The waxing moon is about to go full and reach her maximal brilliance for this zodiacal season, illuminating the noetic, clinical, wintry sign of Aquarius as the Sun continues his passage through the warm, summer sign of Leo. This full moon will occur on Monday, August 19th at 2:26 pm Eastern time.

Whenever a Full moon occurs, a flood of energy comes to a head in the skies. The themes, lessons, and emotional timbre reach a climax. As the Moon fills with the light of the Sun and the celestial energy peaks in intensity for the season, the astral energy around us peaks as well.

Because the full Moon starts the waning season, her placement indicates circumstances and behaviors in our lives that we often need to release. As she wanes and separates from the opposition to the Sun, so too should we wane and separate from the things in our lives that do not serve us. The placement of the Sun indicates what our current focus should be, and the placement of the Moon indicates what we should release.

Just as the Sun illuminates the Moon in her totality, our own inner, unconscious patterning has the opportunity to become completely revealed by the light of our awareness. Like all revelations of the unconscious, this can often create a great deal of chaos, as heretofore unexamined or repressed behaviors and attitudes become explicit. For this reason, the full moon was traditionally considered a more chaotic event in astral weather, as repressed elements of the psyche - both individual and collective - rise to the surface and command our attention.

This full moon is occurring in the noetic, ratiocinative, clinical sign of Aquarius. Traditional astrologers associated Aquarius with objectivity, scientism, cutting-edge ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. Aquarius is known for a humanitarian streak, as they often pursue universal ideals and principles that are objectivity true and absolutely good for all people.

Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, the lord of death, darkness, and time. As the farthest visible planet from the earth, Saturn classically ruled boundaries - especially the boundary between the spiritual world and the material world. While Capricorn reflects the material, earthly realms, Aquarius reflects the spiritual, heavenly realms. Hence, Aquarius was classically associated with the realm of the fixed stars and the Star card in the Tarot.

Imagine viewing this world from lofty, detached vantage point of the stars and heavens above, and you’ll have a good sense of the mindset of Aquarius. Aquarian natives are high-minded and idealistic, and often very humanitarian. They spend a great deal of time reflecting on the best possible outcomes and scenarios. They go through life trying to achieve the same objective, absolute vantage point that one could only receive by rising up to the level of the heavens.

While going full, the Moon will oppose the Sun in Leo. Leo is ruled by the Sun, who sits at the center of the seven planetary spheres, in contrast to Saturn’s position at the edge. Leonine wisdom comes not from detachment and clinical objectivity, but from complete embodiment and presence in the here and now.

For Leo, truth and rightness are found within an authentic connection to the innermost self. Aquarius, in contrast, pursues truth through an objective, detached gaze, unencumbered by the inherently limited perspectives of the self. For Leo, truth is unique to the individual’s experience; for Aquarius, truth must by definition be universal and common to all people. Aquarius views the self as a limit to be transcended, and Leo views the self as a doorway to authentic experience. Aquarius celebrates the universal, Leo celebrates the particular. Aquarius idealizes where we should be, Leo where we are.

When the Moon goes full in Aquarius, our own unhealthy ideals, dogmas, and universal mores come to the surface to be cleared. You’ll have an opportunity to notice ways in which you have been unhealthily conditioned by abstract principles that are disconnected from reality. You can witness how your personal pursuit of objectivity and rightness have ceased to operate as a guiding star. You now have an opportunity to free ourselves of ideals that are binding us instead of directing us. You will find yourself discarding feelings of responsibility to conform to the status quo.

Aquarius’ wisdom is found in its hope for a bright future that is informed by universal principles of morality common to all people. Aquarius longs for a heaven on earth. But the pursuit of universal principles, taken to its extreme, ultimately can’t accodomate the nuanced complexity of people’s unique lived experience. Any universal principle is too simplistic to account for the nuanced conditions required for individuals to flourish as individuals.

The Aquarian impulse forgets that some truths are only obtainable through the coloring of a first-person perspective. Our emotions, moods, and dispositions are not a veil that keep us from perceiving the thing in itself - they are access points to a shared intersubjective world. The perspective you get from up close reveals different things that you can’t see from far away. Principles must be lived and enacted in the moment.

This full moon, sheds guiding principles and perspectives that no longer serve you. Release your attachment to absolutes. Let go of thought patterns, perspectives, and behaviors conditioned in you that obscure your divine spirit. Release actions and approaches to life that are right in principle but not in practice - return to something deeper and more meaningful.

I am reminded of an old zen story of a lion who was raised by sheep. Thinking he was a sheep, the lion became conditioned to act like a sheep, until one day another lion came along and showed the conditioned lion his reflection in the water. Upon seeing his reflection, the lion broke his conditioning and remembered his true nature.

What ways have you allowed conditioning to veil the power of your spirit? What universal principles and ideals have limited your capacity to fully embody who you truly are? What ovine behavior can you shed into order to connect with something more authentic?

Prayer: May we all awaken to the divine lions within us.