A Dramatic Full Moon in Leo

Tuesday afternoon's Full Moon represents another challenging lunation, primarily because highlighting Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune, while also aspecting Chiron and the still-active Uranus-Pluto square. The Sun and Moon in opposition, in the middle of Aquarius and Leo, connote a healthy balance of masculine and feminine energies, while the relationship orientation of Venus is conjoined with Neptune, the planetary archetype of universal love and for coming together in oneness. There is also an important Pisces lineup of four planets including Venus and Mars, signifying sensitivity and compassion as we relate to our fellow man, and woman. This ideal of commonality, also represented by Aquarius, is vital to our continued well being as a global society when it comes to facing the confounding problems of our time, issues that indeed threaten what is coming to be recognized as an increasingly small and fragile earthly environment that we all must learn to protect. The Aquarius keynote therefore has also the implication of brothers and sisters coming together in peace and harmony, for the work that we can all do together, once we can somehow establish that we are all on the same page. Undeniably, we are all in the same boat.

It is a complex configuration that greets us with this Full Moon timing. Contrasted to some extent with the cosmic love energy of Neptune is the solitary focus on duty and responsibility represented by Saturn, in square with Neptune, while the pain of separation from the ideal of spiritual connection is also found in the presence of Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in Pisces, and strongly aspected by the Sun and Moon. The most greatly highlighted archetype is positive and expansive Jupiter, conjoined by the Moon, and across the Zodiac from the rest of the planets. There is in fact a yod to the Moon, from Pluto and Chiron in sextile, and also what is called a 'kite' formation that includes the Sun, which resides at the Pluto/Chiron midpoint. This Full Moon configuration therefore represents a serious focus of cosmic energies for transformation and healing.

The Jupiter in Leo piece represents another contrast to the social signs, signifying solitary personal involvement in what you are able to create, as you contribute to what, from the standpoint of the Aquarius Sun, can be seen as the work of coming together in social groupings designed to move the culture forward. The studied, forceful and optimistic contribution of each one of us is indeed necessary for the success of the whole.

All this energy in support of the individual's role in relation to the needs of the collective is related to the extreme evolutionary pressure for transformation represented by Uranus and Pluto in combination, still less than a degree apart from a perfect square formation, as they begin to come together for one last exact hit by the middle of next month. We, each of us, must face what it is that we need to change in our own individual lives, that we might live up to the potential that we have as human beings to make the best out of this individual incarnation, for ourselves and for the possibilities of service to the surrounding collective. This is a daunting mandate that can only be fulfilled by an increase in consciousness on the part of everyone. As Donne put it so succinctly four hundred years ago, referring to news of a death, "Do not seek to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The Sabian Symbols for this Full Moon are once again instructive. They are, for the Moon, in the fifteenth degree of Leo, "A street pageant with spectacular floats," which can refer to the glorification of self-expression in support of a cultural imperative. Marc Edmund Jones relates this to "a very human pride in common works and cooperative accomplishment... an irresistible heightening of self-significance." This symbol is thus in close alignment with a greatly highlighted presence of Jupiter in Leo, in the context of the strong Aquarius theme. For the Sun, in the same degree of Aquarius, we have: "Two lovebirds sitting on a fence," which connotes the happiness that is possible when humans come together in love, and also perhaps hints of a shadow in the complacency involved in seeing the world in purely blissful terms. Jones relates this symbol to self-affirmation, and states: "There is high magic in any inner psychological completeness, so that in consequence the whole world loves a lover... [a human] achieves his true destiny as he embraces his [or her] fellows in a reality he has made his own." Together, these symbols speak to the twin goals of self-fulfillment without self-aggrandizement, and the imperative of individual action to foster a healthy society that can take us forward into succeeding decades.