Leo New Moon:The Woman in the Mirror
By April Elliott Kent
This year, the jubilant and life-affirming Leo New Moon is clouded by the steeliness of Saturn. Saturn’s transit through Leo every 29 years or so marks an important moment for each of us to come to terms with reality, maturity, and mortality. Abruptly, the Leo party of self-celebration and preoccupation with “the good life” is over; the aging playboy finds he is no longer attractive to the youngest, most desirable women; the spendthrift with a closet full of shoes realizes she’s bankrupt. And a Leo might realize she’s not getting any younger.
For me, it started with some gray hair.
I’ll turn 45 years old in a couple of weeks, just after transiting Saturn exactly conjoins my natal Sun – an aspect I’ve been dreading for a long time. In astrology, you see, Saturn is the ultimate party-pooper. When Saturn, on his travels through the sky, makes a stop near one of the planets in your birth chart, you can expect loneliness, fear, illness, and hard times – or so say the traditionalists.
But they never said anything about gray hair. It’s not terribly noticeable to anyone else – my hair is light brown – but I contemplate it each morning when I look in the mirror. And the weird thing is… I sort of like it.
Our culture places an enormous emphasis on a woman’s youth and attractiveness, and hair is a huge component of her beauty arsenal. Certainly when I was younger, I considered my hair my best physical feature. In my modest teens I grew it long, and it fell straight and shiny and simple all the way to my waist. It was a palette for my experimentation with different personalities throughout my twenties: I permed it into a big, wild Leonine mane; chopped it into an asymmetrical style when I joined a New Age band; grew it out and colored it when I moved into my secretarial career. Finally, when I turned 30, I settled down – and so did my hair. Newly self-employed, I could no longer afford costly trips to the salon and switched to a sleek, practical bob.
Then I got married, and I stopped thinking about my hair very much at all. But soon after I reached 40, my Leo mane turned demanding. After a long string of stressful life changes, I noticed my hair was falling out. It was subtle at first, but within a year or so I was hiding my scalp with hats and strategically placed scarves! I had always been puzzled by my friends’ preoccupation with their hair – how it looked, how much they had. “It’s just hair!” I thought – and, well, yeah, it is… until you begin to lose it! Then, it feels like you’re losing your youth, your beauty, and your vitality.
In time, my hair grew back almost completely. But last year, just after Saturn entered Leo, I noticed the first coarse, silver strands that gave mute but undeniable testimony of my advancing years. I look in the mirror now and instead of the soft, pretty little face that used to look back at me I see gray hair, a sagging chin, and a face that shows the effects of a lifetime of gravity and a cranky disposition.
You’d think it would depress me, but it’s actually strangely liberating. For one thing, I’ve never been a beauty, have never had the luxury of getting by on my physical appearance. I long ago resigned myself to getting by on my brain, wit, and sundry talents, so “losing my looks” is no great tragedy. In fact, the face that looks back at me now is a more apt reflection of how I’ve always felt on the inside. My mother used to say I was “born old,” and it’s true that I’ve never been a stereotypical, fun-loving Leo. When people ask me, “What do you do for fun?” I’ve always drawn a blank. “I… um…. work?”
But even a workaholic like me needs to feel alive; likes to relax and kick up her heels now and then, have dinner at a nice restaurant, take a weekend trip out of town. Saturn’s passages, especially through joyful, life-affirming Leo, have a way of robbing us of even these small pleasures. I won’t lie: The past year has been difficult. I’ve been struggling in many areas of my life, and the weight of the world has been heavy on my shoulders. Perhaps you have a similar story to tell whether or not you are a Leo; we all feel that sign’s vibrant heartbeat somewhere within us, and its house position in your chart is where you’ve been feeling the strain.
But as Saturn closes in for its precise rendezvous with my Leo Sun next week, I feel as if I’m finally reaching the top of the mountain – the crest not just of this year, of this Saturn transit, but of the first half of my life — and that what lies ahead is a downhill slope. I finally feel something of what the woman in the New Moon Sabian symbol must feel, looking at her new haircut: a feeling akin to exhilaration. It’s the feeling of being really free, at last, from the constraints of youth and beauty, of wanting and expectation, of the gentle tyranny of thrilling possibilities.
Looking in the mirror at midlife, I see my gray hairs as reassuring talismans. They’re a testament to 45 years of love and struggle, worry and celebration, and a spirited entanglement with life. Where I stand and who I am now are the result of choices I’ve made and attitudes I’ve cultivated, and my life, for better or worse, is all my own doing. I look in the mirror, and I don’t see a young, beautiful girl, a blank slate with her whole life ahead of her. Instead, at long, long last, I see someone I recognize.
© 2006 by April Elliott Kent
