Leo Eclipse New Moon

Leo Eclipse New Moon — Turning A Corner

"Between understanding and faith immediate connections must subsist."

— Marquis de Sade

Both Venus and Mercury make important connections to the three 'Outers' (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) this week. Venus in Libra completes a Grand Air Trine with Uranus and Pluto while also opposing Neptune — generally termed a 'Kite' — on Tuesday. Mercury arrives in Leo at the beginning of the week, traveling over the same 'hot spot' as Jupiter and the Sun and making the same connections to the 'Outers' — a sextile to Uranus, a trine to Neptune, and an opposition to Pluto. These are generally considered highly 'benefic' configurations. Nonetheless, with Venus out of "Earth Sign' Virgo and Mercury out of 'Water Sign' Cancer, this week's atmosphere is almost entirely dominated by Air and Fire elements — except stationary retrograde Chiron's tentative placement on the cusp between Taurus and Aries and the arrival of Mars into Cancer on Tuesday. The overwhelming preponderance of Air and Fire energy keeps excitement, energy, and vitality 'pumping' but offers few direct routes to stability. While still in Gemini, Mars conjuncts Ceres as they both approach a sextile to Chiron. This suggest some 'good intentions' as we try to establish connections with others and work to understand how to make use of the swirl of new insights coming out of these momentous outer planet connections. Nonetheless, the overall picture doesn't offer as much effective, cooperative interaction as we might hope. Mercury's move into the 'hot zone' doesn't initially provide us with much clarity, bringing feelings of extraordinary 'power' but offering little tangible 'wisdom' and stirring our imaginations with vague, 'Leo-Style delusions of grandeur'. There are challenging 'ego-based' stumbling blocks to contend with as we head into Wednesday's Leo Eclipse New Moon (10:36 AM PDT 20° Leo). However, the New Moon does begin to offer some hope that we are 'turning a corner' in our ability to fully recognize the vastly powerful new energies that have been stirred up over the past few weeks. The Moon's trine to Saturn, just before the New Moon, carries at least a bit of valuable 'restraint' into this highly charged, self-interested, ego-driven New Moon. Cooperation and concern for others — the 'greater good' — is integral to the tangible expression of the energies that are initiated. However, understanding that fact requires deep awareness. Mercury conjuncts Jupiter in Leo by Saturday, and we will finally be offered some extra help to make use of the novel insights that are deeply embedded into this new lunar cycle. We are on the precipice, this week, of gaining some valuable perspective through the especially important Saturnine energies that will begin to fall into place next week. Mercury's trine to Saturn next Monday and a Venus-Saturn opposition next Friday will help us to lay important groundwork, ahead of the Pisces Full Moon Eclipse on August 27 (8:13 PM PDT 4° Pisces/Virgo) when an auspicious Jupiter-Saturn trine will be nearly complete, suggesting at least some hope of effectively blending self-control with expansive inspiration.

There are attempts to try to blend material and spiritual intentions on Sunday in ways that don't seem very productive. At best, we're prone to conveying 'mixed messages' — "I don't need you/Come here!". Monday's 'chatter' and excitement is just not very well grounded. The basic challenge is something like wanting to take our 'New Car' out in order to show it off — without actually know how to drive. Any 'good intentions' are rather 'stifled' on Tuesday. The day's power demands intentional 'cooperation' but we may not fully recognize those 'demands' without a great deal of individual responsibility. We are offered some hope that we are 'turning a corner' on Wednesday in our ability to fully recognize the vastly powerful new energies that have been stirred up over the past few weeks. The afternoon provides much needed 'flashes of insight'. We find some hope on Thursday of getting off on the right foot in a New Lunar Cycle which is offering significant intellectual capacity, coupled with increased vitality. Nonetheless, we will need to 'check our facts' especially carefully later in the day. It is likely that our efforts are best spent on Friday reviewing important information, triple-checking our facts, and avoiding any tendencies to 'nit-pick' or point fingers at others. We will eventually begin to find opportunities to actually draw conclusions from the facts that we are checking. We find ourselves in a dramatically shifted paradigm on Saturday and we are only just beginning to develop the necessary skills in order to navigate effectively. Although the environment may suggest that we need to show self-sufficiency, in fact, our best approach is to develop cooperative strategies that will involve collaboration and compromise.