leo new moon
new moon in Leo July 28, 2022 at 1:55 pm eastern time
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new moon in Leo July 28, 2022 at 1:55 pm eastern time 〰️
“All Leo’s posses a kingdom. The kingdom may be big or small, it may be your home or a lover or a piece of creative work or your whole career. But whatever it is, you are unquestioningly ruler of this kingdom.” Joanna Martine Woolfolk
(The house in your natal chart ruled by the sign of Leo, and the sign + house your Sun was passing through the moment you were born describe your kingdom.)
sun + moon stuff
The second new moon of summer glides through the sign of Leo, exact on Thursday July 28. The sky above in total starlit darkness as the familiar face of the moon moves in front of the sun. We often forget to look up and notice these spectacular events… the movement of light from our seat in the cosmos. In ancient times, when the night would have been truly dark (no blue screens, no headlights), the moments of the dark moon phase leading into the first sliver of light just as the moon moved into the next cycle would have been hard to ignore. The streets darker, the fires burning brighter.
Syncing up to the cycles of the moon is biological magnetism. The waters of life ebb and flow under the phases, both in our bodies and in the natural world around us. So the new moon, for over 20,000 years of human existence, was symbolic of the monthly return of light after the darkest nights.
In the new moon phase exists new ideas, new desires, and an emergence of unconscious needs. New moons are seeds, that with little tending, will grow into something. When we consciously work with this energy by noticing what arises in this phase of the cycle, we begin to see how these patterns shape us as we are pummeled softly within these phenomenal rhythms over our lifetime.
Light has been celebrated through all of human existence. In modern times, we celebrate in different ways. We trade the ritual of the rising sun and emerging silver crescent moon with technology and projected images. But no matter what way you look at it, natural or harnessed through technology, light carries information.
This new moon in Leo
“Imagination is the access we have to the spirit of things … I am looking at fire as the primary organ of perception. The images that arise in the center of your heart are the images which light up your path. By this light you move towards certain experiences, become who you are, and make meaning of your life.”
Darby Costello
The atmosphere is electric. buzzing. as the energy builds, something percolates for you in this moment… except you’re either in denial of it, or it goes against the idea of your life and how you fit into society in some way or another. still, there is a message riding on a frequency... all you need to do is dial in. If we can get quiet with this new moon, calm our hearts… put our feet on the earth… close our eyes… and breath… and listen… you will sense it.
The element of this new moon is fire, in the fixed sign of Leo. and along the fixed sign cross, the intensity of the potentially explosive nature of this moment seems urgent, pressurized. a cracking open, a revelation, an epiphany. Possibly some burnout, some fatigue, and even resistance. There is a want to control, but a need to slowww down. to harness it.
Fire consumes and transforms, and to work with fire is to know how to contain it. In his memoir, Greenlight, Matthew McConaughey writes about a moment in his life that he became aware that to be inspired, to align himself to the flow of his life, he had to be prepared to receive it at any given time. Following a vision he saw through a vivid dream… all the way to the banks of the amazon river, a carpet of vibrant butterflies brought him to a halt as he walked the muddy path. He stopped in awe, gazing at the jungle floor, & he heard a voice in his head say, “All I want is all I can see. All I can see is in front of me.” What is right in front of you? What is your life showing you in this moment? Are you paying attention?
“How are you being? Not doing, or going. Being.
How are you being you? Have you had to make adjustments? Are you keeping yourself together? Can you distinguish between what the world wants of you and what you want of yourself? The you that is the performer. The you that can come off-stage? Can you come off-stage? Are you OK with who you are when no-one is looking? Have you got any time to be who you are, or are you being somebody for others, all the time?
Do you recognize yourself?”
A revolutionary shift is possible, or maybe it is a very small step that will open your path. But no matter how dramatic it seems, or how seemingly insignificant: do what the dream says. The vision. The burning sensation that sets your heart on fire. The idea that sparkles, if even just a little bit. When you live your life from this place, you embark on a path of creativity. When you live what is right for you, in relationship with what is right in front of you, you begin to flow. The only way to harness the creativity of that inner spark is to stay centered, and begin to listen.
“You are an instrument, all you have to do is listen. Impeccable listening.”
Queen Afua
A little bit about the Sun & the heart
“The heart-coherent state is a measurable state that people naturally shift into when they are feeling kind, appreciative, and compassionate.”
Source for heart information paraphrased below: heartmath
The Sun / Leo are associated with the heart and the spine
Everything about the Sun and Leo is central. Heart centered. Spinal alignment. Generous. Intelligent. Warm. Nourishing. The vital forces of life when aligned with purpose. The sun is the central organizing force of the solar system and in our birth charts. Regenerative, Exuberant, Magnetic, Powerful. The Sun creates energy. Did you know the heart does too? Through the 40,000 neural pathways in the heart, an electromagnetic field emanates around the human body. The more we learn about the heart, and the spine which maps the pathway of the vagus nerve- the pathway for our body to communicate to our brain, the more we can understand our innate intelligence. We can even begin to reprogram the neural pathways of the heart through cultivating a loving connection to ourselves, our bodies, and our community. This allows for us to begin to expand our consciousness, becoming aware of our influence and the power we have in our choices of how we treat ourselves, and how we treat others.
“We’re finding that our personal magnetic field works with the Earth’s magnetic field, and when we tune ourselves correctly, we can receive the information it contains. There are typically hundreds of cell phones conversations happening and each phone is radiating a magnetic field in the space around you right now. If you get out your phone and make a call, the receiver of your phone creates a resonant link tuned to a particular resonance that you grab onto to connect to the cell tower. Our hearts work the same way, but it’s what we care about that tunes us to the information around us.”
Rollin McCraty
Radiant - resonant
We recognize the glow in people who are doing what they love, who are grateful for their life. Who are making choices that reflect a certain attitude about life. Aligned action. The way we feel when we are in harmony with our life can alter our biological constitution. The electromagnetic field emanating from an individuals heart when they are in a state of coherence holds a stronger energetic signature than that of a person who is out of alignment or stuck in a negative loop. The coherent heart has the ability to bring the other person into a more balanced state just by being near them.
When we are in physical contact with others, or within the 3 feet of their hearts magnetic field, our heart fields will sync up. When we care about someone, our hearts match the frequency of the people who we care for. Our electromagnetic field holds information that is carried through our hearts, through our nervous system, to inform us of how a person is doing. And in the same way, our hearts are also aligned to the electromagnetic field of the earth. Our bodies are literally designed to interpret social wellness, and the wellbeing of our planet.
As the Sun burns brightly at the center of our solar system. Generously burning up to 4 billion tons of it’s own star materials ever second, it is in a constant state of transformative firing. On Earth, as we rotate around the Sun, the earth is spinning into the rays of sunlight each day and tilting into the darkness once again each evening. A cosmic dance that brings the energy that the Sun emits into the plants we eat, absorbed by our bodies, illuminating the brilliance of life around us. In a wildly intelligent universe, could the way back into alignment be as simple as care?
Where the sun glows, life grows. Here’s a little secret about Leos that often gets overlooked… Leos really care… if you like them. They may not show it on the surface, as they beam a radiant light that warms the room and claims the spotlight. But every Leo, and every Leo placement in the chart, has that soft spot for needing to be received by their audience- whether that ‘kingdom’ be a stage or the dinner table. That sense of care could be the very thing we all sense in the Leo that makes them so magnetic. Beneath the glamour and gravitas, is a heartfelt intention. The closer Leo gets to understanding what they truly care about, the more generous they can become in sharing their warm glow with the world.
Ruling the heart in our body, our heart moves and distributes the blood flow of energy that must be in circulation in our bodies. Just as the Sun must consume and transform its own light to radiate life giving energy through the solar system. Both the transfer of sunlight, and the exchange of blood moving through our hearts, both contain nourishment. The plants which harness the light of the sun through photosynthesis literally transfer the energy of the sun directly through our bloodlines as nutrients. The ability to move energy, to transform and create, to center oneself on the things that generate connection to a limitless source of inspiration, is the stuff of Leo, the Sun, and the Heart. And to do so… one must have courage (the spine) to stand firm in what matters to them, and boldly shine.
the all nourishing abyss
We live in a universe that Einstein discovered is expanding in all directions in direct proportion to the amount of space that exists between each object. To paraphrase Dr. Brian Swimme, if you were to reach out your hands at this very moment, and cup the air in front of you, you would be holding billions of atoms, molecules, sub atomic particles, photons, and radiation. Between all of those, what remains in the invisible space between your hands is what is called the vacuum or pure space. We would expect this to be empty, void of life. But no, what has been discovered is that in the vacuum of pure space, elemental particles literally emerge into existence before us. They appear out of the vacuum, in all places of the universe. Even more peculiar, they erupt in pairs and then annihilate one another.
To begin to understand the science behind these quantum discoveries is beyond me, but he then goes on to drop another bomb of information that, I think in response, I may have actually gasped. The ground of the cosmos, as he calls the all nourishing abyss, exists to all reaches and permeates all things. In fact, only 4% of the known universe is made up of physical matter. The all nourishing abyss pervades. But to put it in perspective, Swimme casually explains,
“In reality, if you took all the whirling particles of your body and pressed them together as they touched, they would amount to something smaller than a grain of sand.”
Dr. Brian Swimme
Am I late to the party here?! (fashionably late, in the nature of Leo). I look down at my hands, my body, the material that keeps me here on the earth… all the space in my being feels suddenly alive, fractals of the cosmos… the all nourishing abyss within the body and around it. It goes to say… perspective is everything.
The correlation between the space in our bodies, in our universe, and the Sun is one of generative energy. In the all nourishing abyss of the pure space vacuum, we find that particles both appear and disappear, creating and consuming life endlessly. Just as the Sun consumes it’s own hydrogen starlight to emit solar rays that feed life on Earth. The ability to create from nothingness seems to permeate the universe, and amplify its metaphorical meaning through our very existence.
The cherry on top? The Sun is the center of our solar system, and then in extension becomes the organizing intelligence of our natal chart. From Einstein’s discoveries we also come to learn another juicy mind bender. That as the universe expands, each point of matter in the universe is actually mathematically the center of the universe.
So you, my friend, who have made it reading this far as the cosmos realizing itself, are indeed the center of the universe.
“If it is true what the sages say, that the entire world is condensed in your body, and the entire body is condensed in your heart, the heart is therefore the nucleus of the entire universe.”
Elena Brower
Dr. Brian Swimme wrote a book on all this aptly called The Secret Heart of the Cosmos. Spoiler alert! It’s you. You are central to this unfolding story. You have more intelligence than you realize, and all you have to do to tap into it is flow. your most natural state. reflected through the living world within you, and around you. available to you at any given time. as seen in the dance of the sun and moon, the masculine and feminine archetype, the god and goddess, the give and receive. to allow information to flow in, receptive- surrender to it, let it be changed by your awareness, transformed through you, and then in turn continue the cycle by letting it move through you. the cycle of a gift.
and to wrap a bow around it… as our universe expands in proportion to the amount of space that exists between matter… then the more space you have in your body, the more expansive your consciousness becomes. Take a deep breath. Each inhale, you receive the all nourishing abyss, expanding your consciousness. Each exhale, the air in your lungs carries out new information to the space around you, transformed by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide through the capillaries of your lungs, back to the atmosphere of the earth… giving the trees something to breath. (don’t get me started on how lungs look like tree canopies/root systems!)
I keep coming back to that pair of particles that emerge from nothingness. Still a little puzzled at the idea that within the vacuum, two particles appear out of thin air…. to then annihilate each other. A few days later, this poem was read at the beginning of a yoga class (linked below lead by Marc Laws II)… and I had to laugh.. it was kismet. Written by a 13th century Indian mystic and poet, he too pondered this same idea… through poetry. Timelines collapse. Ancient minds tapped into the same questions we ask today. It’s all there, in (and between) the palm of your hands.
The Nectar of Self Awareness
the Jnaneshevra, written by the thirteenth century Indian mystic, Swami Abhayananda
I honor the god and goddess,
the limitless primal parents of the universe
the lover, out of boundless love, becomes the beloved.
both are made of the same nectar, eat the same fruit.
out of supreme love, they swallow each other up; and again, separate for the joy of being two.
they sit together in the same place, wearing a garment of light.
from the beginning of time they have been together, reveling in their own supreme love
the difference they created to enjoy this world, at one glimpse of this intimacy, they could not help but merge back into the bliss found in their union
without the god there is no goddess
without the goddess there is no god
How sweet is their love.
the entire universe is too small to contain them,
yet they live happily in the tiniest particle.
new moon in leo flower essence: Dahlia
The dahlia teaches one that power exists in being able to move beyond limiting beliefs. With care and observation, it is likely that we can being to notice areas in our life that we have too quickly judged, identified and cast aside as unimportant. In those places we may find that the most brilliant possibilities await. Brilliance that multiplies, hybridizes, and adapts. There are 42 species of dahlias, and at least 20,000 unique varieties and counting.
A little history lesson…
Dahlia’s are native to Mexico. After the fall of the Aztecs (around 1521), if there were any records and artifacts containing the significance of the dahlia, they were lost or destroyed. Some sources claim the flowers were drawn on the armor of warriors, the fibers woven in their cloths. Some hypothesis they may have been used by priests in ceremonial events such as human sacrifices, tearing the hearts out of their people at the steps of the great pyramid. There is little to no record of the significance of the Dahlia to the Aztecs, and if there was, it was lost through the spanish conquest. These flowers grew wild through the Mexican landscapes, but were not cultivated or noticed beyond their native lands unit 200 years later. A Mexican botanist by the name of José Mociño (understudy to taxonomist Vincente Cervantes) sent the first dahlia seeds over seas to the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid where they had been mislabeled as a variety of coreopsis around 1789. That same year theology professor turned passionate botanical student, Antonio José Cavanilles, would return to his homeland of Spain. Escaping Paris under a disguise, he returned to Spain after fleeing the crisis of the French Revolution. At the Royal Botanical Garden, he would go on to discover the misidentification and correctly identify and publish the Dahlia (D. pinnata) in 1791 as the first recorded cultivar brought out of its homeland. Since then, the Dahlia has become one of the most popular flowers, universally adored by the most skilled gardeners and flower lovers alike. source
What we need in order to find these places within ourselves, this inner potential, is to cultivate the passion of the one who seeks to understand. To understand something, we must learn to stand under. (insight offered by Alex Artymiak in the Priestess yoga class also linked below) When we can become receptive of the intelligence that is offered, we allow the space right in front of us to open to new possibilities.
Ask yourself - is there anything in your life that feels as though it may have been cast aside as unimportant, mislabeled, & may simply need your attention? If you can cultivate impeccable listening, can you begin to hear the answer you need in this moment? Is it possible to listen without rushing or jumping to conclusions about what it is, what it is becoming?
DAHLIAS… open our minds and hearts to the possibility that we are more capable and expansive than we know. When we are too quick to label something, or we are using outdated or limiting beliefs to identify what passes through our life, we limit the potential of what could arise if we were to see the moment with fresh perspective…
a clear heart and open mind.
Dahlias resonate with the heart, their bulbs and hollow stalks like arteries, creating a magnificent display of life as they grow in a multitude of colors, shapes and sizes. Blooming from July to November, they mark the shift into Leo season.
How does your heart feel? When we tap into the potential that our heart carries its own energetic force field, can you begin to notice the moments in your life where your heart feels soft, radiant, and expanded? And equally, what moments do you feel disconnected from the pulse of life in your heart space?
In our post-modern era, technology has brought us out of our bodies and into our minds more than ever before. Isolation, fear, and the anxiety that ranges from doom-scrolling to the insistent informational overload of visual stimuli catapults our attention away from our own bodies, our own health and wellbeing. Dahlias offer heart medicine, a reminder that when we disconnect from our bodies, and lean too heavily into the mind, we are “mislabeling” the most vital connection available to us at any given moment.
Our bodies hold intelligence, fueled by energy transmitted from the Sun through our skin and the food we consume. When we find ourself consumed by a lack mentality, simply close your eyes for a moment and imagine the dahlia. drinking the suns rays, the dahlia blooms and mutates infinitely, and each expression of its form brings the awareness of what is possible when we allow ourselves to stop trying to be something, and simply become it.
The medicine that dahlia offers is a resource into curiosity, the divine creative spark of inspiration that drives our desire to be in relationship with the world around us. When we step into radiant joy through heart-centered living, we begin to cultivate a connection to life through embodied awareness. Through trusting the body intelligence, we create space within that brings forth the inspiration available in each moment.
May the Dahlia bring you into your heart, and may the flow of energy through your blood, carrying the energy of the sun, awaken the parts of you that have been blocked from the flow of life. May you come into a time of curiosity, to allow your life to unfold beyond what you thought was possible, and into a magnificent display. May you claim your nobility, your most radiant self, through the process of discovering life with a fresh perspective.
Ruminate with Dahlia medicine as the night sky under a new moon calms your senses. There may be something waiting in that mystery for you. A clue. A seed. An authentic truth, unique for your life path, that only you will have the eyes and understanding to recseeve at this stage. Where you are different than others can become your strength, as long as you learn to let it flow.
Wildness is inherent to all living things… it is the origin point of creativity. We can cultivate it by our own tending, our own curiosities, or it can be manipulated by society- pruning and plucking through cultural standard and even control tactics. Who is the gardener of your life? Is it you? Is this what you want, or were you told “this is just the way things are”. If you notice you are afraid to be yourself, gently allow your breath to soften you into this moment. We have all that we need to brightly shine if we can begin to trust ourselves and our own power.
You alone hold the authority to create your own story, to cultivate your own path. Be curious, bold, and bright. Listen deeply to the heart, the seat of your intuition, the nucleus of the universe. You will light the path ablaze with the potential you hold.
heart medicine.
Here is a collection of inspiration I’ve stumbled upon in the moments guiding us into this new moon. There’s a lot of light out there, y’all. The more we give, the more we are able to receive.
Detoxing your Body and Relationships for Longevity with Queen Afua
Mirrors in the Earth by Asia Suller
The Secret Heart of the Cosmos (Video)
Jeanette Winterson Substack 'Summer Solstice 2022'
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Yoga Glo Online Classes search for the ‘divine feminine’ series that explores the 7 main archetypes of the feminine through 7 different yoga instructors.
The HeartMind Institute interviewed by Goop
we’re all playing a part in this “magical mystical life in a world of chaos” as Queen afua says (leo sun).
To explore some of this moment through the lens of a person who holds some of these energies in their natal chart, I offer this diary entry from the late Frida Kahlo. She is a Leo Rising, with the Sun in Cancer (along with neptune, jupiter, and the north node) opposite Uranus, Mars and the South node in Capricorn, and the Moon in Taurus.
In the current skies, as Mars, Uranus, and the North Node meet in Taurus, squaring the Sun & Moon and Mercury in Leo at the moment… opposite Saturn in Aquarius… Venus in Cancer, Jupiter in Aries… something about Frida feels resonant to this energy, a synastry, or reflection or prismatic glimpse paralleled to her intense creative life force. From the Diary of Frida Kahlo…
“Auxochrome-Chromophore. Diego.
She who wears the color.
He who sees the color.
Since the year 1922.
Until always and forever. Now in
1944. After all the
hours lived through. The vector continue in their original direction.
Nothing stops them. With no more
knowledge that live emotion.
With no other wish that to go on until the meet. Slowly.
With great unease, but with the certainty that all is guided by
“golden section.” There is cellular arrangement. There is
movement. There is light. all centers are the same.
Folly doesn’t exist. We are the same as we were and as we will be.
Not counting on idiotic destiny.
My Diego:
Mirror of the night.
Your eyes green swords inside my flesh
waves between our hands.
all of you in a space full of sounds -
in the shade and in the light.
you were called AUXOCHROME- the one who captures color.
I CHROMOPHORE - the one who gives color.
You are all the combinations
of numbers. life.
My wish is to understand lines
form shades movement.
You fulfill and I receive.
Your word travels the entirety of space and reaches my cells
which are my stars then goes to yours which are my light.
Ghosts.
Auxochrome - Chromophore
It was the thirst of many years
restrained in our body. Chained
words which we could not
say except on the lips of dreams.
Everything was surrounded by the green miracle
of the landscape of your body.
Upon your form, the lashes of the flowers
responded to my touch, the murmur of streams.
There was all manner of fruits in the
juice of your lips, the blood of the pomegranate,
the horizon of the mamma and
the purified pineapple.
I pressed you against my breast and of your force penetrated all my blood through the tips of my fingers.
Smell of oak essence, memories of walnut, green breath of ash tree.
Horizon and landscapes = I traced them with a kiss.
Oblivion of words will form
the exact language for
understanding the glances of your closed eyes.
= You are here, intangible
and you are all the universe which
I shape into the space of my room.
Your absence springs
trembling in the ticking of the
clock, in the pulse of light;
you breathe through the mirror. From
you to my hands, I caress your entire body,
and I am with you for a minute
and I am with
myself for a moment.
And my blood is the miracle which
runs in the vessels of the air
from my heart to yours.
WOMAN. xxxxxxxxxxxx
MAN. xxxxxxxxxxxx
The green miracle of the landscape of my body
becomes in you the whole of nature. I fly.
through it to caress the rounded
hills with my fingertips,
my hands sink into the
shadowy valleys in an urge to
possess and I’m enveloped in the embrace
of gentle branches, green
and cool.
I penetrate the sex of
the whole earth, her heat
chars me and my entire body
is rubbed by the freshness of the tender leaves.
Their dew is the sweat of an ever-new lover.
It’s not love, or tenderness, or affection, it’s life itself, my life,
that i found when I saw it in your hands,
in your mouth and in your breasts.
I have the taste of almonds from your lips
in my mouth. Our worlds have never
gone outside. Only one mountain can
know the core of another mountain.
Your presence floats for a moment or two
as if wrapping my whole being
in an anxious wait for the morning.
I notice that I’m with you. At that instant
still full of sensations,
my hands are sunk in oranges, any my body
feels surround by your arms.”
from the Diary of Frida Kahlo
plate 24
It’s all within you.
Xx, Alexandria
all images and original text © alexandria willis fleming 2022
