Greetings friends! I will no longer be writing articles for the new moon and full moon. I have realized that I don't want to perpetuate more long staring at screen times (for me to write and you to read) and I hope that you will enjoy my new podcast instead. Twice a month at the new moon and full moon I will offer a 30-minute insight into the astrology of the lunar cycle and surrounding events as well as a 30-minute guided meditation for you to work personally with the themes, challenges and opportunities. You can follow me on Soundcloud and I will continue to post links with the horoscopes, on the blog, Facebook, and newsletters. Please let me know what you think! xo- Renée August 2nd New Moon in Leo astrology – Listen here Somatic meditation for working with the Leo new moon – Listen here

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These horoscopes are written partially as affirmations. Affirmative thinking and speaking are a form of magic that works through magnetism. If your horoscope affirmation resonates with you, print it out and place it somewhere visible for the next two weeks. Repeat it to yourself often and notice how the magic works. I suggest reading horoscopes for both your sun and rising signs. If you’re interested in a more personalized approach to your astrology you can request a reading here.

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ARIES As an Aries, part of your mission in life is to self-define. It is important for your tribe to assert individuality and claim self agency. The tricky part is how to do this in ways that simultaneously allow for others to do the same. It’s all about finesse when it comes to defining what is right for you without cramping your neighbor’s right to define too. The last few years of your life have been about just this in some way. How you do your thing vs what the world (and all it’s ‘systems’) expect you to do; how you awaken in yourself and stand for what matters there vs how you make a living and stand in solidarity with others. I’m willing to guess you’re starting to get pretty good at it. I’m also fairly certain that by this point you’re keen to the fact that though it can be extremely intimidating to others when you claim your freedom, that ultimately it inspires them to be free too. What will be best to keep in mind the coming weeks is this, “When I make choices for others that instinctually I know I don’t want it is a drain for everyone. When I make choices for myself that I know will ultimately make me more whole as a human it’s a gift to everyone. When I’m not sure I ask myself whether or not I can have fun with what I’m saying yes to. If the answer is a sincere no then that choice is not for me.”

TAURUS There’s significant movement taking place in the parts of your life that have to do with the unseen: secrets you keep and those that have been kept from you; dreams you have at night and the dreams you share with your intimate others; and most importantly perhaps, what has been hidden inside your family and lineage, and how you tend to hide in your current relationships. It’s important for you to understand how these places work together. How do secrets reinforce themselves and become lineage? How do tender dreams that we share with our partners become the stuff of subconscious landscapes (and come from them?) These spaces are getting louder and clearer for you and will continue to for the next two years. August’s new moon is a doorway into learning something about yourself that probably started when you were quite young, if not before you were born. Your affirmation for this time is, “I lovingly embrace all the stuff of my home and family, especially the uncomfortable and painful stuff. I have the capacity to see, accept, and forgive what has previously been hidden for shame and fear. I know that the coming times will be healing if I bring my strength, presence and compassion to them. In order to show up fully for my deepest yearnings, I commit to showing up fully to resolve all that keeps me from them.” GEMINI As a Gemini you are known for your curiosity and gift of the gab. Your tribe is adept at asking questions, and as you mature you become better at listening for answers. This new moon plants a seed of question in your mind about listening and what that means on multiple levels. Especially in the relationships that matter, it’s important that we are able to listen for our own bias in the answers we seek to provide. Listening deeply can be incredibly, deeply uncomfortable because it requires a cessation of the usual thinking that is already forecasting the next question or response. To be in the space of unknown in your most familiar space of communication is a huge gift. It means that you have a chance to learn something about the parts of yourself that are so innate you probably can’t see them. Your skills of communication are getting worked in your relational realms, but this moon is offering something that feels warm, optimistic, and fun. It doesn’t all have to hard work. Your affirmation is, “My heart is big enough to take in all that I hear without drowning their voices with my own thoughts. My heart is big enough to hear my own thoughts without believing in their absolute truth. My heart is big enough to remember that stumbling through the hard parts of life are necessary building blocks, and I can provide allyship, advocacy and affirmation to others without trying to control them. My heart is big enough that I can love myself unconditionally through it all.”

CANCER There’s a steady kind of determination in you that has been growing the past year. This feels like a gathering of forces, an elemental gestation that is turning into unquestionable power. It has something to do your own understanding that you are the one who is in ultimate control of your life. This kind of empowerment will touch every corner of your life – every relationship, your work, your health, your past and your future. Sometimes it can feel scary and unpredictable. Sometimes it’s thrilling and inspired. All the time it’s requiring you to keep your wits and grow your cool. You’ve metaphorically put on your big kid clothes and are ready to come forth and bring your full force. August’s new moon is a chance for you to get still for a second and gather your resources. Think about what you have and how it serves you. This includes your money and capital but it also includes your values. What you’re willing to take a stand for is equal to all other kinds of energy. Your mantra and affirmation for the next few weeks is, “I choose my battles wisely – with myself and others. I put my energy towards that which sustains my curiosity and interest in life itself – in my relationships to all. I make choices that are aligned with what I instinctually know is correct for my own growth and development, and I’m brave enough to admit it.”

LEO The last year has seen you working hard to build and rebuild your sense of internal stability. You have had to examine and reexamine your habits, biases, and assumptions. You have been tested in your work and sense of purpose. The next few weeks are the end of a phase that has felt like a lot of reckoning with yourself and I believe that you’re ready to move to the next step… which I think is going to be significantly more fun. One of the best things about doing the hard work of self reckoning is that it usually leaves you with a much better sense of humor and the capacity to be a lot more relaxed about the little things. And this is good because the coming year is going to see a lot of growth in your relational opportunities and might bring people and circumstances into your life that demand your absolute and unapologetic everything. So as you celebrate your solar return and the new moon in your sign, set aside some time for yourself and do a little ritual. Consider the new year that begins at your birthday and ask yourself, “Who am I when I love with courage rather than self-preservation?” “Who am I when I surrender to the nature of creativity, rather than trying to control its process?” “Who am I when I stop worrying about how I come across and just allow myself to be seen?”

VIRGO I always feel that the month preceding a birthday is kind of like incubation time. For you this is doubly true in that as the sun moves into your sign this year there will also be a significant shift of Jupiter out of Virgo (and into Libra) and therefore out of your solar first house and into the second. In both of these events there will be a feeling of emerging for you. But not yet. The next month is still wrapped in a kind of subjective blanket. Relationships that are alternately blissful and completely confusing as well as the ongoing necessity to stabilize yourself wherever feels like home figure strongly in the chart for this new moon. It would probably be good for you to take the next few weeks off from having definite answers. You can give yourself the mantras of, “I don’t know” and “maybe” as much as you want. Something is arriving in your life that wants to put down roots in one or another. You may already know what that is but I’m guessing that there are still a few details to work out. It’s cool. Take a deep breath and repeat to yourself, “I will know when it’s time to know. I trust that my unknowing is necessary for this phase of learning. I trust that this time serves a purpose.” As you move through the coming weeks please move with absolute compassion for the very real experience that it is to be in the unknown… And then remember that everyone is going through it with you in one way or another so you can’t take them personally either.

LIBRA This new moon occurs in the area of your chart that governs hopes, dreams and wish-making as well as your extended community, colleagues, and networks. The sun and moon are in an active conversation with Saturn who is urging you to get clearer, simpler, and more concrete in the ways you communicate. It is also doing a semi-uncomfortable dance with Neptune who is wanting you to shift the ways you do your chores and take care of your body to become less individual and more collective. I challenge you to consider how you’ve used language as a both a tool for understanding as well as distance. Do the ways that you articulate your personal experience to others leave them feeling closer to you or more confused about who/what/where you really are? I extend an invitation to become less complex in how you’re speaking and more accepting of how others are listening. This new moon wants you to look closely at the dreams you have for the future and how imperative it is that others are a part of them. It asks whether your daily life and language are serving your hopes or your insecurities. To look closely and admit to the ways that we are guarded is sacred work. It requires self-forgiveness which might be one of the most painful of human tasks to arrive at. Your affirmation for this month ends with some space for you to fill in the blanks, “I allow myself boundaries without apology but I also commit to radical honesty with myself. I will acknowledge and let go of boundaries that are made by my discomfort with intimacy. I allow others to help take care of me, and I will trust that they support my future dreams of ”

SCORPIO Considerations of what matters to you in putting yourself forth publically are at hand. How do you want to be received and perceived? The changes that are rattling through your life right now aren’t quite ready to stop, but this new moon is asking you for some direction. Your creative agency as a human being has the potential to turn your life into a masterpiece or a into mess. It all depends on this little thing called imagination. How you envision yourself in service to, and in community with others is key. Make sure you’re not so intent on holding on to what you think is yours that you miss the fact that so many are offering so much to you. Your new moon affirmation is: May my misperceptions of others never cloud my intention towards them. May my love be the lasting impression that I leave – upon others, upon myself, upon the world.

SAGITTARIUS This new moon speaks to an awakening of some wanderlust. It speaks to the desire for deeper meaning and more expansive answers. It asks for you to stretch your wings a little bit and address some shyness, fear, or inhibition that seems to be keeping you comfy at home some days but squirming in your skin other days. This new moon is a battle cry. The ferocity of your self-determination is large right now and this particular influence isn’t one that comes all the time, so it means that if you want to use it then it’s up to you to take charge of the planetary opportunity. You have the chance right now to make a significant change on your path. That change absolutely must honor what makes your heart feel full, what is vibrant and generative creatively, and what keeps your on your toes in terms of your self growth. This is not a time to go to sleep. Your new moon affirmation is: I learn more about myself through joyful adventure than restrictive reasoning. Therefore I am brave in facing the unknown because the unknown is the future, and it’s fun.

CAPRICORN Since last fall there’s been an interesting kind of determination brewing in your subconscious. Something really big has been shifting underneath the surface of your everyday awareness. What it is has a lot to do with how you define yourself by your morals and beliefs. You’ve been examining some truths that you hold dear to your heart and finding that truth is not only malleable, but also time-based… What may have been very true and very necessary then may not be true now. Shaking up your past selves and their assertions is no easy task and you’ve been confronting your fears and traumas in a major way. August’s new moon is a readiness in you to explore something new. Whatever this newness is it feels bigger, bolder, and warmer than you’ve let yourself admit to for quite some time. Whatever this newness is has the potential to completely change the way you do intimacy. Take advantage of the influence and repeat this to yourself daily: The strength of my heart is my uprightness. I see any and all struggle and pain as the opportunity to rid myself of false impressions that keep my heart imprisoned through judgment, fear, comparison, and self-hatred. I commit to seeing the truth in all moments by staying absolutely present in my capacity for love and good humor.

AQUARIUS I’d like to suggest that it’s time to show yourself off a little bit more. No need to boast or brag, but you can own it. By ‘it’ I mean that you’ve been doing a fair bit of work the last year sorting some things out about your relationships and how you do intimacy. I’m willing to bet that some significant changes have transpired internally for you and that these changes are now starting to manifest in the outer world. I hope that you find that the things coming out of your mouth are surprising to you in good ways and that you hear yourself speaking with love, consideration, and without fear of advocating for yourself and what you need. I hope that your work to define community and attend to it also includes a healthy dose self-appreciation for all the work you do. Notice if you have the tendency to attract big, bold personalities who take a lot of attention. There’s a space that’s opening up for relationships right now that is urging you to fill it instead of give it away. Your affirmation for this new moon is, “I invite lovers, partners, and friends into my life who appreciate how I like to play and will meet me there with joyful exuberance. I invite community into my life that is full of these people. May we remember each other’s childlike enthusiasm and remind ourselves to stay full of hope.”

PISCES My dear friend. It’s time to work less and play more. Or it’s time for your work to feel like play and for you to get more serious about that. A two and a half year transit that began last November is asking you to get real with your career and how/what/why/where you’re acting in the public realm. It’s especially important for you that whatever you spend your days doing feels aligned with your heart… If not it will directly affect your posture, (literally) your confidence and uprightness in the world. That said, “following your bliss” can also be an excuse to stay in inertia rather than do the things you know you really want to. My challenge to you is to form a concept around whatever you’re striving to achieve and manifest right now that actively rewards your sense of wellbeing and expansiveness. To do this you will need to be dedicated in forming perceptive patterns that are honestly quite challenging for most of us. Try affirming to yourself that, “The more I put forth my talents and authentic self-expression, the more I am received with support and abundance in the world. What I have to offer is wanted, needed and desired.”

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