The Diamond of the Self
New moon at 12° of Leo
In the early hours of Sunday morning at 4:12am PST, the moon goes dark and renews her entire celestial being at 12° of Leo, the cosmic fire cat. This new moon is surrounded, temporarily, by some very sweet conditions. Venus is still in Leo, hanging out at its final degree, reinvigorated, hopefully, by a square with Uranus we just had on Friday. Her heart is shining honestly and brightly, ready to radiate blessings on whatever renewal we need. The new moon is also receiving an encouraging sextile with Jupiter in Gemini, which feels likes it’s expanding our inner conversation, or our sense of what is possible for us. It’s just like this loving, resourcing, recentering moment, right before the energies start spinning fast again. Really take this in if you can. Mercury is going to station retrograde immediately after this new moon, interrupting some of the forward momentum we’ve got going for some review and reprocessing of the last few weeks, in Virgo and then Leo. And then mid-August, starting August 14th, the astrology gets really rocky: a Mars Jupiter conjunction is happening immediately before a Mars square Saturn, and then we have a pretty intense full moon in Aquarius on the 19th alongside an exact Jupiter Saturn square. That’s a lot of details, and we don’t need to get ahead of ourselves, but just know that it means in some way it’s going to get messy and more difficult in the coming weeks. There may be some real moments in this month where we feel beset, or besieged. But also it’s fine! Really! We can take it. This is not our first rodeo or generative conflict or chaotic abyss. We are also not quite there yet. This new moon and the week that follows are here to help us get ready to meet what’s coming.
Leo is the sign the Sun is most at home in, it’s like this regal gorgeous lion and its best friend the sun are just relaxing and radiant in their domain together, making power and love and self-mastery look easy. So new moons here always bring us close to our solar/soul selves. Leo is the fixed fire sign of the fire signs, and its fire burns and moves in a way that celebrates the inner fire, and how each of us is a center of the universe. You can think of it like this—where Aries fire swirls centrifugally, energizing us and pushing us to go out into the world where we define ourselves by taking action, Leo fire is centripetal, drawing our lifeforce inward towards the center of our inner beings. Sagittarian fire does both, combining and figure-8-ing and integrating the two. We can further understand Leo by reflecting on how, in the northern hemisphere, Leo rules the peak of the summer season, when all the energies of the last cycle are coming to fruition. Or how in the developmental cycle of the zodiac, Leo is connected with adolescence, the phase when the individual self starts to reveal its specific radiance, to bear creative fruit in a way, and the great experiment of authentic self expression begins in earnest. Leo also corresponds with the 5th house in house theory, which hosts our creative and erotic energies, where we explore preference and pleasure and the making of it. Taking that all together, we can see why Leo, wherever it is in your chart, is considered a direct line to something essential and irrepressible about us, some way we were born to shine and be a gift to this world.
That’s where this new moon new beginning is happening. The degree it’s happening at, 12° of Leo, is specifically vibrating with a kind of contemplative, integrative energy. Its Sabian symbol is something like “an old sea captain, rocking.” This is a symbol of a mature self, a more realized self, looking back on the adventure or journey we’ve been on and where it’s brought us to. So this could be time when you find yourself drawn toward pausing and processing your journey, updating your personal story about who you are in some important way. Maybe there’s some way you are re-membering who you really are, like post a lot of shadow work and parts work that had you learning and healing and reorganizing on the inside. I suspect we will all be helped to personally integrate our healing and evolution in some way—the holy task of the alchemical rubedo, the summer phase of transformation—as a way of anchoring our growth and getting readier and more solid before we proceed.
I don’t know what kind of weekend or coming week you have in store for you, if there will be any space for intentional contracting and inner work. But that’s what this new moon is inviting—to in some way reset and recharge before beginning again, from a more resourced place. And this is Leo season, and a Leo new moon, and Leo is not really about deep thinking, or mental expansion—that’s Aquarius territory. Leo is about the heart and the body and the spirit. So whatever you feel called to do to honor this new moon, full permission to move away from reflection as an intellectual exercise, and towards reflection as an embodiment of awareness and aliveness in your being. Reflection as this lived experience of being your multi-dimensional diamond Self. Thoughts and meanings will likely arise and be involved, but they arise in Leo from a bottom-up process. So don’t think about who you are now, and who you are becoming, as an abstraction. Feel it. Be it. Sink/sync into it more. Enact it in some simple and delicious way. Beam it out. Understand it in how you are sitting and standing and moving. Even if you are using language, like trying to articulate in your journal or to a friend what has changed for you, and what new questions you’re asking, and what you feel ready to name and go for, go slow and let your body and its keen sense of resonance participate in finding that new language and meaning.
One more note that feels important, straight from a proud, childless cat lady. I have a really great cat. Living with this domesticated wild animal, this animal with deep jungle instincts alongside his house cat snacks instincts, has taught me so much. My husband Brian named him Domino the minute they met, when he was just a kitten, and he is very much a spirit of self-dominion: a real cat’s cat, a classic Leo. One of the main things Domino is good at is pleasure and residing in it. Everyday I watch him make a spectacle of stretching in the sun and just elaborately taking up space, posing on couches and counters and special high platforms that are just for him, as if he is in some kind of photo shoot for a luxury catalogue. His naps are on a whole other level. He makes napping look like the most incredible drug. As I write this he is making himself so comfortable, like borrowing into a soft blanket until it is exactly how he wants it, and I want to stop writing and join him. And, I know, relaxing isn’t his only pleasure. He can turn instantly into high activation mode, into attack and defense, if his boundaries are in any way crossed, or into hunting and chasing and pouncing, if he locks in on an object he desires. He is just as comfortable in his sympathetic, predator nervous system, this master of unapologetic self-dominion.
Everyday, I learn a little more from Domino’s example. He’s helped accelerate my path. Specifically, my journey to heal from and unlearn my gendered conditioning to identify as prey, repress expressions of anger and aggression and power, tip toe around and cower before others’ fragility, take up as little space as possible, and stay unaware on some level of my own desires. You may have your own cat-teacher, and also you may not love cats or identify with them, but Leo season is an opportunity for all of us to get a big dose of that Great Cat medicine, and get that next download on self-mastery and self-dominion. It’s a time, again, to come into more of our power, and the Leo new moon is offering us a potent moment of reset, to enable that empowerment. Wherever you are at on your own journey, I hope you get something you really need in the coming days. You are coming into some new dimension of yourself and your own power. In the way of the Great Cat, let that begin with some reveling in what you like, and what you are like, and what you need more of right now, and what you want more of now. It could just be a long, guilt-free nap. It could be playing with a little fire, figuratively, by letting yourself express something you’ve never felt safe to express. Or it could be some full on big move in the direction of manifesting your most sincere dream. Whatever it is, whatever feels right, carve out some space for you, like reintroducing yourself to you, exactly as you are now.
Ritual & Writing Prompts
For paid subscribers, some further guidance and more specific suggestions on how to work with this new moon in Leo, ritually and/or through writing.
(Disclaimer: Prompts are suggestions, not instructions. Play with what inspires you, ignore what’s doesn’t. Adapt in any way you see fit. Make your own magic.)
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to IN THE RIVER OF WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.