Your Sun Worship
Hello,
Come out of your safe Cancerian shells my Leo loves and find your place in the Sun, under your Sun. Your big, bright, beautiful Sun.
We disappeared a little in Cancer season. Retreating, softening, resetting. Taking great care to find ourselves in those deep emotional waters. Wave after wave of meeting needs, tending to your own and possibly sensitive to everyone else’s too.
Two days into the hottest time of the zodiacal year and it feels wonderful to be back in the light, emotionally fed and watered, ready to bask in our own light. Praise be-ing ourselves for simply being ourselves. No pretence or artifice. Just us as we are, naked and real, showing our skin. Confidently taking up space, supremely comfortable with our evolving shapes. Whatever age or phase we’re in.
Even if that isn’t true for you (yet), this Leo season is really about loving yourself regardless. Handing inhibiting fears to the flame and taking back whatever’s holding you back: feeling overage, underage, too much, not enough. Your brand of lack and limitation. Then taking a giant leap of courage forward and letting it go ~ the thinking that got you there and the mindset that keeps you there.
Loving yourself without inhibition is your life quest.
Dare to Reveal Yourself
Our Leo friends must especially learn to dance in their own light. But we all benefit from our time under Leo’s Sun. Leo’s vital force comes from its sweet heart and given a masterclass by the best, we’re schooled in self-love. Expanded by exhibitions of zero inhibition we’re shown how to show up, leave shyness behind and jump into the fire, proudly sharing our talents with whoever will look.
If that feels too much, you know you can always borrow from Leo? Watch your favourite Leo’s in action and mimic their moves, chanelling their vibrancy for your own luxe performance. As long as you don’t steal their crown or their show, Leo will love the flattery and should happily ~ and generously ~ share with you.
Astrological signs are here to be experienced, they are not exclusive.
I gave one of my best performances during a job interview. Part of my jumping through hoops to become a Senior Editor was to do a role play where I was managing an author who wasn’t delivering according to his contract. Using my acting skills I channelled my best inner boss (super embarrassing but actually a memory of Sigourney Weaver from the 80s filmWorking Girl) and got what I wanted ~ promised ‘imaginary’ pages from the author and the job. All I did was invoke Leo, pretend and play act. The interview panel didn’t know I’d been to drama school, but who cares where your confidence comes from?
Acknowledge Leo and it won’t let you down. It’s already in your natal chart. Maybe you don’t have a planet in Leo but you do have a house or some part of you ~ an essential slice of your life ~ that’s begging for your recognition and deserving of your attention. Just as you are deserving of eyes on you.
Solar Power
Every zodiac sign has a planetary ruler. Imagine being ruled by the Sun ~ like Leo ~ and having solar power capacity 24/7. It takes a lot of ego strength and stamina to hold that energy, not to mention confidence.
But say your Leo Sun is located in a quiet part of your chart. Your big, bright Sun might struggle to show its face, feeling overshadowed by others and needing lots of reassurance before being able to illuminate itself.
Whether you have a Leo Sun or not ~ or a Sun placed at the top or bottom of your chart ~ your Sun burns for you. Generously. Only asking that you recognise your brilliance and promise to try and meet your flaming potential.
We are never done with developing our Sun.
While it’s mostly the Sun’s gravity that holds the solar system together, the Sun in our chart is the gravitational glue that holds us together. All of the planets play a fundamental role in shaping us but it’s the Sun that gives us life. It’s the most godlike part of you.
On the fashionably therapeutic podcast Fashion Neurosis, I recently listened to Bella Freud interviewing the singer Lorde, who spoke about struggling to feel comfortable in her body, choosing to pick someone else to be God for her over being ‘fully embodied, fully wild, fully in connection’ with herself, because then ‘you can be the little one in the whole thing but really you’re the big one’. Her work with psilocybin therapy has helped her gravitate towards those godlike parts of herself so much more. Bella acknowledged that ‘one can enjoy having a sort of person that you occasionally delegate as God, but sometimes that’s you and that’s kind of exciting.’
It is very exciting to be you, the ‘big one’ burning and shining, rather than diminishing yourself and projecting parts of you away. It takes courage to maintain our sense of self and truly embody who we are. But it’s also very simple. You know those times when you feel lit up, warm and alive? Like anything’s possible and you’re doing exactly what you are here to do? That’s you, standing in your Sun, allowing it to illuminate you.
You are inhabiting yourself, radiating potential out from under your skin.
Reframe Your Thinking
Right now we have a golden opportunity to reconfigure our thought patterns and refine our self-expression. From 18 July to 11 August, Mercury, the planet which governs our thinking and the way we receive and perceive information, is retrograde in Leo, from 15° to 4° of this fiery, fixed energy.
I think you’ll have noticed that it’s not a quiet time out there. Outward displays of communication are getting showy, spirited, passionate and dramatic ~ we’d expect nothing less while Mercury is in Leo ~ but there’s room for us to get creative too and work ourselves up over some of our own ideas. We don’t have to be loud but we can be bold and start thinking about the things we want to say or create.
Mercury retrogrades should never stop you from expressing yourself, or make you so self-conscious that you delay putting out what you love or doing what you want to. It’s a validating time and you can be incredibly creative when you get into your zone.
Honestly, a Mercury retrograde has only tripped me up when I haven’t had a conversation that I needed to. Or I didn’t check details as thoroughly as I could have. Our minds don’t think as clearly during this time*, so give yourself ~ and everyone else ~ some grace and check and double-check where your mind is at when you can.
So what thinking could you reframe?
What’s getting between you and what you want to say?
How are you diminishing yourself and playing small, trying to fit into a space you’ve outgrown? What doesn’t feel fun anymore? What could be a better channel for your self-expression?
If fear wasn’t a factor, how would you express yourself? What would you say? And to whom would you say it to? How good would it feel to get your thoughts off your chest?
Now is the time to play around with these thoughts and experiment. Always close to the Sun, Mercury is our urge to describe ourselves. Leo’s urge is to reveal itself. You might want to stick to the drawing table and keep your content close but if it feels good to go ahead and have that heartfelt conversation or put your material up for viewing, go for it. Don’t worry if your speech isn’t as finely tuned as you’d like, or your idea isn’t quite there yet, this is the time to be brave, test your audience, get feedback and revisit your concept if you need to.
* Unless of course you were born under a Mercury retrograde ~ you’ll take to this time like a natural.
Your Leo New Moon
A New Moon of divine possibility. A Moon of such intensity you will see things in yourself you hadn’t properly acknowledged before. Hugely cathartic internal light sources encouraging you to dive deep and witness the magnitude of your creative potential, emerging with fresh understanding and faith in new ways to be. Nothing dramatic or unusual about this New Moon…
Well, it’s a Leo New Moon so of course the mood is heightened and we’re taking things up a notch, but honestly this potent New Moon has everything going for powerful, wholehearted healing.
The Leo Sun and Moon facing each other so fiercely and passionately tell a life-giving love story so true it will break your heart that you don’t always feel their existence within you. They always have your back. Whatever we express, create or self-generate, they’re beside us, praising and cheering us on. Inspiring us to be more ~ and show more ~ of ourselves.
Pluto’s presence opposite in Aquarius asks us to get really serious about our intentions. What kind of effect do we want to have on the world? How will we present ourselves and our creativity to humanity? To what extent are we prepared to share? How comfortable are we to put our offerings out there? Do we need feedback? Will we survive if the response is less than stellar?
If you’re going to stand up or stand out in some way ~ in any way ~ you really want to make sure you’ve got a handle on this stuff, or at least understand what you need to put in place to support yourself.
This Leo New Moon encourages you to purge anything creatively unprocessed.
You will have the opportunity to deal with your fears. Face them, full on. And don’t be afraid to share how you feel with people you love, and love you back enormously. Very few people reveal themselves without wanting some kind of response in return. If anyone offers themselves to you, do them a world of good by acknowledging their experience in any supportive way you can. Being a witness, friend, mentor or guide will be just as healing for you as it is for them.
This Leo New Moon has all the planets in play, actively supporting your soul searching. Be thankful for the cosmic feedback you will surely receive.
Under all the gunk, you’ll find there’s solid gold. Truths you can bravely act on that will pave the way for your next brilliant iteration of self.
Love,
Kristin xxx
The Leo New Moon is exact at 5.11am AEST on 25 July, and at 12.11pm Pacific Time and 8.11pm GMT on 24 July. New Moon energy is felt for three days so don’t worry if you’re slow to read this. The New Moon potential will still be with you.