We have an electrifying Full Moon to wrap up this rather intense change cycle we’re walking through now. Rather than unwrap the long string of aspects, let me share a story. When a friend called me this week I thought, how grateful I am to see and be seen by this amazing person. It almost didn’t happen, though. The friendship hit a fork in the road not long after meeting. I had to choose what mattered and this Full Moon is an echo of that choice for each of us.
My friend called regularly to check in with me. That’s something I’m unused to and pulled back from at first. My history had me suspicious instead of curious. She noted the resistance and gently asked what was happening. Her approach made it easy to be honest with about my fears.
As I explained my hesitation based on past trauma, she said ‘ouch’. Surprised at that I asked her to explain. In her explanation she acknowledged I had good reason to be defensive (her ouch included my pain) and yet it still hurt that I projected my fears onto her when she was innocent. Her ouch held BOTH of us in it and showed me the path forward. It was honest, not accusatory. It was an invitation to see more than myself in that moment.
Suddenly I got it. I saw the fork in the road. My fear of being hurt was creating more pain for us both. She had given me plenty of examples in a six month period that she dealt kindly with people without being a doormat. Now it was time to choose. Did I want my justified fears or did I want connection? It seems so simple now but it felt huge. Like a leap across a chasm to trust that because I’m different, this friendship will be different, too.
This Leo Sun and Aquarius Moon have a similar message. Ego loves to justify actions or defenses. The smarter you are, the better you are at rationalizing it. And that leaves out the impact of those choices on you and those around you. My trauma response is normal, given my past. Yet that still doesn’t get me what I really want. The price was more than what it bought me. How do I care about the me that just wanted to avoid vulnerability due to solid evidence that it could be painful – and learn to trust I had learned enough to choose better, do better now. Can I take care of the ‘me’ while connecting to a bigger ‘we’?
That’s the goal of this Moon Cycle. Do you have the courage to look life in the eye and say I’m going to take a smart risk here, and over here, and NOT over there. This is what Creation feels like. So much better than fearful reaction. It can take a difficult moment and make it magical, like her simple ‘ouch’ did. It held us both and let me know I could trust I had a valued place in the friendship. Then it became an opportunity to make sure I held up my part. Make it a race to the top of friendship possibilities, not the bottom. So what does it cost over a lifetime to let fear have the final word? May the Cards and Stars help you find your way to best answer that question.
Thank you,
Lisa Greenfield
8/11 six of pentacles Aquarius Full Moon
Six, the number of wholeness, how appropriate today. This earthy six has us living out and embodying healing. The thing to remember is the body is the slowest to change. Our minds change all the time. The skin we live in takes a bit longer for adjustments to catch up. So with Saturn in the mix we must be patient. I know, THAT word again. Think of seeds of change pushing up through the darkness towards the light. When we move slowly we can make fresh decisions or catch reactive ones. That’s why the message keeps coming. Sun Square Uranus can mean ego wants specific results NOW.
It takes practice to expand safely. We want to test ourselves in new feelings, new choices. Learn from the results. How can you provide a kinder feedback for yourself? Perfectionism is a fear factor. Everything you do is perfecting who you are, including those mistakes. As Samuel Beckett said, “Fail better”. Explore what it feels like to completely miss an opportunity and then circle back for a do over. Who are the people who gladly offer those? I’ve got friends who regularly cheer me on for my do overs. But only because I made safe space inside of me for that possibility. Once I did my internal shift, then more was possible.
What are you doing to make your environment a healthy space to risk, learn, fail and try again? If you don’t have anyone to help you, maybe it’s because you are meant to start it happening. Venus square Uranus wants to expand what you love! Be sure to find solid ground first, so you can hold the adult space when young you gets triggered. The adult in the room is the one who loves, not the one who judges. Make sure there is a grown up you standing by and then have fun creating.
This six is the promise that what you put out there in the past will make its way back, like a report card. Don’t let it rattle you if you don’t like what it says, just find a way to fail better this time. The world wants you to be the most YOU you can be. Just work on making it your best you over time. Progress, not perfection…
8/12 the hermit
Today is fairly quiet after the electrical storm of yesterday, except for a Moon square Mars aspect before dawn. The Hermit reminds us that when we light our own lamp we may also shed light for others to follow. Yesterday was a tall order. This Moon Cycle requests compassionate self inventory, care and new actions. To have the Hermit come after that is almost like offering a hammock to a weary traveler. Stretch out, take a rest and gently rock. The mind may try to do all the heavy lifting at once. Give it a task. Something like look for all the ways your past disasters opened unexpected doors you would never have seen without them.
Gratitude is like Aloe Vera for the mind. Apply some liberally, especially where your fear brain wants to savage you or another for past mistakes. You can even have your brain look for where you are scorching yourself with criticism and judgement and then insist your busy mind find things to be grateful for there. The brain scans don’t lie. Gratitude allows blood flow again, which opens up all kinds of options to come into view. Try it. What do you have to lose except some brain fever.
8/13 king of swords
We have another light day, thank goodness. This King sees the whole playing field and with Moon opposing Mercury, it echoes that theme. There is space to take it all in, the good, bad and ugly. Don’t do anything with it yet. Wait until evening when we get a liberating square between Moon and Uranus. This helps us release the baggage we no longer need. In some cases it is merely a matter of integrating how well we have done with all the obstacles, challenges and set backs we’ve been served. Whatever it is for you, let the day unfold and help you see the ‘big picture’ for you. Let it be a gift. Sit with what you see until you can see how your life is unfolding in ways that serve you even when you don’t realize it yet.
8/14 prince of cups
We get to face our own immaturity the first half of the day then move into better space this afternoon. How well do you know the young you? Now when I’m triggered I start by asking myself ‘how old am I’ to my patterned response. I’ve begun to meet four year old me, 14 year old me (she’s a handful), and even infant me. Once again, the adult in the room loves. So if you catch yourself judging the response, ask judgement how old it is! Judgement is where that 14 year old me thought of it as one of the only powers she had.
We get a nice string of planetary pokes for a fresh perspective on what we do and why we do it. Take advantage of their assist when you take time for yourself. This sweet Prince can be immaturity that flees connection by giving a little to everyone. Afraid to trust a few with deeper commitment to see and be seen, he’s a champion flirt who can’t stay steady long term. The flip side is this card signals the marriage proposal kind of commitment when it shows up to love. Best or worst of it can be simply a matter of time and attention. So give yourself the time and attention. You are worth your own commitment, right?
8/15 nine of swords
Mars is right in the middle of a meet up with the most difficult fixed star in the heavens, Algol. This is the Medusa point. For those of you who don’t know the story, google it and see what you find. Whatever resonates with you, sit with that version. My version of how to work with this difficult energy is to examine your relationship with power and anger. For some people anger turns them to stone rather than feel it. For others, they can turn in to what looks like a monster. Our emotions serve a purpose. Anger helps us defend ourselves and draw boundaries. It says NO.
The problem is when we weaponize our anger. In big and small ways it leaks out of us or erupts like a volcano. This Nine of Swords is the card of mental anguish needlessly. This is where we don’t know our own power so we react from a powerless place that has us over or under responding to the situation. I call it the ‘shirt in the closet’ card, because we are sure there is a monster in the closet, we can see the outline of it. Until we turn on the light. Then we see the monster is just a puffy shirt. Turn the light on your relationship with anger. See where you over estimate or underestimate the threat and you. Time to match up appropriate response to the actual situation.
When you know you can say NO and mean it, it brings down the need to over correct a situation. This is not about imposing your yes or no on someone else, it’s about owning your own. Take a good look at where you want someone else to abide by your rules, your way of doing things. That’s not a connection, that’s coercion. Be brave enough to pull back your control impulses. It’s hard enough to control ourselves. Start with a healthier yes and no. That should keep you busy for a while…
8/16 Lovers
We get a lot of celestial support the first half of the day to see where we have made choices that we forgot were OUR choice. When things don’t feel good anymore, watch for the impulse to blame. Doesn’t matter who or what you blame, it’s not going to take you anyplace you really want to go. When you take a few minutes the first half of the day you can see the truth of this. You may also see where past responses did not ultimately serve you. The Lovers card stands for choice. We choose even when we don’t think that we do. No response is still a choice.
What matters is that you see it now and are willing to change. This evening the Moon Squares Pluto to highlight where we learned about power from childhood. Or perhaps I should say misuse of power. Remember your parents didn’t have much support either to teach them the right use of power. It is such a necessary component in life and yet there are so little places you can find a balance of power being taught, shared, spread. Let it start with you, right here. What’s the right use of power that honors all of you without sacrificing anyone else to do it? Choose to begin a healthier balance right there inside you.
8/17 king of cups
There is a push pull energy in the aspects and your world today. Our need for security squares off with our need to create and be ourselves in ever expanding ways. Then our ego and our dreams can’t quite sync up. Part of us wants results so we are willing to compromise on what we want, while another part of us wants to go for more but serves it up as perfection. Be mindful that an angry complaint is less vulnerable or brave than an honest request for what we want or need. Where have you held up the shield of criticism instead of venturing to expose what you want to others?
Then it also begs the question, do you have people in your life who can hear what you want and care about you achieving it? If you don’t, where can you begin to offer that to others and show them how good it looks and feels? Keep a good check on your energy levels so you don’t over give and then use failure as an excuse to go back to angry complaining. This King of Cups is the Minor Arcana version of the Magician. So when he shows up he is the wild card that says magic can happen. Feel carefully into where you can take a risk and trade out your shield of judgement for a vulnerable ask. Let alchemy happen in time…
8/18 princess of pentacles
This princess says you can feel change in your body. It moves slowly and often whispers, but it’s there. Today is a day to do a lot of self check. The aspects are likely to cause challenges, frustrations or reroutes so you can tune in to YOU and not blaze through on auto pilot. With Saturn in hard aspect, we cannot rush change. The body has its own rhythm and timing. Find yours. Notice where you force change or resist in by how your body feels when you think a certain way, act a certain way. The better you are at conversation with your body on subtle changes, the more secure you feel. The Princess of Pentacles stands for centered presence. From this place you can handle anything without over or under estimating the threat or yourself.
8/19 nine of wands
Some things are coming to an end, and it needs to happen. The good news is that two nines in a cycle point to contentment and co-operative endings. Imagine that. Like the end of a ride at Disneyland, it just glides to the exit gate. What makes endings sticky is when we resist them. Suddenly blame and shame, regrets and judgement get heaped on something that came to the end of its natural cycle. If the prospect of something being finished upsets you, check in on where you don’t trust you can create a new version of it. Often our fear of loss is tied to scarcity mentality.
When you don’t trust that there is enough for everybody, endings are something to fear. Instead of reviewing what worked, where you like what you contributed, what you appreciated about anyone else’s contribution, you fixate on what’s done. That’s a focus point and it can change. You get to practice doing just that if you are triggered today. Or even if you witness someone else being triggered. Sometimes people in our lives play out these themes so we can learn by example. Take a moment in gratitude for that, right? I won’t live long enough to make every mistake I can learn from, so my friends are kindly dividing up who takes what. I can just watch and learn. Try that today, too, why don’t you.
8/20 queen of swords
We have a matched pair in this Moon Cycle. Both the King and Queen of Swords show up. This is the balance between our receptive mind and active mind. How we take information in and what we do as we put it back out into the world. Since Mars leaves Taurus today and enters Gemini where it spends a particularly long seven months, how appropriate that we have the Air Queen appearing today. It joins the Moon in Gemini and Saturn in Aquarius, also all in air signs. Yet by day’s end Mercury in Virgo stands opposite Neptune. The message I take from this alignment is to use our mind to imagine all the ‘how to’s’ available one what you love and desire.
The caution with this Queen is if you decide with your head (instead of heart) you often wind up alone and isolated. Not that you can list a stack of good reason to be defensive, it just won’t change the fact you are alone. The cost of being defensive is the loss of connection, beginning with the connection to our own desires. Remember the simple ‘ouch’ that held room for both of us. Use the wisdom and enormous perspective to see how to hold both twin priorities. It’s not only possible, it’s potent.
8/21 three of wands
This three announces that whatever the challenges your inner critic serves up today, you are almost home! This three says your intuitive self guides each of us in ways our logical mind cannot fathom. When you learn to trust that instead of forcing logic to override your subtler intuition, your proverbial ‘ship has come in’ on abundance. Logic tends to look at things in terms of win/lose, black and white. Intuition can walk us into situations our defensive rationale would never allow. Yet those very situations enable us to spark new ideas, connections and resources in the unlikeliest of scenarios.
The Moon, Mercury and Neptune serve up a T-square, which is like a three sided intersection. You can’t keep going straight ahead, you must turn right or left. Change is required. What you have to work with is what you love and fear losing, the stories you tell yourself and the dreams that inspire you regardless of how practical they may be. It isn’t an either or choice, this is an integration point even if it feels like a hard left or right turn. The Moon is at the center and so what you love needs to have both the practical and imaginative input to truly thrive. Once again, what do those defensive structures cost you? Let what you dream inspire new ways to access what already exists to help you get closer to what is yet only imagined.
8/22 three of cups
Two threes in a row stand for choices. You have them, whether you see them or not, they are there! This sweet three stands for celebrating those dreams with those who can cheer you on your way. It can also remind us that when we get stuck in our patterns, loving friends and family can help us see the bigger picture. We get plenty of celestial support to be kind to ourselves and approach those choices from a kinder place. What can you let be easier, hmm?
8/23 the sun
There is a lot of personal excavation work to be had today, if you choose to do so. Rich insight into where old resentments and wounds still dictate what you do and how you do it. The good news is the Sun card is the most positive indicator in the entire Tarot deck. No matter how dark the night, the Sun comes in the morning. If you let it, joy comes with the light. Not necessarily for the circumstances that created the darkness, but rather for how richly fertile those dark moments can be when you approach them well.
This card speaks to change, slow change but sure to arrive. Just as the days get longer a few minutes at a time, so does your understanding grow as you let what you see and understand now inform what you can do with whatever your past may be. Let the light dawn and take the sure knowledge that is it a part of you and you can face the darkest caves you could encounter.
8/24 princess of cups
Aw, snap, this sweetheart of an inner indicator says you’ve got a happy surprise waiting for you. The Moon moves into Leo while Uranus comes to a standstill about to go retrograde. We benefit from a healthy ego and faith that we are equal to whatever comes our way. After the provocative aspects yesterday, a kiss to the old sore spots is always a good choice. When we can be kind to ourselves even in difficult circumstances, we increase our resilience to life itself. Self compassion keeps us supple rather than brittle so we can bend and not break under the force of change. Add some of these ingredients today and watch for that sweet surprise.
8/25 seven of swords
We get sweet support from the heavens this morning as we gear up for some big changes in thinking tonight. The Moon squares off with change agent Uranus before the showdown opposite Saturn. Once again, change is required. This seven is the place where our mind lies to us. Tenderly, lovingly, it will overestimate threats and underestimate you. Except you can spot those lies now, if you care to do so. Check in on what your fears tell you. Doubt your doubts. Notice what believing the lies cost you.
Those old stories will take you down paths you already lived, keep you in space you already occupy. They are safe but they are limited. Remember your tool kit. Ask the fear how old it is. Put your attention on you, before you get ramped up on a story about what’s in front of you. Be kind to yourself. Practice patience while the results you may want elude you. Time is one of the biggest weapons a lie will use to confuse you. It has you judge things too soon. Of course progress is barely visible if at all just yet. You can do this and a world of possibility waits for you to do just that.
8/26 four of swords
When you consider the six of pentacles we began the cycle with and pair it to this four, the message is to give your mind a rest so your body can heal. The pace of change is something you cannot control, but you can manage how much time you give yourself to integrate it all. Mercury squares Mars making the challenge to honor your body’s needs as much as your mind’s needs a ‘must’. The down side to this four is if you refuse to rest, your body will often call a halt by getting sick just to make sure you stop. This is a mental rest more than anything else.
So get into your body, do something your mind can handle on autopilot. I like to garden. It’s a sensory delight that requires less mental gymnastics. Find your sweet spot and put your mind on pause. You get support from the stars to see where your mind and body need to align better. If you don’t listen, you may find yourself grumpy by evening without knowing why. You can’t ignore things that are illogical but feel good forever without paying a price. So indulge your heart and your body a bit while your mind can look for new ways to honor those parts of you. The mind is your servant, so make it happy and tell it to listen to the rest of you for a while.
