The Moon will begin its new phase with the Sun, at 23 degrees of Leo, on August 16 at 2:38 a.m. on the West Coast. This lunation highlights individual, creative self-expression and the desire to be seen and honored for one’s unique personality.
Leo is the fixed fire sign, and of all the signs, it is the one said to be “ruled” by the Sun. When the Sun and Moon are in the Sun’s home sign of Leo, it is the height of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Leo’s qualities include courage, pride, majesty, joy, and a flair for the fun and the artful.
There are several notable aspects in the sky at this New Moon time.
One is that the Sun/Moon pair will be making a 90-degree square with Uranus in the fixed earth sign of Taurus. This square adds a tense pressure on the Leonine drive to be seen and honored. Though both Leo and Taurus are fixed, stable signs, with Uranus, anything can happen. It might be personal, or there might be some kind of breakthrough event in the Taurean realms of values or money.
At the same time, the Sun and Moon are conjoined by Venus, now making its longer-than-usual sojourn through the sign of Leo. Venus is in one of its periods of retrograde motion that occur about every 18 months. Venus in Leo until November is a time for reflection on and readjustment of all types of relationship matters. This includes one’s relationships to finances and personal possessions as money is a Venusian domain.
Venus is also currently square to beneficent and expansive Jupiter, residing in Taurus all this year. The squares between Uranus and Jupiter in Taurus, and Venus, the Sun, and Moon all in Leo, make this a time to focus on resources, financial or otherwise. You might be thinking about how to stabilize and increase your income.
At this time, too, there’s an impetus toward healing, as the asteroid Chiron, in forceful Aries, is in a harmonious trine with Venus, the Moon and Sun. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that healing, love, and money go together in all kinds of complex ways.
A New Moon is optimal for seeding intentions in the mind and heart, and then waiting for a day or two, until the first sliver of Moon light is seen in the sky, to take action on an intention.
With so much energy in the sign of Leo, it’s a great time to make some visible—or audible—thing of beauty. I recently bought two skeins of locally hand-dyed wool/silk yarn, perfect for knitting a luxurious shawl. I think I’ll wind these skeins into workable balls just before the New Moon, and then I’ll cast the yarn onto the needles at the time of crescent light. This way, I’ll honor the Leo lunation, imbuing what I’m making with Venus’ love of beauty and Leo’s desire to be seen.
There’s a less showy aspect in play, as well, at this New Moon time. Mercury and Mars are together now in the sign of Virgo, Mercury’s home earth sign.
This is a time to get grounded and organized with a Virgoan attention to details. Mars in Virgo might feel edgy, even nervous, as Mars is go-go-go, and Virgo is methodical and restrained. Mars, though, is action-oriented, and Virgo is studious and conscientious. There is no better time to get organized in Mercury’s domains of learning, thinking, speaking, writing. Mars and Mercury are also making a wide, harmonious trine to Pluto, now in its final degrees of earth sign Capricorn. There’s power now to act in ways that are practical, skillful, and of service.
Pluto, by transit, is also square to the Moon’s nodes, those invisible orbital points symbolic of personal and collective destinies. The lunar nodes recently shifted to Libra (Us) and Aries (Me) for about the next 18 months. Pluto square to the lunar nodes in Libra/Aries punctuates the focus on relationships under the current transit of Venus in Leo.
Leo is a style of creative performance, like a roaring rock star on a stage—fulfilled by the applause of an audience. Creativity may be conceived in solitude, but it’s never truly a solo act. It’s inspired by and offered for the enjoyment of others.
Blessings for the Leo New Moon—and an encouragement to start something fun and creative!
~ Sara
Sara R. Diamond, an astrologer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a life-long student and practitioner in several esoteric paths. Her style of astrology combines modern-psychological astrology with insights from traditional astrology. Sara is also an estate planning attorney. In addition, she has published four books on right-wing movements in the United States and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. You are invited to contact Sara via her website at www.SaraDiamondAstrology.com.
I love Sara Diamond’s writing. But I wish Daykeeper Journal hadn’t used AI “art” to illustrate the Leo new moon article. AI software is trained on real artists’ work – in other words, the AI companies steal art from the internet without permission and without compensation. I’ve had this happen to me, and pretty much all working artists whose work is online have. So please don’t promote fake AI “art”, when there are so many other images to use. Thank you!
Thank you, Michelle, for your important comment. AI art is a complex issue, and I do feel the pain of seeing artistic theft without compensation. I know that copying or stealing–plagiarizing–is a problem, and can be a result of poorly conceived “training” practices and digital rights laws that were violated during the AI training process. But I don’t think it’s a simple problem to unravel. For example, human artists are trained on other human artists’ work too, and learn to incorporate viewpoints and techniques into their artistic productions in various, often recognizable, ways. Digital art in general is a very plastic medium, with and without AI-generated imagery. And in fact, the imagery you see in websites like ours frequently has been even further altered, combined, and manipulated, regardless of its origin (yes, legally). The value of NFTs for instance, lies in the fact that they carry their own implicit digital copyright (if one agrees they have value to begin with). For these and other reasons, I believe that simply boycotting all AI art is not a viable solution, though I surely understand the emotional reaction that would lead one to do so.