Exact at 11.42am BST, 1.42am EDT.

There is a certain amount of push and pull between sticking with what we know and venturing into uncharted territory with this Full Moon, as both Saturn and Uranus are quite prevalent. Uranus is the ruler of the Aquarius Full Moon and so this Moon is all about embracing change and releasing ourselves from comfortable yet unhealthy habits and situations. A lot of people have been going through change in recent times and this Moon represents a peak, where it all comes to a head so that it can be released. As I said, however, we also have Saturn playing a big part in this lunation and he is naturally more cautious and realistic than Uranus. Uranus urges us to step into the unknown in order to move forward and grow, while Saturn reminds us of our fears and limitations. Both have their place, but it is important to remember that we don’t get anywhere if we’re not willing to change.

The Moon is full in the innovative, humanitarian and eccentric sign of Aquarius and is sitting directly opposite the Sun in expressive, dynamic and creative Leo. It is Leo season, and the Sun is very comfortable in its own sign. During this Full Moon we are asked to find the balance between the energy of the two signs rather than swinging too far in either direction. Leo is very enthusiastic and wants us to shine brightly and fully express the truth of all that we are. In Leo we find our creative gifts and nurture our inner child. Indeed, there is something very playful about Leo, as we are encouraged to sing, dance, create and express all that we are! There is also, however, a tendency to think that the world revolves around them and in the extreme this can lead to narcissism. They are the star of the show and are not afraid to shine their lights brightly and proudly!

Aquarius, on the other hand, wants us to share our special and unique gifts with the world and to sing our song alongside one another rather than stealing the spotlight. In Aquarius everyone is equal and we all have our special part to play which contributes to the whole. Aquarius is sincerely authentic and isn’t afraid to be different or challenge the rules.  Indeed, he can be downright rebellious, unconventional and revolutionary! As I said, Uranus is the ruler of this Aquarius Moon and so this sign favours going against the grain of society and doing things his own way. Both Leo and Aquarius are quite wilful and want us to express our truth. This is where they definitely meet in the middle. Uranus is in Aries at the moment, so while Leo wants us to shine brightly and express who and what we are, Aquarius wants us to stand up and be counted and not be afraid of who and what we are. Shout it out from the rooftops! What unique and special role to we have to play in the world? What makes us stand out from the crowd? Now is not the time to be a wilting wallflower; it is time to allow ourselves to shine brightly and become the stars that we all are!

Uranus is the Great Awakener, the instigator of sudden change. He is the planet who shakes things up when they have become old, stale or stagnant, pushing us out of our comfort zones so that we can continue to grow and evolve. If we just played it safe and didn’t make any change for the whole of our lives then we wouldn’t grow at all! This Moon has the potential to bring a breath of fresh air into our lives and to blast through the cobwebs. We are being asked to step up and be counted for our special, unique natures, rather than just blindly following the rules dictated to us by our parents, schooling and society. It is time to do it our way! This could feel quite uncomfortable at first, as we are creatures of habit, but what a sense of liberation we will feel when we are able to quite simply be ourselves without all of the old habits we have been carrying around with us! We have a chance to break the chains of the past and create something new, forging the way for a life unlike anything we have known before! We can either do this consciously and willingly or else life will do it for us by creating situations which blast us out of our comfortable ruts and old ways of being, awakening us to our full potential.

Saturn, the planet of boundaries, responsibility, commitment and limitation, is very prevalent right now, however. He is currently standing still in the sky, getting ready to turn direct on the 1st of August, so his energy is very potent. Saturn has dipped back into Scorpio in recent times in order for us to clear up any unfinished business from Saturn’s stay in Scorpio from 2012 until 2015. We have been asked to confront ourselves again and recognise how we still hold ourselves back, and to face our deepest fears. We are more aware of these limitations and fears now, but they still linger. We now have an opportunity to face them once and for all so that they release the hold they have on us. During this Moon Saturn may shine the harsh light of reality on our relationships through a challenging square aspect to Venus. We may have to confront our fears of intimacy and recognise where we hold ourselves back from a deeper connection with our loved ones through our own fears and emotional conditioning. He is also challenging Jupiter in Leo, causing us to hold back somewhat and possibly have a crisis of faith. Jupiter in Leo is supremely confident, optimistic and open-hearted, while Saturn in Scorpio could cause us to hold back through fear. It is important to be brutally honest with ourselves about our shortcomings so that we have a chance of moving past these habits and patterns that hold us prisoner and prevent us from true happiness.

There could definitely be a push and a pull between our need for change and new life and our tendency to stick to what we know during this Full Moon. It is quite possible that it will be glaringly obvious where and how we hold ourselves back through fear and old, outworn habits. We are being asked to shine our lights brightly and step bravely into the truth of our being and it makes sense that as we do so we would have to confront our limitations and resistance to change. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel some fear, but the key is for us not to let it rule or define us. We must take a leaf out of Leo’s book and remember to find the light, fun and joy in whatever situation we might find ourselves in. Following what brings us a greatest joy is usually a good way to go! Our fears are always so much worse than any reality we might actually face, and this is very important to remember. It is time to sing our songs without holding back and to share all that we are with the world. As we step into new territory is natural that we might look back, but we must step past any jitters and stride confidently towards the new way of being that awaits us. A life in which love and faith guide us and fear melts away.

 “If we wish to dance with the angels, it is not necessary to sprout wings or sign on for harp lessons. We simply need to become ourselves – to express our uniqueness, realise our own potential, consciously create our own reality – and have fun doing so….” 

Gill Edwards

Much love

Amy
xoxo

Thursday 16 July, exact at 2.24am GMT, Wednesday 15 July, exact at 9.25pm EDT.

Well, there is a lot going on during this New Moon, with quite a few planets in the emotional sign of Cancer! New Moons represent the time in the month when we contemplate what we need to leave behind in the dark of the moon and what seeds we want to plant for the month ahead. It is a time of endings and beginnings, for you can’t have a beginning without first having an ending. New Moons are generally a quieter energy than Full Moons, but they are equally as potent. They symbolise potential for the month ahead. There are a few planets forming aspects to the Sun and Moon, some of which are easy and some which are challenging. Challenging aspects are very useful indeed, despite being quite uncomfortable, as they give us a real kick up the bum and force us in the right direction whether we like it or not! The softer aspects are less jarring but also involve us making a bit more of an effort to make the most of them. During this Moon we also have Pluto, the planet of the soul, forming an exact opposition to Mars and Mercury as well and Venus and Uranus slowing down and getting ready to turn retrograde. It’s a New Moon jam packed with intense planetary activity, that’s for sure!

The Sun and Moon are forming their monthly union in the emotional, nurturing and sensitive sign of Cancer. Mercury and Mars are also in Cancer at the moment, so it is definitely a time to honour and listen to our feelings and whatever they might be telling us. Cancer is the sign of the home and family and represents our sense of emotional security. In an ideal world, when we were children all of our feelings were acknowledged and encouraged by our parents and family, giving us a strong sense of inner emotional security. This is rarely the case, however, and our needs were often dismissed and “untidy” emotions suppressed by our families for one reason or another. This leads us to seek a sense of emotional security and validation from outside of ourselves rather than from within. It also causes us to establish some patterns of behaviour which made sense back then because they helped us to survive within our family dynamic, but which no longer serve us as adult because they now hinder our relationships rather than helping them. This is because protection is no longer needed as adults. These patterns no longer serve us. Quite the opposite in fact.

Whatever emotions, tendencies or feelings we learned to suppress as children are natural parts of ourselves and now is the time to let them out and to express them freely! We are being asked, during this Moon, to fully get in touch with our feelings, as uncomfortable or unsettled as they may make us feel. Emotions and feelings are an amazing internal guide which can give us very important clues about whether we are on the right path or not. It is important to honour them rather than squishing them down, because suppressing them causes blocks in our energy systems which can be very unhealthy indeed.  Cancer is a water sign and water is supposed to flow freely! It is quite likely that we will be feeling a lot during this period and while some of what we feel might not be rational, it all has important information for us. Often our irrational reactions and feelings have their roots in our childhood and the past and if we can just recognise where they have come from then we have a chance of releasing unhealthy patterns and coping mechanisms.

Uranus in Aries energy is very potent right now, as he is about to turn retrograde. He is forming a challenging aspect to the Sun and Moon in Cancer, which could give us a bit of a shake up on an emotional level. Uranus in Aries wants us to stand up and be counted, to be completely and utterly ourselves and not what society or our parents have conditioned us to be. Cancer wants to feel emotionally secure on a deep, internal level rather than being dependent on others for security. What might we get when we combine these two energies? Uranus aspecting the security conscious Moon could unsettle us somewhat and cause us to break out of any unhealthy patterns that no longer serve us. Uranus cannot abide stagnation or ruts of any description! He could cause our sense of emotional security to be threatened somewhat, but this will only serve to show us where we are stuck, blocked or trapped on an emotional level. Uranus forces us out of our comfort zones and asks us to step into the unknown and this can be very scary for that Cancerian part of ourselves which has a tendency to project our past experiences onto a future that hasn’t even happened yet!  “What if this time you have a chance to do it differently?” says Uranus. He will urge us to own and express our feelings, no matter how shocking they may be to ourselves and others. It will be hard to hide from the truth during this Moon, that’s for sure!

There is another configuration which will cause us to have a long, hard look at ourselves and blast away any unhealthy emotional habits and patterns, and that involves Pluto in Capricorn forming an opposition to an exact conjunction between Mercury and Mars in Cancer. This energy will build over the week and peak just after the New Moon is exact.  Pluto is the planet of the soul and will eliminate, detox and purify anything which might be holding us back from moving forward and growing on a soul level.  Mercury is the planet that represents the way we think, while Mars is the planet which acts out the desires of our soul. They are both sitting in Cancer, the sign of emotional security. Add Pluto to the mix and it is likely that we will have to be brutally honest with ourselves on an emotional level and could have a total transformation of the way we think about our feelings and sense of emotional security. Pluto in Capricorn represents societal power structures and external authority, so the powers that be could somehow be exerting considerable pressure on us, causing us to feel quite tense. Indeed, this aspect could make us feel very uncomfortable indeed, but will surely help us to grow and move past any limitations. We will have no choice but to actually face any issues head on, because it is unlikely that there will be anywhere to hide!

The good news is that Saturn and Chiron are helping the Moon out, allowing us to delve deep into our fears and actually heal whatever we find. Chiron will help us access out higher selves which will help us deal with whatever comes up during this time. Our higher selves understand the lessons we face and have a far broader perspective on anything that happens to us! I feel that with Saturn dipping back into Scorpio we are being given a chance to revisit any issues which we may have thought that we have put to bed in the past few years. Now we can really clear any residue muck or deep-seated fears that still linger in our psyches. Whereas before they had total control over us because they were completely unconscious and ingrained, now at least we are conscious of them so that we have a better chance of noticing when they crop up and releasing or transmuting the energy. It’s amazing what a bit of conscious awareness can do, as it greatly diminishes the power our issues have over us. We have an opportunity with this moon to really look at ourselves, with no rose-tinted spectacles in sight, and fully recognise how and why we hold ourselves back from being all that we are. It is time to break the chains that bind us, once and for all and embrace any change that might come our way. It may not be very comfortable, but what a gift!!

Much love

Amy

xoxo  

Photo:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/