Note to Readers: In response to the reader’s comment about not understanding her Leo horoscope for July, am posting the Leo entry from the Midyear Horoscope Report to provide a clearer view of how the eclipse works for that sign. Today’s lead article in Planet Waves Astrology News could also be seen as a giant Leo horoscope. The eclipse takes place in the 12th solar house of Leo. -efc
As I have written before, my understanding of Leo has, over the years, evolved into an understanding that the primary virtue of your sign is about service. You are capable of working tirelessly, for your family, your employer, your friends and on rare occasions, for your own cause.
I know that service and humanitarian themes are often attributed to Cancer, Virgo, Aquarius and Pisces; and Leo gets to hold the space of being self-centered; I don’t buy it. Leo is positioned so that it draws incredible strength and its sense of identify from those four other signs. I would dare to say that you have taken the best attributes of all of them and combined them into a personality structure that is both stable and dedicated to a new kind of leadership: shaped more like a circle than a pyramid; offered to the world more by example than by words.
You’ve certainly endured a test of your mettle this year, and indeed for the past several years, as many planets have occupied your opposite sign Aquarius, your 7th solar house. That is the house of direct confrontations, be they about love or enmity; cooperation or chaos. You may have decided, in true Aquarian style, that you love humanity, but it’s people that you have a challenging time with. At least you’re willing to love them despite their flaws, and despite the many ways they challenge you. At least this allows you to feel strong, stable and like your life has meaning.
Yet it would appear at this moment that you have the feeling that something larger is about to come into reality. That ‘thing’ would be you; if ever astrology depicted someone on the brink of rebirth into a whole new incarnation of themselves, that would be you.
The catch is that birth is dangerous and for quite a while you have played it pretty safe; your tendency toward caution has become a dominant feature of your personality. All along you’ve been getting the message that in truth there is no point being too careful, and on the occasions where you have broken your own rules or exceeded your security zone, you’ve had good results.
One’s ultimate comfort zone is their sense of self. It’s also the ultimate discomfort zone, of course, since so many people are simply not at peace with who they are; I don’t think you qualify. Yet there is an odd restlessness in your charts now. There is some aspect of who you are that does not quite fit the life that you have. This may be manifesting in a physical or environmental way; more likely it’s a feeling on the psychic level, the sense that you are needing to burst into a new level of self-understanding and self-awareness.
This may feel like pushing into the future, into the unknown, and into strange, new personal territory. Indeed you may feel a profound need to let go of yourself, of the past and of the structures that have contained your identity. But something else is happening; this process is really about making contact with your roots. It’s about going deeper into who you are, at the same time you are stretching yourself into who you are not quite yet. In other words, you are making contact with your future self, and allowing the future to rush backwards into the present, meeting you right here, where you are. Even if you are stuck thinking time is linear, you can at least explore the potential that it goes in two directions.
What can you do with this idea? I suggest you spend an extended moment — a week or two or three — with the uncertainty involved in this eclipse. For you in particular, the surreal quality of this event will masquerade as the familiar dressed in the unfamiliar; as what you know deeply, dressed in the garb of the unknown. I suggest you not only give yourself consent to appreciate the uncertainty factor; but that you also indulge it fully, because that apparent uncertainty is packed with energy, with information and moreover with a sense of fulfillment and inner completion.
You know how good it feels to eat when you’re really hungry or to have sex when you’re really horny. Apply this as a metaphor to your entire life: imagine how good it will feel to make a major discovery about yourself in a moment when you are deeply yearning for the freedom of that self-knowledge. Hold the space open, and let the coming wave of energy rush in and fill it up.