February 5, 2023
10:28 AM PST / 1:28 PM EST / 6:28 PM GMT
16 Leo 41 / 16 Aquarius 41

The Leo Full Moon underscores the balancing act of expressing ourselves while existing within a group. How do we pull off being ourselves and keep a place in a community? The light is making us acutely aware of both the balancing act and how we feel about it, ourselves, and the people around us. And no one’s going to be inclined to sit quietly with what we learn.

Emotions and dramas run high at any full moon. They tend to go over the top when Leo’s involved. Leo is warm and fiery and fixed, which makes whatever it experiences and expresses stay put and grow. Confident, proud, self-oriented, it’s comfortable with attention and has a way of drawing more if it thinks it’s not getting enough.

Even if you’re normally mild-mannered and unassuming, you’re susceptible to the emboldening properties of this Full Moon. It’s reminding you that it’s only natural to want to be seen. It’s only natural to want to feel like you matter. And as much as people will tell you that your internal experience is what really counts, it’s only natural to want and thrive on feedback from other people.

click chart to enlarge

This Full Moon reminds us of all of that. It has extra incentive to not merely look for attention, but to ask for it. The drive to be noticed, to be validated, to matter is available to all of us now, thanks to a sextile to the Moon from action hero Mars. The link encourages speaking up (“Hey! Over here! Look at me!”) and acting more boldly and expressively. (It’s a collective “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” moment, only we’re as likely to pry ourselves out as we are to welcome rescue by a hunk.) The mutability of Mars in Gemini puts a little flexibility into that Leonine fixity, inspiring some of us to transform our stage into a theater in the round and play to the audience in multiple directions.

Until, suddenly, we don’t. Someone’s sleeping while you’re performing your heart out? Someone’s talking? Or walking out? Watch your attention snap to people who are awake and watching. To people who are smiling. Or clapping. Or coming on stage to be with you.

Some of your realizations may be out of the blue, but the stage and audience are likely not. Situations are building – and emotions too – that have been rumbling for months. This is the fifth of seven consecutive 16-degree full moons, starting with the Taurus lunar eclipse of November 2022. The kick-off for this sequence was conjunct quick-change artist Uranus, and his disruptive to awakening ways pervade every full moon through April.

At this juncture in the sequence, disruption and awakening are impossible to ignore (just like our inner children are). We are at breaking points, with the Sun and the Moon equally bearing down on Uranus in the pressure of a T-square. The configuration is fraught with emotional trip wires. Once one’s triggered, that’s that. No more making excuses. No more tolerating. No more wheedling for attention or dancing or trying harder. No. More.

You might experience an owie or two. You might deliver an owie or two. But pain is not a given. Many people will feel considerably lighter, freer, and better as this Full Moon fades, and you could well be one of them. The last couple of years have been sending friends and allies down diverging paths; we are simply at another stage in individuation and realignment. You have no doubt already noticed a sweetness and rightness in the connections that remain. More of the same is blossoming now.

This month’s Full Moon madness boils down to one issue, really: love. That’s the background to the action, love in its myriad forms: kindness, compassion, romance, universal connectedness. The centerpiece is Venus, ruler of our values, goddess of love and money, and the social director of the sky, in her happy place of Pisces, where she is in love with love. She’s pushing her cosmic partner Mars in a square; she wants action, specifically in the form of communication. We may speak poetically to the people who cheer or share our spotlight. We may indulge in wordy farewells. We may script our own little romance sagas. Mercury’s sextile to Neptune encourages thoughts and words in this vein as well.

No matter what we see or realize; no matter who leaves, or who we eject; no matter which circles embrace us for who we are, the bottom line is love. And the ultimate recipient, the ultimate source, is the self.

Re-blogged on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Kathy Biehl.