Waning Moon Transitioning in Leo

For most of today, the Moon continues in her long void of course time, resting, reflecting, finishing. We have entered the balsamic phase of the lunar cycle, when whatever we experienced in this cycle is reduced to its essential form. The balsamic phase is the end of the cycle, marked by an awareness of loss, the ephemeral nature of life, and the inevitability of change.

As the Moon waits in a time-between-time, Venus conjoins Saturn in Libra. Venus has been approaching this point for days, taking her turn in one of the Cardinal Cross hot seats, opposing Uranus and Jupiter, and squaring Pluto. Today's exact conjunction with Saturn brings Venus into focus. As she lends her creative charm to Saturn's attempts to hold the line, challenges Uranus and Jupiter to bring an awareness of others into their bold demands for radical change, and tempers Pluto's relentless drive to tear down everything in pursuit of improvement, we may feel our own Venus issues coming to the fore.

Are our key relationships balanced and beautiful? Is our creative life flowing in harmonious ways? Are we attuned to the flow of our lives, dancing with the energies around us, so we experience serendipity, synchronicity, "luck"? These are Venus-and-Saturn in Libra questions.

Best to think about them during the void, too, because when the Moon steps onto the Leo stage at 7:23pm EDT, she'll join a drama already in full swing. The Leo Moon begins strutting her stuff with a flowing trine to fiery Uranus at 7:36pm, a sextile to responsible Saturn at 10:02pm, a sextile to lovely Venus at 10:36pm, a trine to exuberant Jupiter just after midnight, and a sextile to fair-minded Mars at 5:40am Monday. The Moon's going to need all her creative passion tonight!

I like Auntie Moon's blog post for the upcoming New Moon, titled Please Acknowledge Me, and let me say right here how much I enjoy her insightful, creative writing. CJ Wright shines her light on how we can navigate today's transition from a void Moon with a Venus-Saturn focus on the important other people in our lives, to the "look at me!" energy of a Leo Moon.

Look in your birth charts to see where Leo falls. This is the area of life in which we most crave acknowledgment. And here's the key to today's transition, as she says:

"If you haven’t told someone recently just how much you appreciate them ~ those silent, behind-the-scenes people who carry your weight on their shoulders ~ give them a moment in the Leo spotlight by telling them now. You need to tell them, and they need to hear it. Acknowledgement. Appreciation. There’s nothing like it. It always feels good, and it really hurts when it’s missing."

Today's images of the lotus and the hug are available from WikiMedia Commons, and I thank all the wonderful creative folks who share their work through that website!