posted August 08, 2010 01:47 AM         

The Cosmic Story:

Leo New Moon, August 2010

"A life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western . . . Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The Universe turns differently when fire loves water."

The new Moon in Leo takes place on Monday, August 9, 2010 at 11;08pm Eastern/8:08 Pacific time. As with all new Moons, it is a sowing time, a time to plant a seed of new life. Leo rules the Heart, and this new Moon is a great time to open your hearts and let the power of love move through you! The waters of the Moon and the fire of the Sun will help you turn your universe around.

With Mars and Venus moving into Libra adding a more personal dimension to the dialogue of the cosmic T-square between Pluto, Uranus and Saturn, it’s time to consider our personal connection to the vast social changes that this celestial configuration speaks to. And with Venus in the mix, there's great hope that instead of conflict there will be cooperation.

These are the same energies that woke us up in the 60s with a new attitude about life and people. The dreams and visions that came out of the 60s reformulated and birthed the Aquarian dream of a new society:

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation

Everything that’s going on now, both in the sky and in our lives can be framed within the story of these planetary energies.

Saturn represents our reality. Back in the 60s, Saturn in Pisces showed us the ‘death of God’ and also the birth of personal spirituality. Now that Saturn is in Libra, its energy will focus our attention on injustice and help us look for balance between people and ideas, based on our spiritual vision. How open am I to an idea or another person’s feelings? What is the real issue to be faced right now? What is the meaning of ‘Fair and Balanced’? How do I measure up to what’s true? Balance must be achieved within if we want to engage in a balanced outer partnership. If you are secure enough to be open to one person’s views and needs, you can be open to listen to others' opinions. So practice being fair and balanced with the people you meet. Our individual response to the world can change things.

There’s a tinderbox waiting to explode out in the world, just like in the 60s: a tinderbox of worries, fears, prejudices and uncertainties. There’s also a lot of love, truth and creativity simmering. We need to come forward and share it! We can heal those fears, create out of those uncertainties. Not only in the culture, but in our personal lives.

The system (Pluto in Capricorn) is breaking down and we have to find new ways to relate with each other, to feed each other. (Cancer is the missing, essential element for grounding in this change. More on that below) Saturn in Libra offers us the discipline and authority to help us reach compromises and work together. Saturn says, ‘If you’re gonna play, play fair!’ It begins with knowing who you are, who you want to partner up with and how well you partner. Strength and courage (Mars) along with grace and creativity (Venus) are needed to engage in great partnerships, based on a deep commitment to a common purpose.

As Venus and Mars move through the beginning degrees of Libra in early August, they will connect to all four of the major planets in the T-square. With Saturn in Libra, they get a reality check – what is the state of my relationships (Venus)? Am I being fair and just to both myself and others (Mars)? Love (Venus) and desire (Mars) are important components of any successful relationship, personal or professional.

Venus and Mars also oppose Uranus and Jupiter in Aries – our new awakened sense of ourselves as spiritual co-creators of life. Our love and desire natures can act on this new awareness of who we are in all our relationships. And it is through those relationships that we can incorporate the Aquarian vision of equality and oneness (remember the big Neptune, Jupiter, Chiron conjunction in Aquarius last year? The new vision we are coming to hold in common, especially since the Gulf oil spill.).

Venus and Mars and Saturn in Libra as well as Uranus and Jupiter in Aries are all squaring (90*) Pluto in Capricorn, the great leveler who is rooting out corruption and decay in the patriarchal system, both within and without. A square represents an energetic crossroads, a need to turn a corner. We have to hold the tension of opposites between our new identity and ‘all our relations’ and diplomatically find solutions together for our common problems. That’s the best way to handle the energies of the 5 squares to Pluto. Watch for lots of transformation beginning in these next few weeks, especially for those of you with planets in the beginning degrees of the 4 cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn.

So, within this context, let’s take a look at the New Moon in Leo. Leo is the sign of creative expression and Individuation. It’s the sign where we can feel free to create like children create – spontaneously, unselfconsciously, joyously – with lots of laughter and play. Leo and children want to say YES to life. Leo calls us to the simplicity and exuberance of childhood. And yet, it is a grown-up wonder and creativity for Leo is the sign of our Individuation, our unique creative purpose.

Like the Tarot card of the Sun in the Rider-Waite deck, where a child rides a white horse under a big, shining Sun, Leo wants to feel rejuvenated and complete, innocent and wise. And she does this by expressing what’s inside her in concrete ways. Leo wants others to see him because he has discovered a way to show people who he is. He becomes an example of creative self-expression.

Leo is also the sign of the King and Queen, the sign of our royal nature. The ancient purpose of kings and queens was to stand before the gods to represent their people, and mediated between the powers of life and the good of their people. It is Leo’s unique personality which gives him the charisma to lead; it is Leo’s natural creativity which gives her the power to express herself.

So when we play with this new moon’s Leo energy, we need to understand that we have a responsibility to be leaders as well as individuals; we have a responsibility to create not only for ourselves but for the greater good.

There’s a fairy tale I use in my classes on developing feminine consciousness that helps explain what our purpose is this lifetime. Leo is all about purpose and expressing it in a concrete way. Since we are dealing with so many different crises at this time in our history, concerned people can take up the Leonine responsibility to lead – that’s one part of our purpose. You might have to lead in your relationships, in your work, in your schools, in your communities.

As many of you know, fairy tales contain archetypal information about how to meet and solve the problems and sorrows of life and continue on at a higher level of consciousness, both collectively and personally. In fairy tales, kings symbolize a collective dominant – such as capitalism or Christianity – as well as a personal dominating belief about yourself. Queens symbolize the emotional components of that collective paradigm or personal complex. What happens when it’s time for a paradigm shift? How and what would a fairy tale tell us about that?

In this fairy tale, a king and a queen love each other so much that when the queen dies, she demands that the king only marry again if he can find someone just like her. She wants him to have the same support as she gave him. And because of that twisted promise, he does. His daughter grows up to ‘look’ just like her mother and the king falls in love with her and demands to marry her. This part of the story sets up the situation: the feelings that supported the collective dominant are gone. There is no longer the emotional support for it. But the patriarchally-bound feminine spirit of life is so divorced from the laws of life that it colludes against new life to keep the old king in power. This is part of the feeling tone of this dominant – do anything to stay in power, even to killing off the new life, ideas, ideals that want to be expressed.

Instead of stepping aside and letting a new dominant belief arise naturally from the personal or collective Unconscious, the Old king wants to continue to rule through his daughter. He wants to use and manipulate the new feelings that are arising to continue to hold onto his power.

This has always been the problem with patriarchy, going back to the old Titans of Greece who swallowed their own children rather than let them take over rulership when it was time for a change. This is what we’re seeing now in our culture – capitalism, the old/new dominant belief of the world, isn’t working. It’s based on values which are no longer appropriate for what we face. And yet patriarchal thinking wants to hold on to power and would rather have us die than create new life for the future.

In personal terms, this old king keeps us in line, even when our feelings are telling us that something is wrong. It’s an unconscious set of rules that shapes our vision of life, until we rebel and set out in search of our individual values and beliefs. The old king for many Americans is the old religious beliefs that we no longer value, yet which still unconsciously rule our behavior, keeping us either bound to its precepts or in rebellion against it.

This fairy tale sets out, in symbolic form, the problems and the solution of a major paradigm shift, one we’re going through right now. The patriarchy is so entrenched in our consciousness that even though we are no longer emotionally attached to its rules and beliefs, we let it continue on, sucking the life out of any new alternatives to its rule. This is Pluto going through Capricorn - while it's energy is bringing up the 'dirt' about patriarchy and capitalism, the old power structure will do anything to hold onto power. Even make-believe that it has the people's interests at heart.

In the fairy tale, the princess, just like her mother, is a Father’s Daughter, which means that her perception of life is based on a masculine paradigm and belief system. We are all – men and women alike – Father’s Daughters. Our feminine nature has been vilified and tamed by the patriarchy’s rules and beliefs. While the princess is smart and independent, she isn’t free to express herself and chose a king of her own desires. She is going to be forced to marry her father! (While many storytellers see this as a fairy tale about rape and incest, on a larger social scale, it is about the rape of the individual soul by the Patriarchy – the Father!)

So it is up to the princess to solve this problem if she wants a life of her own. It is the feeling, intuitive feminine side of life which is being dominated and used by the patriarchy. So it is this feminine consciousness – especially in women – which must go on the heroine’s journey and transform in order to bring down the father’s rule and discover a new king and new rules.

Astrologically, this is the Cancer energy that is the grounding energy of the Cardinal T-square. A new relationship to our emotional body is in order. Feminine consciousness needs to be transformed and freed from the grip of patriarchy if we’re going to change ourselves and change the world. (Next month we’ll continue the story about how the princess takes things into her own hands.)

This Leo story calls to our royal nature to face the fact that the old king keeps us from our unique vision and creativity, for we have to give that creativity to feed his visions rather than our own.

The Sabian symbol for the Moon and Sun at 18* Leo is: A chemistry teacher questions his students about a complex synthesis. How do we mix the basic elements of life to create our life? We do it through all the tests we go through in life, all our experiences that finally take on meaning for us. There are stages of learning, development and spiritual growth we need to go through to arrive at a new integration of heart and mind, soul and spirit. Our inner teacher wants to know if we get it!

We are still in the season of Lammas. May your first harvests be fruitful and remember to make them sacred!

From Bernadette Brady’s Visual Astrology newsletter:

By 12 August look to the west for the first crescent moon in the early twilight and then keep watching above this moon (below if you are in the southern hemisphere) to see the three lights of Venus, Mars and Saturn.

Then listen for news of reconciliation or the beginning of talks that attempt to heal old wounds. In your own life this is also a time to heal old wounds, so reach out to those in your life who are in exile in some way. Families and friends also have times of conflict and times of healing. This I believe is a time of healing.

Bright blessings on us all!

Cathy Pagano, M.A.

Jungian Psychotherapist – Dreams

Archetypal Astrology – Life Blueprint