“The more light you allow within you
the brighter the world you live in will be.”
– Shakti Gawain
After the intensity of July, the outlook for August is a sunny one!
The Leo New Moon at 11:55 pm July 31
propels us to give way to what causes our whole body to smile!
The 48 hours following a New Moon is the optimal time to set an intention for each month. With this New Moon, we are encouraged to commit to doing what lights us up!
We are prompted to satisfy our heart’s desire as The Sun, Moon, Venus and Mars are all traveling in Leo.
There is added emphasis on pleasure with Venus conjoined the New Moon.
We may feel more social, outgoing and ready for fun. After the intensity of two eclipses and a Mercury Retrograde in July, we are primed to cut loose.
While the mounting intensity and promised transformative change of the Saturn/Pluto conjunction will continue to underlie core dynamics for the coming months, planetary movements in August prompt us to reconnect to the joy of being alive and the necessity for taking breaks while meeting goals and responsibilities - to engage in activities that make us smile.
For a balanced and healthy life, 'play' is as fundamental a need as food or sleep, and this New Moon nudges us to play, to take the vacation, have fun, engage in some activity that stokes the fire within. It is summer after all! Let's enjoy it. It's only around a few more weeks. If we take time to play, we can discover renewed vigor for re-engaging the business of our life as the planets move into Virgo later in the month.
The prominent position of Venus has with the New Moon does have a serious side. For Venus, desire and pleasure are directly linked with the values we each hold as sacred. Key attributes of Venus are Values, Abundance, Intimacy, Beauty and Self-Worth - with Values providing the rudder for how we discern, speak, make decisions and move toward or away from others. Living our values increases our self worth, our pleasure in being alive and provides an experience of inner security that no amount of money can buy. This would follow that our joy comes from the courage to walk our talk and take bold steps to have our actions aligned with our heart's calling.
We can give ourselves permission to have light-hearted even frivolous fun while also keeping in step with an intention to live fully from our core values.
When you let your own light shine,
you unconsciously give others
permission to do the same.”
– Nelson Mandela
Breaking away from routine is further emphasized by the presence of Uranus (Planet of Change) in hard aspect to the New Moon. We feel an impatience, even intolerance, of the habitual, the status quo of how we have been approaching life. We are looking for an out of the box experience.
We can more readily access imagination, originality and innovative tendencies. Equally, there is potential for rebellion, breaking of rules, or feeling overly confident about some risk we feel compelled to take. To navigate this dynamic well, and not overreach (which we may see ample example of on the world stage in August) we simply need to ground ourselves in our core values and let them be a rudder to discern and guide our actions.
“Let your light shine so brightly
that others can see their way out of the dark”
Dr. Stacey A Maxwell-Krockenberger
We have the potential for experiencing boundless joy and creativity! By electing to feed the divine spark within us, we cannot help but light up, and our light will naturally spark something beautiful in the world.
Leo is also about bravery, courage and leadership. If we are not mindful, this energy can puff us up, embolden us to lead in a way that tries to influence or persuade others. We are encouraged to lead by example, to be the radiating presence of what we wish to see in the world. Empowered leadership can be characterized by generosity, as someone who gives because they have an abundance of joy, love and heart. This can come through action, but the inspiration others feel is the presence and light that directs the action.
“We are told to let our light shine,
and if it does,
we won’t need to tell anybody it does.
Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to the shining—
they just shine.”
– Dwight L. Moody
A closing note: Mercury goes Direct hours after the New Moon. While Retrograde the last three weeks, our focus went to re-evaluating, re-searching, re-flecting and re-aligning our approach to decisions, relationships and directions we wish to take. As Mercury moves forward once more, we too feel permission to move forward with communications and decisions. For those with planets at 22 – 24 degrees of a cardinal sign (Aries, Capricorn, Libra, Aries), July may have been particularly challenging. For these folks, as Mercury stations and goes direct at 23 degrees, it is recommended that you slow down conversations and decisions as there may be some added intensity the first days of August while things continue to shake out.
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