New Moon in Leo
The New Moon in Leo is our annual reset for all things solar. The Sun and Moon unite in the fiery home of the Sun, our central star around which Earth and the rest of our solar system orbits, and we likewise have an opportunity for restoration of our inner center. In astrology the Sun is the source of intelligence, vitality, reputation, authority and visibility. Every morning at sunrise as the Sun’s radiant rays crack open the darkness of dawn, we participate in the eternal creation of new life. Just like the rising Sun brings new life every day, every year the New Moon in Leo illuminates how we are seen and creatively express ourselves, as well as how we are cohering the overall purpose guiding us forward. As a lunar cycle ends and begins again in Leo, we may regenerate our vision of what we wish to create and accomplish.
Yet this year, the New Moon in Leo is activating another side of the Sun – the Night Sun. The Sun that must descend with every sunset into the darkness of the underworld, initiated into a mysterious journey through the darkness of night. In ancient cultures such as in Egypt, the Sun’s night journey was a perilous descent through the underworld in which the Sun had to confront a great serpent of chaos who threatened destruction of the life giving solar light. The night Sun overcoming death to rise and bring new life and purpose once again to the world at daybreak is similarly mirrored in many ancient myths about a solar hero who must also descend into an underworld initiation. Heroes like Herakles and Gilgamesh experienced a breakdown and purging of their previous identity and coherence in order to be purified and regenerate their relationship with their own essential character and their role of service to the larger collective.
The New Moon in Leo on July 24 holds the tension of the solar hero within us having to face an underworld guardian in the form of Pluto in Aquarius, as the Leo New Moon is applying closely to a tight opposition with Pluto. The opposition between the lunation and Pluto involves both internal and external tension. There may be power conflicts and power dynamics you are negotiating and facing in external events and relationships, but there is also an internal tension that is equally strong that must be related to within the deep unconscious. The tension with Pluto can stir up places we’ve given our power away, yet also increase awareness for how to begin rebalancing dynamics toward greater empowerment. Great leaps of vision and purpose may be received within the darkness of the lunation, initiating us into a process of breaking down larger visions into smaller steps as well as doing the inner work necessary so we may align our internal states with the external work and responsibility we wish to take on.
Guiding us into the underworld and our unconscious depths will be the star of Hermes, as Mercury retrograde in Leo will be taking on a psychopomp role in the days leading into the new moon, due to Mercury transitioning from being a visible evening star following sunset into an invisible phase in which Mercury is too close to the Sun to be seen. In the week following the Leo New Moon, Mercury retrograde will not only facilitate digging up old material but also burning it off and shedding whatever is no longer serving us. With Mercury moving closer and closer to the Leo Sun, the upcoming Mercury retrograde period will be especially potent for breaking down, purifying, and re-cohering your purpose and authority and the way your actions and daily choices impact your public reputation in whatever work or path of service you are involved with. There may be old limiting thoughts that need to be shed or a breakdown of places where we’ve become inflated or too full of hubris. Pay attention to dreams, signs and synchronicities and make space and time to explore your inner darkness, as the New Moon in Leo will offer a fertile field of dark soil to plant dreams of future livelihood.
The New Moon in Leo is not only a powerful lunation for working through inner tensions and revisioning what you want to change, create or accomplish in the lunar cycle ahead, but also in the year ahead due to how the Sun and Moon in Leo are activating a larger astrological pattern with far reaching implications for collective reality. The New Moon in Leo is not only applying to an opposition with Pluto in Aquarius, but also an inspiring sextile aspect with Uranus in Gemini and a flowing trine aspect with Saturn and Neptune in Aries. Next year at the end of June in 2026, Jupiter will enter Leo and then in July 2026 activate the same configuration with Pluto, Uranus, and the new cycle between Neptune and Saturn. This configuration in July 2026 is a primary shaper of the astrological times to come for the rest of the decade and is a powerful cohering force for stepping into greater empowerment with your work or path of service in the world.
Since the Leo New Moon is activating the same configuration that will be a dominant astrological theme in 2026, we will be receiving insight of foreshadowing on the path ahead. In combination with Mercury retrograde in Leo, the New Moon in Leo will provoke questions about your larger purpose as well as public presence and role of service in the world. With all of the extraordinary change happening everywhere in correspondence with Saturn and Neptune united in Aries, the fiery trine between the Leo New Moon with Saturn and Neptune in Aries will bring opportunities to clarify why you are here at this time of unprecedented collective change and crisis, and how you can express your purpose as part of the larger collective processes of change underway.
Pluto in Aquarius carries symbolism of decentralized power distributed to the margins from the center, resonating with the fact that the term multipolar has become an increasingly popular buzzword in relation to global power dynamics. Similarly there may be new life and desires stirring within your own inner multiplicity to explore and clarify regarding how they are re-shaping your vocational calling. The lunar cycle ahead will be potent for discovering how you can become involved in co-creating greater change in the world through the networks of community that will also be emerging in correspondence with the harmonious relationships between Pluto in Aquarius, Uranus in Gemini, and the Saturn Neptune conjunction in Aries.
The combination of the New Moon in the fiery home of the Sun forming an opposition with Pluto and a flowing, fiery trine with Saturn and Neptune occupying the exaltation of the Sun, as well as Mercury retrograde shifting into an a psychopomp phase, evokes the image of a solar hero having to descend into an underworld journey that becomes a redemptive expiation. If you find yourself struggling with adversity and limitations, be curious with how Mercury retrograde in Leo may be guiding you to discover and express your essential purpose. Working within the limitations we must endure out of necessity can ultimately help with claiming the personal destiny that is aligned with the natural cosmic order, rather than trying to leap beyond constraints with hubristic overreaching. In the end, in the week following the lunation as Mercury retrograde approaches a reanimating conjunction with the Sun on July 31, by deepening into an inner process of soul searching we can become clearer about our own personal purpose to cultivate within the great collective changes we will be traversing in the years ahead.
Carl Jung, born with the Sun in Leo, went through his own underworld journey documented in Liber Novus, also known as the Red Book. The following quote from Jung’s Red Book, which I previously shared on my blog in 2016 in an article about Neptune related to the Saturn and Neptune cycle that was activated that year, always comes back to me in times like this:
“The tension of the the future is unbearable in us. It must break through narrow cracks, it must force new ways. You want to cast off the burden, you want to escape the inescapable. Running away is deception and detour. Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.”
— Carl Jung, Liber Novus, 130
Increasing feelings of being at a crossroads with the New Moon in Leo is the exact square aspect formed by Venus and Mars on July 23 one day before the lunation. Making this critical phase of the Venus and Mars cycle incredibly amplified is the fact that it is additionally activating the lunar nodes while also happening in signs of Mercury that are under the influence of Mercury retrograde in Leo. Venus in Gemini, the airy home of Mercury, will be separating from a square aspect with the lunar nodes, while Mars in Virgo, the earthy home of Mercury, will be separating from a conjunction with the South Node of the Moon in Virgo. This critical phase of Venus and Mars will dredge up deep relational patterns that can be processed, but will also feed into the way the Leo New Moon can facilitate a regeneration of our larger purpose in the world.
Since Mars and Venus are the closest planets to our Earth in orbit, they connect us with primal feelings and passions which we discover within our inner darkness, away from the rationalism and judgment of daylight. The union of Mars and Venus initiates us into a process of rediscovering what we want in relationship, as well as how we wish to creatively express ourselves. While Venus relates to what we find beautiful, pleasurable, valuable, and distasteful, Mars represents our ability to pursue our desires, fight for our values, and separate ourselves from whatever we find intolerable or displeasing. With Mars activating the South Node of the Moon in Virgo, an inwardly directed earth sign of discernment, there will be support in discerning where we have veered from our authentic path by neglecting our most heartfelt desires in favor of cultural expectations. You may also realize important storylines developing in connection with the past critical phases of the current Venus and Mars cycle: they formed a conjunction on 22 February 2024, a waxing square aspect on 22 August 2024, and an opposition on 12 December 2024.
Mercury retrograde time periods can dredge up deep inner material and memories in need of reflection or release, and so it will be important to be mindful of messages and synchronicities that can provide guidance regarding whatever death and rebirth process is underway. While Mercury retrograde can bring unexpected twists in storylines and delays, the trickster role of Mercury can ultimately help facilitate movement from where we have been stagnated or stuck, as well as bringing opportunities to shed and purge old patterns and outdated identities as part of an internal reanimation of presence and purpose on the other side – in this case in the middle of August after Mercury stations direct on August 11. You may also receive insight reflecting on the meaning of the Leo section of your chart, since Mercury will ultimately have an extended stay in Leo from June 26 to September 2, moving back and forth between 4°14’ and 15°34′ Leo from June 29 until August 25.
Leo 1 Decan
The New Moon in Leo strides forward in the first face of Leo, associated with the Five of Wands card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. A tarot card associated with conflict and competition, the strife in the image suggests a need to stand ground and fight to achieve a desired position, or could instead be viewed as an inner battle of different aspects of one’s personality contending for control. T Susan Chang in her book 36 Secrets wrote that it’s worth remembering that the “Strife” associated with the Five of Wands “is just another way of saying ‘Striving.’ No matter how daunting the task, there is always a prize to be won. It may not be something we can polish and display on a shelf; it may not even be something we’d choose- but it might just be the making of our personal legend.” The forging of personal legend evokes the personal daimon, guardian daimon, guiding spirit, or higher self that coheres our sense of destiny and vocational calling out of the immense multiplicity of inner parts and cells that create our presence. Our identity can mutate across time, necessitating a transmutation of the persona, mask, vehicle, or role we express our identity through into the world. Out of the contention shown in the Five of Wands image, we can image the scarlet figure in the middle emerging to exert a primal influence on our will-force and focus, opening the door to new potential with our purpose. This kind of breakdown and reforging of identity and purpose resonates strongly with the Mercury retrograde in Leo process intensifying with the New Moon in Leo. Fitting for the contentious air of the image, the rulers of the first decan of Leo are Saturn and the Sun, archetypal forces possessing an oppositional tension of meaning.
Perhaps due to the first decan of Leo being a face of Saturn and the Sun, older texts give it associations with power and influence. Henrich Cornelius Agrippa in Three Books of Occult Philosophy wrote that within the first face of Leo “rises a man riding on a lion: it signifies boldness, violence, cruelty, wickedness, desire, and sustained labor.” In contrast we find “a man dressed in dirty clothes” who has “a figure of a master of the horse looking northward” in Picatrix, with the author declaring the first decan of Leo to be “the face of strength, largesse, and victory.” Elsewhere the author of Picatrix states that images of this face can lead to the acquiring of the “benevolence of lords” as well as the gathering of wild beasts. These images suggest a raw power that can be utilized for both good and evil, overcoming obstacles and competition to achieve victory at any cost.
Indeed, the primal creative shaping force found within the first decan of Leo possesses a demiurgic quality in some ancient texts. Demetra George’s translation of The Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius (a Greek language text ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus during early Roman Imperial period, possibly around 50 CE) reveals an image for the first decan of Leo that has a striking resemblance to many Gnostic images of the demiurge: “face of lion, rays of Sun around head, fiery coiled serpent body rearing upwards.” The Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius declared that the “heart” is the body part afflicted in association, suggesting additional symbolic associations of the need to perceive and act from one’s heart center and to embody the wisdom of the heart. It’s therefore further significant that Mercury will be reanimated in the heart of the Leo Sun on July 31, providing an opportunity to go through one’s own purification process of deepening into the heart. Leading from the heart and embodying and expressing the force of love through one’s actions and relations appears to be an antidote to the potential perils of power found in the first decan of Leo.
Austin Coppock in 36 Faces ascribed the image of “The Spotlight” to the first face of Leo, describing its power as focusing “a mass of attention on one point or person,” while bringing karmic consequences to the role or mask one bears in public performance for an audience. Coppock in particular noted the importance of aligning one’s public persona with one’s inner authenticity so that we do not become trapped in a public role ill-suited to our nature. Coppock also stressed the importance of the first decan of Leo in terms of its “key position in life’s drama,” as “there are spotlights waiting for us at certain crossroads, stages set up and awaiting our performance.” Coppock further emphasized in these critical crossroad times “it is one’s performance and decisions that are utterly determinant of the state of not only our life but other lives.” For numerous astrological reasons, we are currently at such a collective crossroad time period, but we can feel it perhaps most acutely due to the New Moon in the first decan of Leo forming a close opposition with Pluto in Aquarius. The need to align one’s persona with one’s authentic nature in relation to the responsibility that will result fits well with Saturn and the Sun being the rulers of the first face of Leo, with the influence of Saturn bringing the necessity of putting time and concerted effort into constructing an effective vehicle to broadcast our work and connect with a receptive audience.
The demiurgic shaping force found within the first decan of Leo for constructing the mask or vehicle through which you express your purpose in the world is further shown through the Hellenistic text the 36 Airs linking Hephaistos to the first decan of Leo, the greek god of artisans, craftsman, sculptors, blacksmiths, and all manner of fire. Like Hephaistos, we may transfigure the pain of wounds and rejection into artistic forms, tending the fire of the forge as we melt down our old mask that can now be refashioned anew. The work of Hephaistos is not about speed and making something happen fast, but rather taking the necessary time to work and rework the matter into rarified manifestation. Similarly, we need to take our time and not demand quick results in the lunar cycle ahead, letting our creative process align with the changes of nature taking shape within us and outside us.
Due to the Sun regenerating the Moon in its own face on July 24 followed by the Sun reanimating Mercury on July 31 in its own face, the potency of the first decan of Leo will be intensified in personal and world events in the week following the New Moon in Leo. Since the Leo New Moon is also forming a fiery trine aspect with Saturn and Neptune in the exaltation of the Sun, with Saturn and Neptune very close to an exact conjunction, we are being given the opportunity to realign our calling and commitments with not only the way our own internal states are shifting, but also the ways in which the world at large is undergoing a metamorphosis of collective notions and beliefs about reality. May the eternal spirit fire found within the darkness of the New Moon in Leo connect you with the eternal artisan found within your own unconscious depths, lending its unwearying fire to the forging of your essential purpose.
If you enjoy my writing please consider supporting my work through a monthly subscription on my Patreon page. Take a look to see the benefits you will receive as a patron!
You can watch my video on the Leo New Moon here:
References
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. (2021). Three Occult Books of Philosophy. Translated by Eric Purdue. Inner Traditions.
Chang, T. Susan. (2021). 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot. Anima Mundi Press.
Coppock, Austin. (2014). 36 Faces: The History, Astrology and Magic of the Decans. Three Hands Press.
George, Demetra. (2021). Egyptian Decans: Star Gods of Time. Astrology University.
Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic. (2019). Translated by Dan Attrell and David Porreca. Penn State University Press.