Full Moon in Leo

Written By Nicole Feola

Hi Friends!

I’ve been quiet here for several months now … in fact … I just saw that the last newsletter happened to be on the New Moon in Leo (you can also check your journals/notes/photos from that day, July 28th, 2022, to find your own through line to this Moon!), and it was written on the topic of surrendering to the cycles of creation. I’ve been leaning into that, following the threads of inspiration and energetic response, trusting that the moment to re-emerge and weave back into this realm would show itself in right timing. And here we are on the Full Moon in Leo! That feels exciting.

One place I’ve been is the second level of training in a particular branch of Internal Family Systems called Coaching With Spirit.  It’s based on a constraint-release model of transformation, where a liberation of creative life force energy and innate intelligence is assisted through the compassionate witnessing of the parts of ourselves that carry burdens (undigested experiences, heavy emotions, limiting beliefs), both inherited and personal; bringing Embodied Presence to those parts in the ways that we needed a parent to; and a releasing of those burdens through work and play in the imaginal realm. It feels to be relevant and powerful work for the upcoming ingresses of Saturn in Pisces and Pluto in Aquarius, and I look forward to sharing more about it and integrating it into my offerings in the future.  In the meantime, I’ll use this lens when it feels most helpful to enhance our understanding of and alignment with current celestial invitations.

Secondly, and as a hint of what’s to come in the very near future, I’ve been collaborating with a flower essence practitioner and dear friend of mine on a series of offerings that support the integration of our own direct life experiences into embodied, wild wisdom and inner abundance.  Stay tuned!  Again, in the meantime, I’ll be including flowers that have resonance with the astrological themes of the times, as a kind of nourishing food for our imaginations in rhythm with the cycles of creation.   

Okay, that’s all the updates from me for now … onto the astrology!

I wanted to begin with two interesting cycles that are weaving into and being informed by this Full Moon energy: the Vesta-Pluto cycle and the Ceres-Jupiter cycle.  

Vesta in Pisces forms a separating sextile to Pluto in Cap at 28°48’; 3:13 AM, Pacific; February 5th, 2023

Vesta is our innate capacity for Self-containment, for belonging first and foremost to the Self  – the Self within, the Self in the other, the Self energy in the relational field.  Her Roman counterpart Hestia was known as the goddess who recognized “the voice of the divine spoke in many tongues, through many vessels and in many ways; therefore whoever arrived on the doorstep was welcomed”(1).  She is our capacity to call in, integrate and focus a diversity of energies, and return to our inner wholeness or wellness.  She tends a life-affirming relationship between the center (Leo) and the circumference (Aquarius) of our inner world (2)

Pluto is our innate capacity for transformation and renewal.  Pluto is the current of our deepest soul desire, as well as our deepest woundings and attachments that can get entangled with that desire and shift our inner compass needle to some degrees off of our true North. 

The Vesta-Pluto cycle follows a spiral of renewing wholeness through dis-entangling hurt aspects of self from their identification with any confusion, shame or fear that they’ve long carried from Plutonian-type wounds of abandonment, betrayal, denial, repression, violence. This cycle represents a wave of energy available to help release toxicities and alchemize dense emotions, freeing our innate gifts previously locked up in (a) the parts of ourselves sequestered away from our conscious awareness and care – as well as (b) the protective parts (both managerial and involved in crisis control) that worked constantly to keep the exiles out of our conscious mind and sight.  The Vesta-Pluto cycle can be seen as a process of calling our energy in from the stories and structures that failed to hold us in the image of our wholeness, and reminding us that we are still worthy of our light (Leo) and our belonging (Aquarius).  When this happens - when exiled parts can release their burdens of compressed and unprocessed emotion and protector parts are thereby relieved of limiting duties - there’s a metamorphosis of the whole system. We are more empowered to engage with our sexuality, to participate in the world, to be receptive yet self-contained, not getting hooked into the emotional patterns that may swirl and storm around us. This is not a state of indifference, but an inner stillness that offers sanctuary, a safe haven, a refuge for all stories to have a place around the fire (1).

A flower essence that has resonance with this moment in the cycle is the Water Buttercup.  The Buttercup is part of the Ranunculaceae family, which has the Latin root word “ranu” or “little frog”.  These flowers have their roots in the water, but grow up and into the light and air, with small luminescent yellow petals. It is a reminder that it’s safe to rise up from the undifferentiated sea, metamorphosize and embrace our soul image (2).  This image is radiant and magnetic when embodied, even if it feels too small to be see …  Which takes me to another level of the Vesta-Pluto cycle that runs concurrently to and creates a positive feedback loop with what was already described above. And this is a deep healing of our relationship to Vesta herself, as an exiled or displaced part. 

In myth, Hestia (Vesta) was the divine child of Kronos and Rhea, the rulers of the Titans. She was the first to be swallowed up by Kronos when he ate all his children to prevent the prophesy that one of them would take his place as king.  Similarly Vesta – our capacity to be still and quiet, to go within, contemplate, and regard our inner world and experiences as sacred, as well as our capacity to enjoy our sexuality in a self-renewing, personally regenerative way – was the first to be swallowed up by Kronos as the God of Time, and then Saturn as the Patriarch, External Authority or Task-Master.  This Full Moon moment may be one step on our journey of collectively and personally healing our relationship to Vesta, after generations of leaving Her by the wayside, in our constant busyness. To remember to pray first to Vesta, the protector of our own soul image and imagination, whenever we go out into the world to gather and dream together.

The seed moment of the Vesta-Pluto cycle was last March 6th, 2022, so it has a longer arc and is capable of developing real depth and making a meaningful contribution to our life story. If you journal, that would be a good date to look around, reflect upon and consider what through line you see there too. The emotions arising under this Full Moon in Leo, especially around authentic self-esteem and embracing our inner light, can help sharpen our awareness of where we’re at with the Vesta-Pluto cycle and see what initiative we can take to keep nurturing positive direction and momentum here.  

Ceres in Libra forms an opposition to Jupiter in Aries 6°58’ ; 9:23 AM, Pacific; February 5th, 2023

A second wave of energy that’s actually cresting on this Full Moon involves Ceres & Jupiter.

Ceres is our capacity to nurture and receive nurturance.  She is the Great Mother who tends procreation, the channels of nourishment, and civilization.  She is connected to our cycles of dis-memberment and re-membering; of lost innocence, experience, grief, and return to Self; of the seasons and agricultural productivity.  In her shadow expression, she can be smothering, controlling, or perfecting. In the sign of Libra, she is concerned with fairness, harmony, peace, justice, balance, relationship, proportionality.

Jupiter is our innate capacity for generosity, benevolence, magnanimity, our search for meaning, truth, and ethical values.  In the sign of Aries, Jupiter gives us the courage and confidence to re-claim the throne of our psyche and allow an innocent creative impulse within us to be followed out into the world.  

The planet Jupiter and the asteroid Ceres have similar distances from the Sun and orbital times, moving at similar rates around our outer and inner Sky. Together, the Ceres-Jupiter cycle is a long multivalent journey of becoming the most Benevolent Parent to ourselves and our children. What’s interesting to me is that when I look at their last conjunction or the seed moment of this cycle, I see that these two planetary bodies traveled together in the sky for the few months leading up to the pandemic.  And now, when we look at Jupiter in Aries and find Borage coming up as a flower essence resonant with this theme, I imagine Ceres receiving a boost of heart-courage.

I imagine it to be a deeply supportive (and supported) moment to acknowledge and honor the Young Mother within all of us – the one who suddenly found themselves feeling isolated and alone responsible for supporting, raising, and nourishing the mind-body-hearts of her kids (the actual tiny humans in her life that depended upon her for survival) and her “kids” (her creative dreams and aspirations, her innocent impulses to share and express herself in the world), in the face of this overwhelming experience of the pandemic.  It’s a moment to extend deep compassion and love for this Young Mother who navigated the losses, the depression of freedom, the sea of heavy hearts and anxiety – with her kids in her arms.  To receive and be uplifted by the fiery spirit of Jupiter in Aries, as we honor and integrate these hard emotions … and keep creating Beauty, big and small, in our lives, in our relationships and the world.

Lastly, for both of these cycles together and in the context of the Full Moon, the flowers Chicory and Water Violet may be sacred images to hold in your imagination (in the style of Vesta in Pisces) and to walk with. These botanical friends support emotional containment and inner composure (Vesta and Pluto), so that we can express our individuality and freedom to move in the world (Jupiter in Aries), while respecting the freedom and individuality of others (Ceres in Libra). They help resolve issues around status (Full Moon in Leo) that may contribute to experiences of social isolation or aloofness (shadow expression of Vesta). And Burgundy Pansy supports a return to wholeness, as we deepen our relationship to our Spirit, sexuality, and creative self-expression 

Glad to be back here with you.

Much Love and Many Full Moon Blessings,

Nicole

Nicole Feola
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