Exact time of full moon: Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 6:11am Central
The fish are jumping. The cotton is high. The tomatoes are ripening. The sunflowers are blooming. Here we are, halfway in between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. Summer is receding. Do we celebrate or do we weep?
It is here in Leo season where we acknowledge the waning summer. Leaves on the trees are changing color almost imperceptibly. The tomatoes need some fertilizer to make it through the next couple months. Some of those sunflowers are already setting seed. If we think about it, there is a natural reaction to the waning of the light and the impending autumn; we want to make the most of this moment, now.
Here lies the root of the archetype ology of Leo season. In the glorious heat of summer is also an awareness of its waning. Therefore, it is imperative that we celebrate the tomatoes and the sunflowers! In six months, they will be a faded memory, lost to the garden and found only in box stores. The glory of the sunflower is right here in the present moment. It is shining and radiant. Like the sunflower, it’s imperative that we shine and radiate, right now. It is imperative that we make the most of our life, express our gifts and talents, and leave a little piece of ourselves in the hands of the world, hoping to make it a better place.
There is joy in that. Expressing our gifts, playing in the garden of nature, bringing pieces of our imagination into reality, celebrating love and romance… we all know joy when she is dancing with us. We all want and deserve joy. One of the great shadows of this time is in seeking joy as a response to what is actually the fear of the death of the sunflower and the grief of the silently fading summer.
If that is the case, we can gobble up the present moment and just want to stuff more of it in our face. Our joy can be at the expense of others’ joy. Our shining radiant expression can become self-centered attention seeking. In making the most of our life, we can disregard the effects of our actions. The piece of us we leave in the hands of the world might be left on the shelf due to the price tag. The arrogant king will be dethroned. The judgmental queen will be egged… or worse.
But the child, proverbially, is innocent. Prior to our cultural indoctrinations, we were free. We were happy. Time did not exist. The heaviness of the world did not exist. That child still lives within us. We can re-member them and make them a part of our being now. We can free ourselves from our cultural expectations and limitations. We still have the ability to find with us our sunflowers and bring them unselfconsciously out into the world. It’s possible to engage every new moment with child-like wonder.
For this New Moon, set the most noble and difficult intention of our time; choose to be happy, no matter what. As Dan Millman says, choose an unreasonable happiness. The world is on fire. Darkness is encroaching. Winter will be here sooner than we would like to admit. Therefore, this present moment is Sacred. Life is Sacred. The Now is Sacred. Happiness and love are the most noble and regal qualities to radiate. Learning how to flip our switch from fear to gratitude and from gratitude to joy is our greatest intention this month. What are you grateful for? Celebrate that, and all will be well.
– Courtesy of Evolutionary Astrology with Ryan Evans
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