We’re being challenged to play with fire this month, without getting burned.
The Sun, in Leo until 8/22, is met by the Moon at the Solar Eclipse (8/12), which raises the challenge to a double dare. Poor Saturn and Neptune, both deeply ambivalent about having to spend years in a fire sign, are still in Aries. Mercury goes into Leo on the 9th, heating up our communications.
And then there’s Jupiter. It recently ingressed into Leo (6/29/26-7/26/27), exaggerating everything about the lion of the zodiac. Over the year to come, expect an extra dose of royal dramatics when Jupiter gets aspected by other planets, as it will be this month.
Life is getting bigger and more dramatic in whatever corner of your chart 6-13 degrees of Leo reside. Around the 15th, when Mercury conjoins Jupiter in wide sextile to Uranus, its messages will appear as tall as a billboard over an L.A. highway.
These Leo transits ask us to differentiate between two types of pride.
We’re only too familiar with the negative type of pride. Low-level Leo can show up as anything from a mild entitlement complex to, in the worst case scenario — epitomized by America’s Leo-rising idiot king — malignant narcissism.
But in a secure individual, pride shows up as a deep and genuine self-confidence. The person is proud of being herself, and generously shares that self with others. Think of
the innocent pride of a well-loved child being feted on their birthday. Their delight is contagious, radiating outwards like the rays of the Sun.
This gives us a clue about why the sign is said to govern children. In a well-adjusted psyche, Leo maintains the wholesome vitality of childhood well into adult life. Its creativity is broadcasted rather than internalized. For its audience, this is a turn-on.
A healthy Leo is like a campfire that attracts everybody around. People flock to him to warm themselves.
August’s fire is met with a softening influence when Venus enters mild-mannered Libra (8/6-9/10). In this placement Venus knows how to smooth over rough edges. In social situations, she is reluctant to offend.
But she can easily be offended by others, if they exhibit coarseness or ugliness (not that she’d let on that she was offended. That would be rude). Venus in Libra’s distaste is an aesthetic judgement.
Libra is an air sign, and air is not an emotional element. This type of Venus tends to defend her tastes on principle, rather than feeling. Consider this when Venus trines Uranus, also in air mid-month.
But something else is going on, complicating things. Whether we realize it or not, our preferences and social judgments will be fed by unconscious forces. Peaking on the tenth, when Venus opposes Neptune, Venus will be up against a flood from the mass mind.
Wherever the transit falls in your chart (look for the fifth degree of Libra/Aries), your attractions — to things and people — may fall into a kind of swoon.
Your options are these: You can allow yourself to be drawn into the collective cacophony, losing touch with what you, as an individual, find good or bad. Or you can use the experience to refine your spiritual understanding.
This transit doesn’t last long, but it can be visionary. It can sensitize us to the awareness that, essentially, everybody’s values derive from the same unified source.
