February 1: Leo Full Moon
Blessed Imbolc, witches! February opens with a mighty roar.
The Full Moon at 13°04 Leo at 5:09PM ET on February 1st, illuminates the mid-Winter festival of Brigid, the bright one, Celtic goddess of poetry, inspiration, fires of the forge, home and hearth, protection, midwives and fertility, and healing waters and wells.
If you'd like to read more about the magic of Brigid, check out these past posts about her fiery arrow and divination as guide through darkness:
It is rare and sacred to have such a powerful Imbolc lunation. We are at the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. This is a time to rededicate ourselves to the dreams we cast into the cauldron of immortality at the start of Capricorn season. Leo ignites our heart's desire. The cosmos is calling us to commit to what is truly worth the effort, what sparks joy, and let go of what is not, before Spring arrives.
Aquarius season is the still depths of winter. The calm clear gazing into the frozen waters to see how the light refracts. We are just six weeks away from tipping into the solar time of the year when day becomes longer than night. Light is actually gaining minutes in the sky every day, but it can feel like we still have so very far to go.
February is when spirits fatigue and people question whether they are going to survive the hardships of winter (mentally, emotionally, and spiritually). The Aquarius inventor is ingenious about finding the best way forward. What are the small measures you can take each day to note the passing of time and affirm moving towards rebirth? Perhaps create a ring countdown to spring and break one off each morning?
This Full Moon is powerfully creative and dynamic. Luna is opposite a formidable Aquarius stellium of Pluto, Mars, Sun, Venus, and Mercury activating our awareness about what we can do to bring the structural changes we need to see into the world. Aquarius is an air sign correlating to the mental realm. Its symbol is two wavy lines representing constant motion, of the mind and thought, that never stop traveling outward. Aquarius has a lot to share although they may hold back from saying it. Ruled by Saturn, which can give a disposition towards repression, the Leo Full Moon is a time for Aquarius to let it all out. Say what you need to say! Whether you dance, paint, sing, or visually depict.
The creative conjunction between Venus and Mercury at 14°57 Aquarius that peaked on January 29, provides poetic grace to our speech and communication. If you've got something that you need to share, the Moon's conjunction with Jupiter on Friday, January 30, is a lovely opportunity to connect and provide care after a week that has brought a lot of pain and sadness.
Leo is the braveheart who opens rather than contracts in the face of danger. We are called into love of the fiercest kind. Brigid is a goddess of protection who covers the land with her cloak as a shield and sanctuary from those who would do us harm. At Imbolc, we are called to consider the hearth fire of the home, who we share our sacred space with, and who we extend ourselves to offer safety and protection.
February brings a massive planetary shift with the entrance of Saturn into Aries on February 13th and we can feel the tension building towards a climatic point. The destructive Mars-Pluto conjunction on January 27, brought more state sanctioned violence of innocent people with the execution of nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents in Minnesota.
The entrance of Pluto into Aquarius in November 2024, brought about the empowerment of authoritarian regimes. The best of Aquarius offers a vision of an egalitarian society where the unique gifts and talents of each individual are recognized, valued, and cultivated. The water bearer pours down wisdom from the heavens; a divine blueprint of possible futures where social hierarchy is eradicated and the inherent dignity, divinity, and worthiness of all people to live in peace is realized. This civil rights era dream is what people reference when they discuss the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
Pluto represents the shadow side of human nature; the hurt places within us of such pain that we become shut down, hardened, and cruel. The Plutonic conceals secrets, psychic material that is hidden, buried in the subterranean, which erupts suddenly, and often violently, to shatter our sense of self or even psyche. Pluto transits are profound because they can bring traumatic material to the surface. Air signs, especially Aquarius and Gemini, are connected with technology innovation. The entrance of Pluto into Aquarius and Uranus into Gemini signals that rapid evolution as well as issues of privacy and power will arise in these areas over the next decade.
Pluto in Aquarius can manifest as authoritarian, big brother watching us with total technological control, isolated in a cold cruel world, our every move, thought, and sentence tracked and recorded, our very beings analyzed and reduced to dehumanizing categories, such labeling protestors "domestic terrorists". It is an escalation of the technological tracking that ICE agents in Minnesota are filming protesters and immigrants as part of massive facial recognition push. These practices are being tested on groups that the government has demonized but they will eventually become standard practice for everyone if we allow it.
The tv show Westworld was a metaphor for awakening, reincarnation, human cruelty, artificial intelligence, and the dangerous direction that simulated reality can take us. It spelled out what morally bankrupt companies could do with massive amounts of collected data and how social hierarchy could be stratified according to arbitrary categories. In a telling move, the show has actually been removed from HBO Max and can no longer be streamed.
The historic world-dissolving-regime-toppling conjunction of Saturn and Neptune at 00°45 Aries on February 20, will spark a change that will unfold over the next several months as a people's uprising. Neptune and Saturn have not come together since 1989, when the global political landscape was radically changed with the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in China that sparked a global outcry around human rights.
The last Saturn-Neptune conjunction also coincided with the sudden and dramatic seizing of freedom with the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany that led to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and eventually the USSR. We should not underestimate the power of the people to bring about radical change in a short amount of time. Especially since 00° Aries is the Equinox activation point, known as the world axis, that contains all the potential to bring about new life into creation. Saturn and Neptune have not met here in 6000 years so what we are going through has been eons in the making!
The Aquarius New Moon solar eclipse on February 17, will be a catalyst connecting these two areas of life, so notice how they start to come into alignment over the next 2 weeks for you personally.
Aquarius is associated with the wise fool, and the disrupting planet of Uranus in modern astrology. The Leo Full Moon is in a square with Uranus about to station direct at 27°27 Taurus on February 3rd, activates a desire to burst encrusted structures that inhibit individual freedom and expression. Uranus wishes to topple the old order to replace them with new ones.
The billionaire grab for power with this current political regime is merely a repeat of what we have always seen when power and industry goes unchecked. The revolutionary impulse is to clear away class distinctions in order to produce equality, and thus greater harmony, between employers and workers, varying cultures, ethnicities, religions, genders, races, and all people on earth.
We are not truly different from one another. What is done to one of us will eventually be done to all of us. Let the Leo Full Moon ignite the bright flame for freedom and truth within you. Trust it will burn strong enough to lead the way out of this darkness.