The Full Moon in Aquarius will perfect tomorrow early in the day, at 7:45am PDT. Someone on social medias asked me why this Full Moon was so “epic.” My flippant but accurate answer was, “because it’s now.” Every Full Moon fills me with the same exuberance because astrology is meant to be lived, not merely observed, and there is something endlessly thrilling about inhabiting this infinite present moment we call the human experience, even when it includes pain. But the practical reason is like just real estate and location, it’s geometry, geometry, geometry.
The outer planets all move on vastly different rhythms. Pluto takes nearly 250 years to orbit the zodiac, Neptune about 165, Uranus 84, and even Jupiter’s comparatively quick 12-year cycle is part of this extraordinary pattern. Imagine how much time must pass for all of these planets to be relating to one another while sitting at 4° of their respective signs. It takes ages, yet here we are. Pluto’s deep transformative power is in risk-taking, innovative, technology-driven Aquarius. Uranus in Gemini accelerates ideas, breaks old constraints, and brings lightning-fast change. Neptune sits between them at 4° Aries, where beliefs and ideologies meet the sign of war. Jupiter has just crossed 4° Leo, inspiring confidence and faith in oneself. And while the Full Moon occurs at 6°, the exact Conjunction between the Sun and Jupiter adds an extra burst of turbocharged energy for expansion and abundance.
The next question I always get is, “So what does this mean?” To answer that, we first look to the world around us. I could spend ten minutes at a whiteboard explaining the geometry of change, or I could simply say: look outside. Astrology is reflecting the enormous revolutionary changes happening in the world, and those same changes are unfolding within each of us. If there’s a revolution out there, there’s one in here (gesture of patting my heart). And the personal themes will follow the same archetypal recipe described above.
The Age of Aquarius asks us all to step into service to the collective, but that can only begin with you and the person in the mirror. With the Sun in Leo, we know joy, creativity, and the natural impulse to center ourselves. But Leo’s energy must be tempered. Stray too far from the light and your life force begins to diminish; fly too close, and like Icarus, you burn. In Aquarius we know community, friendship, and Earth herself as a shared home for humanity. When these energies combine in the combustion of a Fire/Air Full Moon, we discover that joy is found through service. The good news is that you don’t have to become someone else. Simply be fully yourself, share your joy with others, and you’ve already begun to master this polarity.
The Sun and Jupiter are together on one side of the court with the other mixed doubles pairing of the Moon and Pluto in Aquarius. Sun and Jupiter Conjunct in Leo is like ego on crack, and the shadow edges of this fixed fire sign are lit up right now because it’s a Full Moon. When Pluto is directly involved in a Full Moon I pull out one of my favorite phrases: psychic surgery. What I mean when I say this is that the unconscious release that’s possible can go deep and help release very old patterns. The Moon just 2° away from Pluto takes the fixed air of Aquarius into the very neural pathways in the brain, and we come out of this lunar cycle.
The Nodes of the Moon changing signs between the New and Full Moon of the same lunar cycle is another unusual pairing I’ve never seen before. It marks a clear line in the sand between preparation and go time. North Node in Pisces was the preparation, and my message throughout has been, “Put your spiritual and energetic practice front and center, or you’ll suffer when things get dicey.”
That placement was still in effect at the New Moon two weeks ago. We set intentions to deepen our commitment to the Piscean path of compassion, forgiveness, and the recognition that we are one collective human consciousness. Now the nodes have changed signs. The North Node in Aquarius tells us it’s time to serve the collective, while the South Node in Leo asks us to release the ego, whether inflated or diminished, that keeps us stuck.
The exact Square between Mars and Venus brings all of this intense change into our personal experience, reflecting conflict that is both practical and emotional. In the days leading up to today, each of them have Sesqui-Squared Pluto generating frustration and agitation in both themes. The Square perfects today, but the two Sesqui-Squares to Pluto remain in place. This pattern is called a Thor’s Hammer. The blunt end, in this case our hearts and bodies, are being pounded into new shapes, and much of that arriving suddenly as is the nature of this very stressful pattern. Change can hurt, but trust that this is also the birth of new passion, purpose, and excitement.
Mercury has just emerged from a wildly disrupted retrograde in Cancer. He has yet to take us through the third act of his cycle where more is revealed from unconscious processes that were happening while this lunar cycle began. Our ability to perceive how to communicate about what’s transforming may take a few weeks to be fully understood. A loose Square from Mercury to Saturn as well as Mercury’s current standstill tells us we may struggle with our mind catching up with all the craziness from now till the end of the cycle in two weeks.
If ever I felt like the boy who cried wolf, it’s now. There’s not a single adjective in this post that is at all exaggerated. The level of chaos and change is reflecting that which each of us is going through at the same time. Some are rising up to new levels and others are being show the work at the bottom of the wheel, and everything in between. This energy is hard to navigate, but the personal opportunities are as epic as the changes in the outside world. The choices in these wild times are very simple.
It’s a Leo Full Moon, so everyone’s experience can be reflected through this archetype as it lives within you. Leo is the king. You can see what it is to inhabit the despot king; just turn on the news. The world is accelerating at an Aquarian pace whether you are ready or not. The question is not whether you will be changed, but how consciously you choose to participate in that change. Fire and air make for powerful combustion, so allow yourself to fall into the fire, remembering that you are the phoenix already rising. Have at it!
