Leo New Moon

Leo New Moon - Expansive Expectations

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity."

— Gilda Radner

The Sun's arrival in Leo last week set us off on a rather 'bumpy' road, filled with 'potholes' of ego vulnerabilities and insecurities that we seem to want to fill with big helpings of 'bluff and bluster' or obscure with 'bling' or other sorts of trinkets that will serve to somehow announce our value to others. But deep down, the insecurity and uncertainty is swirling. The midweek Leo New Moon (10:54 AM PDT 8° Leo) in a trine to Jupiter, only serves to increase the bombast through expansive expectations and hard-to-restrain optimism. The key to navigating this atmosphere is likely found by focusing on the strong, creative drive of the Leo influence and looking for tangible ways to bolster our sense of self-worth. We may be hoping for extra praise or attention but feel uncertainty about how to perform. In other words, we aren't sure what we need to do in order to gain the sort of praise that we are craving. Self-consciousness keeps us from truly diving in with the honest self-expression that can show others who we really are. In truth, this is the process which we are just beginning — a process that will help us to know how we can express ourselves more effectively. While there are moments this week where compassion and understanding seem to help us along, much of the week is filled with a bit too much nervous or excited chatter that doesn't touch the void that we're hoping to fill. The New Moon's optimism comes with a significant 'catch'. The trine to Jupiter is expansive but Jupiter is stationing retrograde, setting us on an extended search for more self-respect. Our expectations are easily raised but we may not be prepared for the extended process that will seem to slow our progress so much that we may believe that our expectations have been dashed. Before we reach the goals that we have set, we will need to find ways to increase our individual self-respect and learn how to better value our own unique individual perspective. Adding to this week's challenge is the forming Mars-Uranus conjunction, which will not complete until next week. Impulsive recklessness is building along with the general impatience that has been swirling around for the last few weeks. The impatience is what will threaten our ultimate success, not the process that is teaching us about improving our sense of self-worth.

A vague pressure seems to demand more than we know how to accommodate on Sunday. Our egos seem to be on the line. We may tend to rely on deflection and distraction on Monday. There is also the potential for a fever of imagined ills that keep us on edge or uncomfortable. The is some hope of a broader perspective on Tuesday. We can begin to recognize small opportunities to dig a little deeper into the insecurity that we could be feeling. The distractions ease up a bit on Wednesday. Self-consciousness keeps us from bold self-expression. Thursday's Leo New Moon is full of optimism and rising expectations. We should guard against believing that we truly know how things will ultimately 'work out'. A few lucky breaks on Friday further increases our optimism and causes us to build unrealistic expectations. We need to allow the process to unfold and avoid impulsive recklessness. There is some tendency to fall back on fault-finding or unnecessary criticism on Saturday. We'll do better to approach others with determined humility.