Your August 2011 Horoscope
By Monica Smith
New Moon in Leo: it is the right time to touch base with our creative needs. The next 28 days can be used to process, metabolize and integrate in our life this new impulse. It is a phase in which we can feel the need to attract attention, to be at the center of attention, to feel reassured. In reality, we don’t need to create big dramas: the best way to get the attention we need is to shine in what we do—this will put us in the situation of being a natural leader in the house in which the lunation occurs in our chart.
The lunation is in trine with Uranus in Aries, underlining the urge to express our individual identity through creative and transformative acts. But these acts should not be only informed by ideology, abstract principles and dogmatic attitudes, other wise we will project an image of rigidity and intransigency that will provoke a subsequent defensive responses. So we need to be in touch with the human factor, as the axis Leo-Aquarius suggests we need to see through ideology in order to be in contact with our soul and heart.
The New Moon quincunxes both Neptune and Pluto and occupies the apex of a sharp triangle, called Yod, a very instable and dynamic configuration, requiring constant adjustment in order to be constructive. The quincunx, 150-degree aspect, stays between the square—symbol of a crisis, of growth, and the opposition, image of direct confrontation.
With this in mind we can look at Venus-Moon-Sun quincunx with Pluto as mirroring of our challenges in finding a way to relate with power, and with people in position of power with a different attitude in order to affirm our values. While the Venus-Moon-Sun quincunx with Neptune requires progressive adjustment to what concerns our vision of reality, our approach to attracting in our life what we love and value most. It requires adjustment and adaptation in the houses of our personal life in which we tend to daydream or romanticize, to escape the inner pressure of discontent, instead of using this same resource for finding new solutions.
The lunation squares Jupiter in Taurus, and because Jupiter is in trine with Pluto, the lunation is intensely charged with immense potentiality; overdoing can be risky, and can aggravate the situation. The good news is that this planetary configuration is also a symbol of an abundance of resources we can tap and utilize to support and manifest our creativity, joy and enthusiasm for what we are doing.
Mars in Gemini and Mercury in Virgo work on fine-tuning our ability to communicate what we feel we need. The energy of Mars in Gemini can be hectic and instable, but Mercury in Virgo suggests us to slow down, pay attention to small details, and analyze our thinking process, to understand better our reasoning patterns.
Mercury will retrograde—moving apparently backward—from the 3rd of August until the 26th, but will be back on point only on the 10th of September. In these weeks caution will be the best attitude to life, in order to avoid minor annoyances and disruption. Try to get the best from this situation of a relative loss of control, and be very aware of sidetracks, coincidences and casual encounters with people re-emerging from your past. From the 12th of September Mercury will trine Pluto and Jupiter, creating a grand trine in signs of earth, that will unlock material resources, transformative potential, mental and conceptual ability, to learn and to communicate.
Saturn in Libra with no aspects to any of the other planets, point out the importance of autonomy and independence of judgment. “The guardian of the threshold” as Saturn is often called, is in Libra, his sign of exaltation, and represents the balance we need when we look at others and ourselves with the intention of evaluating actions or choices. Libra is the sign connected to the arts and to aesthetics, to our taste for beauty: Venus rules Libra and Taurus making a difference between material values—for example the value we give to art—and moral values—for example the meaning we give to art.
The contemporary art scene is on fire; the vocabulary of art has never been so rich of expressive possibilities. The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo defines our age as “technocratic nihilism” and he mentions that this is evident in the world of contemporary art. Post-modernity distances itself from modernity in reference to one of the dominant ideals: especially that of progress, overcoming the critical and, in the arts, the avant-garde. But is it really so?
The global economy is able to turn everything it touches into a product empty of its essence. The titular work of art in Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction is really losing its value and appeal. (There is an interesting blog on this subject here.)
When we talk about value, what do we mean? Venus is the planet of love and by extension of value, the value we give to and what or whom we love and desire. This lunation—when Venus conjuncts the new Moon and quincunxes Pluto—provides us an opportunity to think about the art of power and the power of art. Is art still capable of conveying a transformative charge, or is it overpowered by bureaucracy, manipulated by money, and distorted by the need to please museum donors?
Venus also quincunxes Neptune and Chiron, the creative response required by this aspect concerns the abundance of imaginary values in our society and culture that is causing confusion. How can we establish the essential values for our lives, the society, our culture and us? There is a need to revaluate the imagination by accepting the pain of disillusionment that teaches us to see beyond.
Not so long ago, with the new moon in Aries of April and Uranus having just entered this fiery sign, the ignition for change was potent and travelled worldwide. The new Moon in Taurus gave substance to strife for change, the new Moon in Gemini disseminated this concretized idea of change, and last month new Moon in Cancer showed the critical issues of fear and insecurity that this growing need for change is creating, while we try to find new ways to bring the necessary order for our life, our economy, our public institutions.
July’s New Moon in Cancer was about the need to emerge form entrapments we had been living in, old structures of consciousness, personal and collective dogmas that perpetuate stagnation. This process has taught us that before casting aside our protective old habits, we need to learn to trust our inner compass, and have faith in the subtle currents flowing in the depth of our subconscious.
The guiding image of the New Moon in Leo is one of personal engagement with creative acts, inspired by a deep contact with the emotional realm. Leo can be manipulative and controlling, and supportive of the dogmas of society by using its dramatizing ability to divert attention from real problems and, most importantly, from the real aim of its own actions. But this is not the time of following dictators and gurus: we need to live in the freedom of our own choices and recognize the importance of becoming self-empowered and awakened, with wide-open eyes.
The New Moon in Leo is a time to discover our inner source of infinite “solar energy”: to learn to be independent and self-sustaining by the fruits derived from the expression of our creative potential.
Let the Sun shine in….
(From the musical Hair)
