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.
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 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, my 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.
What a beautiful baby!!! Thank you for sharing.