Heart-Opening Experiences
Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone.
The Back of the Closet
From time to time, we get a little bored with ourselves – tired of facing, each day, our same old quirks and hang-ups, the same face looking back at us in the mirror. I’m not talking about a full-on crisis. No one in this scenario is leaving their spouse and buying a red convertible. It’s more like one of those crummy Monday mornings when you’re starting another work week and would love to be someone else, anywhere else, doing something completely different.
The alarm goes off. You shower, drink your morning coffee, brush your teeth, and pad off to your closet to find something to wear. Ugh – you hate all of your clothes! Or rather…. Your hand lingers over a weird little number in the back of the closet. You bought it a few years ago on a whim and instantly regretted it. It’s a little bit odd, a strange color, daring. It’s not your usual kind of thing at all – and that’s absolutely perfect. You put it on, check your reflection in the mirror, and smile. And then you head off to work with an extra spring in your step.
The Sun’s square to Uranus (Feb. 3, 2023, 6:50 pm PST) goes by in a flash. Its influence lasts no more than a day or two. But that’s long enough to feel a rush of boredom, dissatisfaction, and the intense desire to be someone else, or at least a different version of ourselves. What’s in the back of your closet? Use this day to change things up and reinvent something about yourself.
Drama
there’s a certain kind of person who thrives on interpersonal drama. They like to pick fights with their partner at parties. They enjoy the challenge of stealing another person’s spouse. They distrust the moment in a relationship when they have begun to feel a little bit comfortable; maybe this means the passion has gone out of it all. Such a person seems to mistake disruption for passion.
That sort of dynamic is one potential face of today’s Venus in Pisces square Mars in Gemini (Feb. 4, 2023, 7:28 pm PST). It’s an aspect of conflict, whether in a relationship or within oneself, specifically between a craving for peace and quiet and a desire for movement and chatter. Whether you naturally gravitate toward one side or the other, the work of the square aspect is to find a way to combine them. The huge potential advantage of this aspect is a chance to wake up to conflict and, in resolving it, to grow closer and more passionate than ever.
Heart-Opening Experiences
A new baby entered our family last week when my nephew and his wife welcomed their first child. They had already chosen to name him after my late brother, and baby obligingly debuted on the 28th anniversary of his namesake’s passing.
The kid has a keen sense of timing and a terrific origin story.
He’s also exceptionally good-looking. In my own baby pictures, I resemble a crumpled wad of Kleenex; but this kid looks like a little person. His composed, Yoda-like countenance is unexpected in someone new to the planet. I keep pulling out my phone to smile at his photo.
Children are often associated with Leo, the sign of this week’s Full Moon (Feb. 5, 2023, 10:28 am PST, at 15º40’ Leo). To my clients and students, I characterize the sign of Leo and the fifth house of the chart as symbols of “heart-opening experiences.” Accordingly, the Leo Full Moon invites us to pry open the stiff, creaky doors and gates of our hearts, the better to let the joy in. It’s the exact right Full Moon to frolic with a puppy, dance at a wedding, or smile at a baby’s photo.
Full Moons have a way of showing us what’s been missing in our lives. The Leo Full Moon is the response to the call of the New Moon in Aquarius, and Saturn in that sign for the past couple of years has taken us down a lonely, wintry path. Cut off from so many loved ones through the long months of the pandemic, we became emotional camels by necessity, making do with short supplies of companionship. Our social instincts may have grown a little rusty over time, but this Leo Full Moon, on the Sabian symbol 16 Leo: Sunshine just after a storm, awakens our hunger for heart connections and joy.
For a full Saturn cycle, since there was last a baby among us, our family has seen many sad “storms” – too many funerals, not enough weddings and births. With Leo on his Midheaven, the highest point of his birth chart, my great nephew was born a tiny, overdue beacon of warmth and delight.
Leo’s lesson is that we bring love with us into the world. We don’t have to earn it – we just have to show up and share it.
Full Moons show us what’s been missing, but they also highlight what’s been there all along: the joy and hope we haven’t acknowledged for fear they will be taken away; the love we hide in case it isn’t reciprocated. But this Full Moon and the Aquarius Sun both aspect Uranus, the renegade jailbreaker that promises we can free ourselves from the limitations we’ve put on our own happiness. At this Leo Full Moon, shake off your chains and reclaim your heart – with its boundless capacity for love, its insatiable passion, and its fearless joy.
Writing and collages © 2017-2023 April Elliott Kent
