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The Living Light of Love
Love Can’t Wait
“That’s one small step for man;
one giant leap for mankind.”
Take a stand and end the war.
Which war you say?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt,
Libya, Syria, Iran?
It’s not the one you see out there:
It’s the one you can’t see in your own heart.
How do I do that? You ask.
Love this breath, your heart,
Find your true being.
Send love to yourself, to your neighbor &
when finally strengthened, you can, to the
very one who you believe irks you.
For the way to peace starts here: it’s within.
This is “One giant leap”
human kind-ness.
– Muskie Fields
With strife and discord predominating in the headlines, and uncertainty prevailing in our lives, the dignified Leo archetype is a welcome call to return to center, to love. The Sun entered fixed Fire sign Leo on July 22, where Venus resides as well for a few more days. Ruled by the radiant Sun, whose warmth and light gives life to all life, Leo in turn rules the heart, that which connects us through resonance to the web of all creation.
Everyone is warmed by the joyful glow of the spirited Leo emanation, however big or small the stage. But especially in our time, off-centered Leo energy creeps in as excessive pride, self-centeredness, and hogging of the spotlight, which we see aplenty in today’s political and social media circus. So it’s important we do our own work to make sure we are not taking cues from the wrong vibrations, of ego and self-service.
It’s been a truly unique summer this year, what with the political shockers here in the US and across the globe, the continued waging of horrific wars (more threatened in the Middle East as I write), and record-breaking heat across the globe, not to mention continued raging wildfires in the west. It’s certainly a changed game from the ‘carefree summer days’ of yore.! At this point, it can take effort not to feel the effects of both politics and global warming on our lifestyles, and sometimes our moods. Housebound for all or part of these steamy summer days, doors and windows shut, I can lose touch with the natural world, barely hearing the wind’s shimmer through the leaves, or the birds, save the blessed soft cooing of the mourning doves. I can’t but delight in the magic, though, of my prize volunteer sunflower, especially as flowers (the earth’s creative gold medalist), and particularly, sunflowers, are a Leo symbol!
Meanwhile, the car radio has been insistently blasting those golden oldies of youth, reminding us of that summer groove. There’s a strange disconnect here, but this is our task: to connect who we were with who we are becoming and want to become, to love this union of our past and future parts in the now, to metabolize our real (and feared) losses, and to retain our capacity for Leonine courage. This toggle from past reflections to the celebratory fires of the present is in resonance with our two bright ‘luminaries,’ the Moon and the Sun.
These two rule the summer month signs of Cancer and Leo—Moon-ruled Cancer, being an introspective, feminine (yin) energy concerned with family, security, and the past; and now the dramatic Lion king Leo, with it outward-thrusting, male (yang) creative force, shining its “I Am” light. (Right on cue, the shining lights of the women gymnasts at the Paris Olympics have been in full luminosity, with limelight Leo being a significator of sports!)
In the Celtic calendar, August 1 marks the cross-quarter point, midway between the summer solstice and the fall equinox. Called Lammas in Scotland, or Lughnasadh in Ireland, this moment in time signifies the harvest of the grain, and has been traditionally celebrated by baking bread from the season’s first wheat. These days bread, and the grain it comes from, are something most of us pick up at the store, but grain was sacred, and of central importance to survival in ancient cultures, thereby associated with the cycle of death and rebirth.
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The wheel of death and rebirth
One of the myths associated with this was of Demeter, Greek goddess of the harvest, who was thrown into deep grief when her daughter Persephone was abducted by Hades into the Underworld. With Zeus’ help, Demeter procured her daughter’s release, but only for half of every year—for the other half, Persephone had to descend back down below the earth to be with her husband. So the advent of the harvest, and the beginning of fall in the Celtic calendar, is both a time of gratitude and celebration of the blessings of the land, and an indicator of the ‘death’ phase at hand along the wheel of life. (Demeter sadly walks the land, the dying grasses in her hand were the lyrics of an old rounds song I used to sing.) Fittingly, August—whose name connotes the regal majesty of Leo—is the month when we feel the first whispers of fall, whether in a sudden cool wind, or a certain slant of light, perhaps invoking a cherishing of these last weeks under the Sun’s golden light domain. As always, the astrology of the time reflects what’s playing out on the human stage, with the ‘stunned’ effect we may all be feeling these days emanating from the recent Capricorn Full Blue Moon, which featured master disruptor Pluto conjunct the Moon (thereby opposite the Sun) and loosely trining Uranus. No matter that Pluto’s been demoted to a dwarf planet, it hasn’t changed his superpowers. Stimulating both Sun and Moon, as well as ‘sudden surprises’ Uranus, Pluto has been busy disrupting our expectations for ‘life as usual’ with the upheavals we’ve been seeing politically, and perhaps in our own lives as well. As a heavy hitter ‘transpersonal’ planet concerned with wounds and healing, power and powerlessness, Pluto opposing the Sun can dredge up difficult, reactive ego wounds (Leo representing the shining Sun of our self) as it disturbs. Uranus upheavals can leave us with gaping mouths, but because of its detached energy, we aren’t necessarily dragged through the muck. But between the two, this recent Full Moon could have ushered in some trouble! I hope you’ve stayed with it, as that’s what Pluto’s transformative impulse asks, that we be present through the turbulence in order to effectively transmute what needs to die. It’s important to note that Pluto has been at 0° Aquarius for most of this year, and has thus been further wetting our feet with the ‘shock of the new’ of the Aquarian flavor. Some of us may be feeling the new entering our lives in various ways – perhaps we are starting to shed persistent and worn out habits or circumstances that enabled us to ‘hold on’ to old structures and identities. Not all bad, but unsettling, for sure. Who are we now?, we might be wondering. Where are we headed? We cannot know; but the invitation from Pluto is to just keep letting go. Through this, it’s vitally important to remember to invoke Aquarius’ polarity partner: person-centered, heart-fired Leo. |
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In its fullest sense, the Mother archetype signifies both the intuitive, wise, and compassionate Divine Feminine, as well as the Dark Mother— that which is destructive, devouring, or smothering. This unruly, more primitive part of nature can at times pull us back into unconsciousness. We might experience this when overtaken by instinctual urges to find someone who makes us feel consistently cared for, in just the way we want. Or conversely, when we are in a caretaker role of some sort, we may be triggered when our ministrations and offerings are not received as we would like.
Even if we find our belonging in a beloved ‘other’ or community for a period of time, in the end, those of us with an emphasis on Cancer or the Moon in our charts are here to learn to give to ourselves that which we imagine others could or should give us. This is ‘up’ this year for those with a Cancer signature in their charts, as both the North Node and Chiron are in Aries for the rest of this year, forming a square to Cancer (suggesting inner tension and stimulation). Those affected will be challenged to claim their will, their assertiveness, and their capacity to take action for themselves, as opposed to relying on others to meet their needs.
Right on time, as these archetypes never fail to be, I just received notice of a new book by Parabola Magazine editor, Tracy Cochran, fittingly called, Presence: The Art of Being At Home With Yourself. She will be discussing her book on the Awaking Weekly platform, with the recording available afterwards.
Eye on the prize: our children
Aquarius dwells in innovative visions and high-minded missions, but can lose sight of caring about the particulars, including individuals! (A highly innovative Aquarian man friend from decades ago once quipped, “Friends are over-rated!”) This is why we need heart-centered, generous Leo, to keep us focused at the level of our humanity, even while our systems are shaking down, or up. Love, passion, and their progeny, creativity, are the trinity of the Leo essence, and joy is the by-product that fountains up through it. So whether it’s x meets y, and their shared passion produces the creation of a child, or you are an artist of some sort—including an artist of Life—creative acts draw inspiration from love and passion, and in turn, share the wealth from which they’re sourced.
Without love and passion, we wouldn’t be running around putting up decorations, performing puppet shows, crafting gem-laden paper crowns, and baking special cakes to celebrate our loved ones, such as our beloved children or grandchildren. My daughter Alya happens to be a Leo Sun, and her dad and I did almost all of the above and then some, to honor her birthdays! (But once Alya discovered store-bought ice cream cakes, my ‘special cakes’ were nixed for good. Just as well – baking not my forte!)
Of course, our creative acts can just as well celebrate the beauty of the earth, in the form of our gardens, or of paintings, poetry, music and film – the sky’s the limit. But Leo, per se, is an archetype of the integral, radiant self, so the delightful innocence and self-expression of children very much signify this archetype.
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Love and ice cream
I’ve been surfing the memory drift of summertimes long gone this year – especially of those spent on remote Nantucket Island (New England’s admittedly more tame but equally mystical counterpart to Scotland’s Hebridean isles). Of course modern day Nantucket has greatly changed, but it was still pristine until the 90s. There was certainly a time-out-of-time to my early experiences there, which rendered in me a deep, true love of the land in her many manifestations and moods. This to me is part of what ‘summer love’ has always been about.
Into this reverie of mine, Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLaughlin’s sweet song from the 80s, Ice Cream, popped up on my phone, sticking with me, emerging in my head at various hours. Of course, ice cream outings figured centrally into the Nantucket experience, as one of summer’s great delights. But the melodious song goes further, centering around the lyric, Your love is better than ice cream. This invokes a dream my daughter’s Russian dad, Jenya, had decades ago, in the earlier years of attending our Sufi meditation group, where dreams were shared and discussed. Details escape, but in the dream he was serving up ice cream. In coming to an understanding of the dream’s meaning, the revelation came, Ice cream is something everybody loves! (And indeed, everybody loved Jenya! One of our Sufi friends dubbed him “a heart with legs!”)
A pair of eyebrow-raising synchronicities with the ice cream theme ensued, one while watching a Steven Colbert monologue, when they aired a Sarah McLaughlin song from the same album as Ice Cream in a spoofy farewell tribute to “Kamala’s ‘brat’ summer” (referencing Tik Tok). This was right after Biden addressed the country of his withdrawal from the presidential race, and all the news outlets (including Colbert) saw fit to mention that ice cream was served afterwards in the Rose Garden to hundreds of White House staffers.
I’ve since determined that just this past May, Sarah McLaughlin sang Ice Cream live before a Vancouver, Canada audience as part of a 30-Year Revival tour of the very album featuring the song. Somehow Sarah knew that this year—when we’re all pretty darned sure that life is never going back to how it was pre-pandemic, and we’re instead faced with trying to figure out who and how to be in this new chapter of unraveling and remaking—this year is the time to revive us with ice cream, and songs from an album called Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Who says the past isn’t Now?
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The creative imperative
But moving on to more serious Leo stuff than ‘mere’ ice cream—even though everyone loves it—I came across a potent piece in Maria Popova’s always provocative newsletter, The Marginalian, exploring Mary Oliver’s thoughts on how to make time for creativity amidst all of life’s distractions. (Something I can sure relate to!) She points to the fact that it is not just worldly distractions that keep us from our creative work, but we ourselves.
“…that the self can interrupt the self— and does – is a darker and more curious matter,” she proffers. She describes what she sees as three selves within: the childhood self, “which we spend our lives trying to weave into the continuity of our personal identity;” an adult “servant of the hours,” who is slave to To Dos; and a third self, “occasional in some of us, tyrant in others.” “This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.” She elucidates:
Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always — these are forces that fall within its grasp, forces that must travel beyond the realm of the hour and the restraint of the habit. Nor can the actual work be well separated from the entire life. Like the knights of the Middle Ages, there is little the creatively inclined person can do but to prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labor to come — for his adventures are all unknown. In truth, the work itself is the adventure. And no artist could go about this work, or would want to, with less than extraordinary energy and concentration. The extraordinary is what art is about.
It is said that art, in whatever form, is what can and will save us, at levels both great and small, even though, sadly, it’s no longer supported in our public schools the way it used to be. So it’s by hook or crook (what a strange expression!) that we have to nourish and support our creative genius, and that of our progeny, and ask ourselves what creative contribution can we yet make in service to life? What spark can we cultivate and offer, in whatever way, shape, or form, however small, simple, and local? (Go local! Small is beautiful!) All voices, scribbles, and seeds are welcome as the waters of change threaten to become rougher.
Saint, mystic, and creatrix Hildegard von Bingen, quoted from a Parabola magazine article by Mary Osborne, offers her strong assent: “’Cooperate in the task of creation,’ she implores us. With tremendous zeal and steadfast hope, channel love and expectation into your art and countless forms of creative expression. It is the way Hildegard’s “living light” seeps into the hearts of those around us and makes its way out through streams and rivers to the wider world, eventually influencing leaders and enlightening institutions.”
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Uniting with the breath of love
Returning to the heart of Leo, it’s important to mention the self-love project that is at the core of radiant love and self-expression. As suggested in the opening poem by Muskie Fields, to end the wars outside, we must turn inside. “Find your breath, your heart. Find your true being.” Breathing into the heart, the spine, the chest, we invite in love, infusing space and release into our bodies and psyches. All of us have these hidden places of ‘defended love’, where we can open and soften more (as Gene Keys author Richard Rudd invokes here ). It is from this loving turn towards self, including the child that lives on within, that we are able to freely love others, without expectation or bitterness over what we may or may not receive in return. A life’s work in itself.
Here’s a divine expression of Leonine ‘living light’ from three powerful women musicians, Copper Wimmin, from my home town, sharing their vocal delicacies in a lullaby called Zeba, written for their young children, shared through the vehicle of an artfully choreographed video.
And since I’m in the flow of abundance with artistic offerings (wealth partaking of the Leo archetype—stuff of kings and queens), here’s a new summer distraction to check out, a film called Harold and the Purple Crayon, playfully invoking the creative power of the imagination! (Disclaimer: I haven’t read the reviews, but have enjoyed this trailer twice.)
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Astrology of now
The chart of the Aug. 4 New Moon at 12° Leo features a sextile to Jupiter conjunct Mars in mutable air sign Gemini. Mercury in discerning, mutable Virgo stations retrograde, where it will be for three weeks, calling us to retreat, reflect, and refine our visions and plans. At best, the Mercury-ruled signs Virgo and Gemini can infuse a level of flexibility and open-minded thinking that could be helpful in dismantling any excessive Leo rigidity in coming weeks.
Further, energetic Mars-Jupiter in Gemini, which could get carried way—perhaps over-assertively—with ideas and their expression, or the news!, is squared by Saturn in dreamy and idealistic Pisces. This serves as a necessary tempering and grounding of the potential heat of the creative combo of Sun in Leo sextiling Mars and Jupiter, which respectively rule the other two fire signs, Aries and Sagittarius. Rational-minded Gemini and disciplined Saturn add some defusing energy and help channel the creative juices during this time of Mercury Rx reflection.
The Saturn-Jupiter square in mutable signs will be with us on and off for the rest of the year, amping up the fluidity we’ll be seeing among relations, and within ourselves, which could make Fixed energy signs Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius, more than a bit rattled. Given that this is 1/3 of the archetypes, we’re many of this in this training together! Changes of plans, changes of affections, unpredictability are all on the menu. Growth-seeking mutability asks us to chill and flow with sudden reversals; consider it part of our change-oriented Aquarian initiation. Keep the faith, we’ll have plenty of time to learn this one.
Taken with Pluto’s ‘release and let go’ impulse, widely trining Mars at the New Moon, we are challenged to learn to pivot when triggered, not to react out of stuck, habitual patterns and mindsets, instead changing the channel, expressing something new, either in our inner dialogue, or in what we share out. The more we do, the more we can invite in the magic.
Along these lines, of note is a ‘mini-triangle’ between the three outer planets taking effect, with Neptune sextiling both Uranus and Pluto, who trine each other. This lends a strongly Neptunian flavor to the trine, allowing us to breathe in other-worldly inspiration through the intuition and the imagination. Spending time in contemplative reverie, whether in nature, with pen or paintbrush in hand, or in the body, are all good ways to join with the inspiring muse.
At the Aug. 19 Full Moon, Venus in Virgo will enter the mix, opposing Saturn and squaring Mars-Jupiter, creating a mutable signs T-Square. This involves our personal ‘social’ planets (Mars and Venus), and the two ‘collective’ social planets Saturn and Jupiter, suggesting that tensions in the relational field will be buzzing. Venusian affections will perhaps be dampened by Saturn, but potentially churned up by Mars and Jupiter. Presence, and centeredness in the Leonine heart can help diffuse tensions.
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Getting into the saddle to write this blog has been an elusive challenge this month – one thing after another has sidetracked me from my mission (including the Olympics)! But as someone who goes with the flow, particularly as apprenticed to the Saturn in Pisces ‘undoing’ signature whose spell we’re under until 2026, I’ve put together this offering in a very short space of time. If you want a more expansive look at the deep magic and mystery of Leo, I encourage you to check out last year’s Leo blog. (Pushing aside my self-effacing Virgo Sun persona for a moment, claiming Leonine pride, I am impressed, rereading it!) To go deeper still, you can purchase my Leo class recording and notes here.
I will close with these potent words about the essential call that Leo inspires us to—that of weaving Art into Life—from one of my literary first loves, Virginia Woolf. [Explainer: by ‘cotton wool’ she means the ordinary comings and goings of life.]
Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.
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Links For Further Meandering
Mary Oliver, quoted in The Marginalian piece, The Third Self https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/10/12/mary-oliver-upstream-creativity-power-time/?mc_cid=bbabf4edfc&mc_eid=547a2b05f8
Sarah McLaughlin song, Ice Cream from Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAhv0XGv8Pc
Heart Softening Meditation, Richard Rudd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KyfXfbgRfU
Copper Wimmin lullaybe, Zeba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iczk1IWP6Hc
Virginia Woolf, quoted in The Marginalian piece, Cotton Wool Moments of Being: https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/09/09/virginia-woolf-cotton-wool-moments-of-being/?mc_cid=35a843236b&mc_eid=547a2b05f8