The last quarter moon in Leo is all about respecting your energy and those whose energy fuels you. Mars enters Scorpio the day after the last quarter moon in Leo on the 28th. And, while it may be tempting to hide behind the signs (or behind a very curated social media feed), it couldn’t hurt to say what you mean directly — damn the consequences!
If you’re sensitive to shifts in the weather, you might still be feeling the work that last week’s full moon in Aries did on you. Bright and insistent, she rose up to remind you who you are and what helps you feel loved, secure, and seen. This knowledge did not come easily to you and still doesn’t feel that way. It has been a life’s work of shrugging off the world you were born into so that you might build a world for yourself. This week’s last quarter moon in Leo encourages you to celebrate all that you’ve created so far. With Saturn stationed direct and applying a sextile to Chiron in Aries, you might be feeling more and more like it’s time for you to apply what you’ve learned toward teaching others, to share your story so that it helps someone share theirs. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Taurus people are known for being direct. But just because you’re prone to directness doesn’t mean you always say what’s on your mind, especially if saying what you mean keeps getting you into trouble. No one wants to speak their truth only to wind up on the defensive. Perhaps rather than trying to keep everything copacetic by keeping yourself closed off, you might spend some of this Venus in Sagittarius transit focusing on what’s shared rather than individual points of contention. Baggage is baggage and once you fill up a suitcase with complaints, that’s what you have. But just because you have it doesn’t mean you gotta unpack it. You could rest it by the door and come inside instead, get warm, and share a meal.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Not all information arrives in its ultimate form. Some things, some truths, come to us like seeds that need time to sprout. Given this, it would be wise for you to hold off on any decisions and give whatever story you’re spinning time to settle and become more of itself. If you are a Gemini rising, the last quarter moon in Leo on the 28th falls in your third house. The moon rejoices in the third house, where the work of gathering can be applied to rituals. Observe the days that lead up to the last quarter moon, the way humans shift the hours to find balance between darkness and light. Try to remain open-hearted as you survey what’s grown out of balance, what needs to be cultivated, and what needs to be cut back.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It’s not always clear what safety is, but you know it when it feels lacking. Safety, even when abstract, is a feeling many of us yearn for and work hard to experience. Desire for safety and security drives many of our decisions in life, our financial plans for ourselves and our relationship goals too. Even those of us who choose to eschew the god of money and become scholars of living with less are not outside the equation. Opposition is still a relationship, after all, a kind of counterweight. Besides, so much of what we believe about safety and our ability to experience it is inherited — by us, but not from us. This week’s last quarter moon in Leo invites you to observe what safety means for you at this moment. How do the fundamental structures of your life (work, relationships, bank account…) reflect that meaning? Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
The concept of boundaries is a tricky one. Sometimes it can truly feel like someone just came along one day and said: Let there be a designation made between those of us with good boundaries and those of us with bad! The truth is, most people’s boundaries are vulnerable, and many of us were not raised to recognise when the hatches require battening down. Boundary work is a life’s work, and it looks different for everyone. It’s ok if you overstep sometimes, if you go beyond the limits you set out, if you trespass against your own better judgement. Human beings occasionally need negative impact like a child needs to learn that the stovetop is hot by touching it. There’s no reason to burn your fingertips this week, Leo, but you are invited to spend some time thinking about how often you loosen your boundaries and wind up getting burned. What it is you might be trying to teach yourself?Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
As Mercury, your ruling planet, moves insistently forward under the stars of Libra, you may find yourself going out of your way to experience and revel in beauty. It’s a natural thing, you know, to long for beauty and to strive to possess it. Look at the way that birds court each other. While travel is an option, it can be a difficult one during a global pandemic. There are, of course, other ways to stimulate your senses that mitigate larger risks. A lovely way to welcome this influence is by preparing a seasonal meal, especially if you can gather the ingredients from a nearby farm, especially if you can pick them or just feel the dirt still clinging to the roots. Reading a book for the beautiful language within it rather than, say, important facts. Moving your body slowly through the changing air and noticing its effect on your skin.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
It’s true that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans, but does life have to happen so urgently and all at once? If you’re wondering what the stars have to do with it, you might look to the shadow of Mercury’s retrograde through Libra, the recent square of Mars in Libra to Pluto in Capricorn, and this week’s inconjunct aspect of Mercury in Libra to Uranus in Taurus followed by another inconjunct aspect to Neptune on the 30th. Squares and inconjunct aspects are uncomfortable, they indicate moments when cooperation is imperative and even then, things are unlikely to work out as you intended. With Uranus and Neptune in the mix, making rash changes is just as unlikely to serve you as letting go is and allowing the goddess to take control. Given those odds, you’re better off doing what you do best: locating the middle ground.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Happy birthday Scorpio and many returns. Yes, the phoenix will rise again and the snake will shed its old skin, but the fact of a life devoted to self-transformation is not entirely the same as the experience of one. No matter how cleansing the fire feels, how validating it is to surface on the other side of a riptide, it never truly gets easier. If anything, you just get used to the weight of change, the tug of it. And, while there’s some lift to be found in leaning into the eagle part of you — the one that flies over the scene as if the scene is separate from you, rather than part of your story — there’s loneliness in it, too. As the month progresses, more and more of the planets will gather in Scorpio, like Mars this week. So, too, does your power collect like an ouroboros, begging the question if you should shed the dying skin and begin again or simply live backwards, growing sharp vines around your wounds. Choose.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Surely, there’s been some pleasure having Venus under your stars, but Venus’s influence alongside your Sun or in your first house is what you make of it. You have to call in what you want in order to get it, after all, Aphrodite didn’t just give out golden apples. That said, the presence of the asteroid Juno beside Venus can be a mixed blessing. For some, there’s a deepening connection or a new powerful spark with a trusted companion. But for others, there’s a mounting pressure to prove that you are worthy of being accompanied, or being seen as singular and special in the eyes of the other. Look to your friends when your own heart lacks reassurance; entreat the world that surrounds you to remind you who you are.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Power is often talked about as a known thing, who has it and who wants it. In reality, power is very alive and because it’s alive it transmutes. This reminder comes to you on the heels of Mars in Libra making a tense square to Pluto in Capricorn. It comes to you as the asteroid Eros under your stars makes a square to Mercury in Libra. The tension is in the rope, the push-pull between getting what you want and working to figure out an as-yet-unknown option that you will be satisfied with. There’s something deeply unsexy in the concept of compromise, like a slackened will. But, as you know, a concept, sexy or not, rarely stands up against experience. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is consort with someone else.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
Scorpio season is upon us, the spookiest season of all. Some people shudder at the thought of blood, bats, and things that go bump in the night, but Aquarians like to rise to the occasion. There’s something incredibly intimate about witnessing fear in those you love, patiently waiting to pull back the curtain and reveal the illusion. What better time than Scorpio season to sit with what really scares humans? Not the howling wind or creaking floor but the possibility that, having been truly witnessed, we might be found lacking in some fundamental way. What’s behind the curtain of a scare like that? Only the understanding that fear, like devotion, is a practice. Belief exists in the absence of proof — not in service to it.Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
The Sun’s entry under the stars of Scorpio ushers in a period of introspection for you, a great time to observe the work that Libra season has done on you and those around you. Transformative times have a way of energising you and Venus’s transit through Sagittarius might have you ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work, inviting others to meet you where you are or help you get to the next summit of this difficult climb called life. While working with others to imagine ways to move forward is powerful, it’s only as powerful as everyone involved. This week, you would do well to slow your roll and dedicate some time to figuring out your own capacity and what you can realistically, and emotionally, commit to. Illustration by Stefhany Lozano
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