The Moon will reach its full phase on Saturday, August 9 just after midnight Pacific time, at 17 Aquarius, with the Sun at 17 Leo. The traditional Native American name for this lunation is the Sturgeon Moon. We are in late summer in the Northern Hemisphere, a time historically when sturgeon fish in the Great Lakes were most easily caught.
Aquarius is our fixed air sign. Its glyph is a double wavy line. That’s air waves, not water waves, though there can be confusion here because the totem for Aquarius is a Water Bearer, a mythical being who pours fresh water from an urn. The zodiacal sign of Aquarius was named for the constellation that looked to ancient astrologers like the figure of a Water Bearer.
Aquarius is guided by Saturn, the planet associated with growth toward maturity–the kind of growth that comes from learning life’s hard lessons.
Someone with a natal Moon in Aquarius may come across as unconventional. They may also be essentially conservative (not in a political sense) and observant of others in a detached way. An Aquarius Moon person may seek emotional security in the life of the mind.
With the Full Moon in Aquarius, the Sun is in the opposite sign, Leo. Any Full Moon time highlights the contrasts between the two opposite signs in play. Aquarius is an analytical way of thinking. Leo brings creative passion to any endeavor.
For everyone under an Aquarius Full Moon, good advice is to take a breath of fresh air and a step back from Leo’s exuberant style. Leo is highly individualistic and yearns for personal recognition. Aquarius is cool and offers a bigger picture: What’s good for everyone, not just for me?
A Full Moon is notoriously a time of tension, softened, though, by other transiting aspects. That’s true for the August 9 lunation. Please pardon the astro-jargon here as I explain the transits underway at this Full Moon time.
The month of August features a rare transiting aspect called a kite, formed by encouraging, 60-degree sextiles from Pluto and Uranus to a conjunction between Saturn and Neptune, opposite Mars, while Mars is trine to Uranus and to Pluto which are trine to each other. Translation: A kite, as the name suggests, is uplifting, and this one is particularly uplifting as the energy is mostly in air signs. A kite in a natal chart or by transit is a symbol of creative flow and easy opportunities.
While this kite is in play, at the August 9 Full Moon multiple planets in the sky will, briefly, make another rare aspect called a Mystic Rectangle, formed by two oppositions (Sun versus Moon and Mars versus Saturn) along with two harmonious trines (Mercury trine Saturn and Mars trine Pluto) and two encouraging sextiles (Neptune sextile Pluto and Mercury sextile Mars).
The Mystic Rectangle is an aspect of stability and ease, containing planets in both cardinal/initiatory and fixed/unmovable signs. It’s as if the sky has a message to be divined: Take action (cardinal) and also do it carefully and within limits and stop when advisable (fixed). This kind of balancing act requires skill and forethought.
At the same time on August 9, Uranus—the planet of liberating breakthroughs now in the information-breathing sign of Gemini—will form a harmonious trine aspect with both Saturn and Neptune in Aries and also with Mercury in Leo. This comes just as Mercury is about to station on August 10 and move directly on August 11. The trine between these planets speaks to acting with creative passion and doing so cautiously.
It’s not the case that the planets determine how things will happen for us on Earth. The planets, in their continual dance, are more aptly thought of as Messengers between worlds, above and below. It is for us, if we’re so inclined, to attune to the symbols, to interpret the messages, and to collaborate with invitations, as the Sky speaks.
The star of the August 9 Full Moon is Saturn—now conjunct by degree with illusive Neptune. Saturn is the ruler of the Aquarius Full Moon, and, along with Neptune, Saturn is the planet involved in all the transiting aspects of August 9.
Saturn in astrology has a large set of meanings, many of them harsh. Until modern times, Saturn was known as the furthest planet from the Sun. Saturn is limits, the nth degree, where the “buck stops.” Saturn is about authority figures, old institutions, walls, and boundaries one is advised not to cross.
Saturn is the archetypal Teacher. It is how Life keeps asking us to “go back to school,” to learn an old lesson in a new way. Saturn’s messages are paradoxically merciful, too, because when we knuckle down and take responsibility for our own learning—that’s when tides shift and opportunities grow.
Blessings for the Aquarius Full Moon!
~ 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.
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