Leo Solar Eclipse: Heart in Motion

What your heart desires

is not too good to be true.

It is good enough

to be true.

Alan Cohen

The Total Solar Eclipse on August 12, 2026, at 20° Leo reveals a unified direction, with the heart as our compass. It is time to give life to something big, bold and new. What has been incubating within is ready to emerge into the world.

The astrological alignments gather many disparate and powerful forces and funnel them into one coherent movement. It’s rare to see a sky this complex converge rather than scatter.  

The Leo eclipse itself, along with the cluster of planets in Leo, serves as the centerpoint. Leo focuses, concentrates, and pulls attention toward the heart, toward the creative and compassionate engine of the self. Everything peripheral falls away. The noise of the mind recedes, and what matters most comes into focus.

Fears and insecurities about moving forward provide the necessary friction that spurs action, urging us to leap toward what we feel called to create. In the weeks ahead, the choices we make from this eclipse’s momentum may bring rapid movement, growth, and connection within the new life taking shape.

5 planets in Leo

Mercury, Jupiter, Hygeia conjunction in Leo

              At the Apex of a Kite Pattern

              Sextile Uranus and Venus

              Trine Neptune

              Oppose Pluto

Cardinal T Square: Mars at Apex square Venus and Neptune

Fixed T Square: Chiron at Apex square Mercury and Pluto

Air Grand Trine with Venus, Uranus and Neptune

Two Kites in Fire and Air: 

Involving multiple trines/sextiles between Uranus, Pluto, Neptune, Venus Mercury & Jupiter

Apex Neptune oppose Venus

Apex Mercury and Jupiter oppose Pluto

Ceres exactly sextile Mars

Saturn trines the Solar Eclipse

Fixed star Acubens aligns with the Solar Eclipse    

Fixed star Kochabe aligns with the Solar Eclipse

The path of the total solar eclipse will cross Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, Spain, and a small part of Portugal. A much wider region (most of Europe, northern and eastern North America, and northwestern Africa) will experience a partial eclipse with obscuration ranging from about 7% to over 60% depending on location. Areas that are in the direct path of the Solar Eclipse will experience the full impact of the eclipse, but even if we are not in its direct path, the eclipse can create sudden shifts, disruptions, openings and movements in all our lives.

A Solar Eclipse marks a turning point that heralds fresh beginnings accompanied by timely endings. It provides a bookmark that notes where we can note a life shift, where we turn a page to embark in a new direction. To turn that page, something ia left behind.

A South Node Eclipse lets us know there is something we need to let go of in order to embrace the new inspiration, the new potential. It might be an old dream, old way of doing something, or old fears that keep us small. In Virgo, the South Node Eclipse indicates we are to let go of needing to fully understand or needing to control how things come about. It is good to trust in life to help contribute, guide and gift us. We are to find the balance between how much we manage and direct what we want to create with the value for remaining and open receptive to what life wishes to gift us that we could never have planned or made happen.

The house where 20° Leo resides in our Birth Chart points to the area of life where we are to align with what inspires us. There is something we have been contemplating for some weeks or months and the eclipse is the catalyst to put it into motion and launch something new in our life.

You can get what you want in life.

You must reach out with all your heart.

 Lailah Gifty Akita

The Eclipse ushers in a time of fast-moving changes and important developments.  We are to launch what we have been thinking into the world.  We are to give focus and energy around what inspires and motivates us.  Something has been coming together for some time and the eclipse can provide the ignition we have been waiting for. 

Launch the Next Chapter

Leo Stellium

Fire in the sky gathers to illuminate what we are truly made of. We see our gifts, our love, and what ignites our love to action. Leo is fixed fire. It provides the enthusiasm, the creativity, the courage to love what we love and to boldly express that love in our relationships and endeavors. We each create a life, create relationships, create home, create work, create meaning. To sustain what we create is the next task, and Leo provides the fire that sustains so that the inspiration, the creative spark is not just a flash in the pan. What we begin now has great potential to root, grow and be sustained over time.

New Connections Help us Take Flight

Two Kite Patterns in Air and Fire

The spine of the kite is formed by a stressful opposition between two planets that also in harmonious relationship with at least two other planets that give shape to the Kite.

The Double Kites (with multiple aspects between six planets) do not create chaos; they provide a single apex where multiple currents meet. The many options converge and we have a revelation about the path forward; we are ready to declare “this is the direction I am heading.” It is not a choice we make, but comes from place of knowing. Arriving at a truth we can no longer avoid, we find the courage to take the risk needed to act upon it. If we hesitate, we may look back and see a missed opportunity. By acting on the call of the heart, we will find a tailwind that provides liftoff to the kite of our dreams.

Venus and Mercury as Apex planets between the two kites, gives us permission to show up differently and make some changes to the way we present ourselves to others. It could be a new haircut, different style of clothes, or in the way we express what is in our heart. We feel less stuck in adhering to who we have been. We are ready to be more authentic, more visible and seen in what matters to us. The shift in letting ourselves be seen in a new way can feel healing and self-affirming (Hygeia conjunct Mercury and Juptier).

Mercury/ Jupiter at the Apex of the Kite opposing Pluto. Our minds are opened and invigorated by a new awareness, surprising realization, a new piece of information, or insight into the core truths of a situation. The shadows in our personality are also illuminated. Aware of the weak spots in our personality makeup allows us to formulate a grounded approach to actions we plan to take so we are not carried away by idealism. The shadow is not meant to sabotage us, but to be an ingredient in our processs of finding clairty about what’s next. The strength of our inner fire compels us to risk expressing our ideas, inviting feedback and initiating conversation.

Neptune at Apex of the Kite opposing Venus. We can attract new love. The need to perform has waned and we are letting others see us as we really are. We are idealistic regarding relationships and open to forming new partnerships which may come in the form of a new client, romantic partner, business collaboration, or friendship. We may meet someone that offers deep connection and is resonant with our deepest values and dreams. Let us pay attention to who shows up in our life now and why.

As I often say,

we do have to keep re-inventing

the wheel. Why? Because

in the process of invention

is the energy and possibility of

creation, and that is where

we are most available

to discovering something,

anything, about the process,

about the results,

about ourselves.

Shellen Lubin

The Drag Becomes Provides the Necessary Friction

Cardinal T Square: Mars at Apex square Venus and Neptune

Fixed T Square: Chiron at Apex square Mercury and Pluto

Two T‑squares add pressure, but do not fragment us or the the Solar Eclipse invitation. Instead, they force movement. They push us out of indecision and into action. Mars and Chiron as apexes don’t create multiple crises; they create a single breakthrough point, the place where something has to give, and therefore where something within can finally shift.

There is a collective turning happening where old wounds stop running the story. The building pressure cracks the pattern and we are compelled to act in a new way. The pressure to act becomes the permission to change. We find ourselves making a decisive movement.

The pressure builds as we question our self worth or wonder if we have what it takes to do what we want to do. We may feel discouraged as we reflect on past failures or instances where taking a risk did not turn out well. But our tired, worn out and longheld insecurities are simply no match for the desire that wants to engage the new life that is within reach. It is time to risk again. The larger astrological configurations assure us that the future will not be a repeat of the past, but will launch us into a whole new chapter in our lives.

New Connections and Collaborations

Air Grand Trine with Venus, Uranus and Neptune

Air is about movement, social interaction and the exchange of ideas. We are being liberated as we open to new relational truths, creative freedom and an emerging clarity around how we can engage with others differently.

We can rewrite how we form and keep connections. Old agreements can fall away and new ones can emerge. There is a new freedom within existing relationships to say what is on our mind, stay connected to our feelings and not gloss over what bears discussing. We feel greater trust in our ability to discern when to compromise and where to hold strong.

New and significant relationships and collaborations may enter our life. As we take the risk to speak and act on what we wish to create, we may be surprised by the conversations and connections we make in the process.

If I have one piece of advice

to give you all

about what to search for

in your quest for

What Next,

it's to find where the line blurs

between hard work

and happiness for you.

To find that thing where

working hard at it

makes you happy,

and where you're happy

to work hard at it.

Tom Fletcher

To Midwife our own Rebirth

Acubens, Alpha Star in the Constellation of Cancer

Acubens, called The Gateway of Life, is the premiere star within the constellation we call Cancer and the Egyptians called Khepri. Khepri means Becoming and personified in the Scarab Beetle that pushes the ball of the sun through the dark of night so it can rise again at dawn. And just as the Sun is always becoming, always in the process of being reborn each day, we too are perpectually becoming.

The Scarab Beetle rolls its eggs in dung to surround the egg in a ball of dung. When an egg hatches, the dung provides warmth and nutrients for the newborn beetle, who then must push through the dung to emerge into life. The struggle to emerge, helps the beetle build the strength needed to make their way in life.

The presence of Acubens at the solar eclipse signifies the moment when our heart has pushed itself through the dark to be reborn in a new day. We are reminded of the sacredness of life and the role we are to play as a giver of new life. The solar eclipse marks a turning where creation has survived the night and rises renewed within a perpetual cycle of emergence and becoming.

The solar eclipse thus symbolizes the rebirth of the Sun, the heart within us. The dung and shadows of our past experience and failures provide a fertile warm, hidden chamber where the next version of ourself has taken shape. The presence of Acubens indicates that a new identity, a new version of ourselves has been reforged. The eclipse thus becomes a moment of re-emergence where the creative impulse pushes upward, steady and inevitable, so the new life can rise and be known.

Light must come from inside.

You cannot ask the darkness

to leave; you must

turn on the light.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Personal Reflection

The opportunity of the Leo Eclipse has me reflecting on a weekend retreat I took years ago with Aviva Gold, a friend of mine who created a methodology for how to approach painting, called Painting from the Source. I had heard incredible things from area painters who had taken one of her workshops, and so one day I causally said to her that I wished I could be a fly on the wall of one of her workshops.  She responded by inviting me to participate in one of her weekends. When I told her that I wasn't a painter, she simply repeated the offer and I enthusiastically accepted it.

On a Friday afternoon in August, 12 of us found our way to a studio that sat on the shores of the Stockbridge Bowl, a lake in the Berkshire mountains. 12 extra-large scale canvases were placed along the walls of the room and we each chose one for ourselves. 

We had been instructed to not arrive with any concept of what we would create, so that we could connect with an act on the inspiration found in the present moment. After giving parameters for how we were to work and spend our weekend, Aviva then left. She locked the door behind her while we remained in that one large room until Sunday afternoon. We each had brought a pad and sleeping bag for when we wished to sleep. At intervals, food was delivered, and Aviva would return to deliver some inspirational words of wisdom and stoke the fire of our painting process. 

Once we were left on our own, a deep quiet enveloped the room. We each turned to face our canvas which seemed to whiter and larger the longer we stared at it. We each tuned out everyone and everything around us and became quiet, listening, waiting for inspiration to strike.

It was at this time I realized that while I considered myself creative, comfortable with a creative challenge, and seemed to always be in a perpetual process of creating something, I had never once held a paintbrush, a palette or put paint on a canvas. I had done color by number paintings or hand paintings as a kid, but somehow this didn’t seem to count. I was out of my depth. I had no experience or frame of reference for what I had said yes to for the weekend. Surrounded by professional or aspiring artists, and a canvas that was larger than my living room wall, I suddenly felt I had no right to be in this room or workshop with them. I found myself gasping for breath, as if I was drowning. It was as if I had just jumped into the deep end of a pool only to realize I had better figure out how to swim...and fast.

Each of us in the room went through some initial inner process during those first long minutes or was it hours. Each of us dealt with feeling like an imposter or lacking the worthiness for inspiration to move us. Time seemed to stand still or not exist at all. In that vast and formless space where one waits for the light of inspiration, one meets the anxieties and fears that lurk in the shadows.

Finally, not able to bear the whiteness anymore, I picked up the brush and dipped it in some blue paint and made a swirling pattern on the paper. I then stared at this a little bit before I was inspired to add another color to it. I looked around the room to see that we were all now painting, all absorbed in creating, curious about what was emerging. At some point, we each went from stillness to action, from whiteness to color. Hours passed.

Then like corn kernels popping one at a time, we each decided that we were painting was hideous. We despised what we saw in front of us. For my part, I wondered what I would do the rest of the weekend with a painting I no longer liked or had interest in continuing to develop. As I looked around the room again, I was amazed to see how everyone had begun painting their canvas white again. This was a genius revelation! There was a way to start over! Delighted, I painted my canvas all white again. And again, in intervals we all just sat or stood and stared at the canvas waiting for inspiration and meeting anxieties that would emerge in that space of deep listening.

Again, we all painted. And again, now more than a day in, we each began to truly hate what we were creating. It was at this juncture that people cracked. On my part, I was not identified with being a painter and I didn’t had not set a high bar around what the quality of my work should look like. I just confirmed to myself that I was in fact not a painter and so stewed around how I would spend the remaining hours locked in this room, feeling like I had wasted my weekend.

However, for those around me who were identified with being a painter or were invested in having the painting be a reflection of their talent and who they were, their response to the predicament was more intense. At this juncture, some curled into the fetal position and began to whale. Others became angry and began to throw furniture. One person bashed their canvas into pieces. It was as if their very existence was at stake. I was suddenly in a room that felt less like an artist studio and more like an insane asylum with people who had gone off their meds.

I forgot all about what I was painting and became fascinated by the chaos that had erupted in the room and seemed to go on for several hours. I felt enormously grateful that I did not identify myself as a painter. It meant I had nothing to lose. The people around me did, and they were losing it.

I was being shown what happens when our ego gets in the way. My ego was not at stake here; therefore, I was not feeling the despair that was happening all around me. I had no history with and no experience with painting, so I was receiving the great gift of experiencing the creative process unadulterated and unfiltered. I also had the gift of being given a front row seat to what happens when a person brings their ego to the creative process and comes with a preconceived set of standards that must be met for the creative output - and their very existence - to be found worthy.

And then…

At some point, we all began painting again. Some of us painted white over what we had done.  Some found ways to work with what was already there. I elected to white out just a section of my painting. The person with the torn apart canvas found inspiration in a torn apart canvas. And again, time ceased to exist and hours disappeared.

On Sunday afternoon, we were invited to share what we painted. Everyone was excited to share their creation. Each person expressed pride and joy as they presented what they had painted and explained some of what inspired it. And they welcomed the feedback and appreciation for their work. In conversation, the group acknowledged the breakthroughs we had made in our creativity and within ourselves and the transformative effect the weekend had on us as artists and human beings. We all left that room joyful, satisfied and grateful for an experience that opened our hearts and provided the space to engage the heart of ourselves.

Later, reflecting on the weekend I realized that being creative doesn't mean I am in bliss. Periods of inspired action where we lose track of time is accompanied by periods of frustration, feeling like a failure or a fraud, and losing faith that anything worthwhile will come from the effort. Flow is accompanied by periods of stuckness. It is all the creative process, not just the joyful inspired parts. The key is not allowing the inner critic to get us to quit. The creative process is messy and from that mess comes great beauty. The mud is necessary to produce the lotus. It is not about avoiding the periods of despair or angst but seeing them as fertilizer for the next bout of inspiration. I am reminded of the Scarab Beetle (see above) pushing through the dung that serves to propel and push the creative urge forward.

So…

Let us each take a leap to create something new on the canvas of life. Let it include a full pallet of colors that reflect the love and inspiration for what we want to create next. Know that the fears and insecurities that emerge are supposed to surface as an integral part of creating the day, the life, the artwork, the relationship, the world that we are meant to create. Let us dance with life and welcome equally the shadow and the light so we can be seen and loved for our whole self. We have only to get out of our own way and let go of our preconceived standards of excellence or our ego identification about the end result, so we can move with joy towards what are to create and who we are to become.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, press 'Like' or leave a comment at the bottom of the post.

---

Summer Special!

$25 Off All Readings

Give yourself or someone you love

The gift of fresh insight and perspective

for how to move in rhythm with the world changes and the next phase of fulfilling your life purpose.

Schedule your Reading Now

Promo Code: SUMMER26

Offer excludes Packages and Follow Up Readings

Offer ends August 31, 2026

---

Liv By Design Astrology