

OK back to the week ahead - On Monday, the Capricorn Moon keeps us busy and on task. On Tuesday, coming off her opposition to Neptune, Venus, maybe a bit disillusioned from analyzing 'the dream' and facing her 'wall', hooks up with the North Node (our collective destiny, the best way forward) - this is a great day to start something or work on something or meet up with something or someone that aligns with where we want/need to go. If it's our best way forward things will click into place and we will attract what/who we need (remember this is still Virgo - so our attention to detail and focus on little things can make a big difference). Let's pay attention to what happens now. This is positive news for Venus and Virgo themes - love, money, women, our values, our work, our health, our animals and co-workers. In Virgo we will find real, workable solutions and improvements. Mercury is also preparing to go retrograde and walking the degrees he will walk two more times, so whatever we are working with will be in play for many weeks. On Wednesday, Venus trines (brakes off) Pluto so the Venus themes of women, love, money and our values have an easier time with authority figures, applying a stricter focus and maintaining our sense of purpose. We start to break through any lock ups and move forward. On Thursday, we have a Full Moon in humanitarian and freedom loving Aquarius (next post) so all week the energy will be intense as we build toward whatever the Full Moon will eclipse out, reveal, conceal or complete. On Friday, the Moon (in Pisces now) hooks up with Neptune and squares Mars and Saturn, triggering the approaching final Saturn/Neptune square (we've been dealing with this dreams vs. reality stuff, our beliefs, boundaries, etc, all year) and probably focusing us on whatever it is we need to release/finish before the final Saturn/Neptune square on September 10th. We'll want to step up and take action on any responsibilities that come up now (Saturn/Mars). With Uranus and Mercury again aspecting each other there could be unexpected news. Dreams may prove important and even prophetic.

There are no Void Moons during business hours. The basic energy is on releasing, finishing up, cleaning out and creating space for what is next! We are approaching the end of Leo season, and with so much energy in Virgo it may feel like summer is already behind us, but it's not gone yet. Remember, to enjoy these last few days - get outside and have some fun! xo all