New Moon in Leo
The Leo New Moon on July 24th is complex, to say the least. Usually gregarious, bold and expressive, this particular Lioness’s energy is challenged by the exact opposition to Pluto, Goddess of the Underworld – call her Persephone, Kali or even Hades, this ‘dwarf’ planet packs the hardest punch of them all.
It’s a Moon nothing short of transformational.
Yet, what is often forgotten is the process that occurs prior to transformation. The messy part. The muck, the shadow and the trauma that has to be dealt with and waded through before the light is reached at the end of the tunnel. This tunnel might be a little long-winded, seeing as New Moons tend to unfold over several months.
Our task is Herculean, but not impossible. First, we have to own our light, our sovereignty and our authenticity. Bold self-expression is a must. Facing jealousy, pushback and power struggles seems to be part of the journey we take. If we don’t reclaim our power, we end up projecting it. As Carl Jung said: “What we do not make conscious, emerges later as fate.”
How will we know when we’ve gone wrong? How do we know when we’ve failed to hold our power, when we’ve given away our sovereign control or allowed ourselves to be pulled into someone else’s Underworld, trauma or shadow?
We feel it. We feel it in the shrinking of our light, the dimming of our inner Sun, the sense of insecurity that we know doesn’t belong to us. We feel it as rage, as weakness, as our ego masking who we truly are to play a part that we aren’t.
The Gods are on our side: Saturn and Neptune both trine this New Moon, encouraging self-responsibility, discipline and alignment with our truest truth, our inner Mystic and Artist – our Healer and Guru within. We all have access to these archetypes. We just have to believe.
The sextile to Uranus reflects opportunities for wilder self-expression than ever before. We also hold the Rebel Archetype, the Free Spirit and the Change-Maker. Multiple chances for radical self-reliance unfold as we move closer towards the light, sure of our strength, accepting of our weaknesses and unwilling to allow anyone to pull us down.
When we bring home the parts of us that we’ve been rejecting for so very long – the parts that we perhaps were afraid of, because with great power comes great responsibility – we integrate. We become whole. After all, the Hero’s Journey is that of individuation, as represented by the Lion. And to fully become all that we are, we need to embrace both the darkness and the light. One cannot exist without the other.
