Pisces Full Moon (Lunar Eclipse) - August 28, 2007

It's eclipse time, y'all! Eclipses are uber-powerful lunations, as the Moon and Sun are conjunct the Lunar Nodes, which are the points in the sky where the Moon's path intersects with the Sun's apparent path (ecliptic). (The astronomy's kinda confusing, I know!) All you really need to know is this: If a regular Full Moon makes people crazy, a Lunar Eclipse requires that twice as many looney-bin paramedics be on call than usual.

Speaking of psychosis, this Full Moon is in Pisces, the sign of crazies and mental hospitals. After all, when life gets too stressful, you either drink, do yoga, or disassociate from reality altogether. The problem is that rigid Virgo Sun, always trying to analyze and compartmentalize.

Virgo is the nurse practitioner at Bellevue, trying to ascertain whether your psychotic episode is due to mental illness or if it's just alcohol-induced. She's completing a five-page assessment while you're in la-la land, wondering how those bunnies got into the room with the cushioned walls.

The Virgo part of you creates obsessive-compulsive rituals to stave off the anxiety of Piscean boundlessness. If you check that the front door is locked -- three times -- then your home just might be safe! That is, you might be safe. But not really, because you know that you're just this close from the edge of the cliff of consensual reality, and your rigid habits only create the illusion of control.

The conventional psychiatrist will just dose you up with a nice cocktail to zombify you. However, one of those wacko transpersonal docs may prescribe surrender. Just go with the flow, man! What do those bunnies mean, anyway? Can your dreams, however cockamamie, tell you something useful about either your unconscious or God's will? Maybe insanity is just a deviation from the collective's immersion in media and material consumption! If so, then -- PLEASE -- go off the deep end! Let it all hang out!

But if you see the men in white coats, do me a favor -- RUN!

The Fine Print: This eclipse occurs at 4 Pisces, so it will have the most impact for those natives with planets or angles around 4 degrees of mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces).

Note to Commenters: I will be on vacation the week of August 27, and am unlikely to respond to your comments. So help each other out!

Leo New Moon - August 12, 2007

The Saturn-Neptune opposition is still in effect until Saturn enters Virgo next month. Sure, the disillusionment juice is going bad, but we haven't thrown it out of the fridge just yet -- Saturn is slow to notice such things.

To bid Him a hearty farewell, we've got a Luna Nueva in Leo, the sign desperately awaiting his departure.

This lunation is all glitz and glamour, with the Lights tightly opposing Neptune in Aquarius. It's all image baby, and we hope to fool the audience into thinking our veneer is the real deal ... and that the Old Guy will let us get away with it.

Unfortunately, the attention we want may be out of reach. Neptune is a frail gypsy who takes our money, promises fame, and disappears out the back of the circus tent.

The only way to make this lunation work is to not make it about ourselves ... which is not easy when we're wanting to be both King and Queen. Neptune favors selflessness, and any new starts this time around will have to include a sacrifice to this otherworldly planet. This means giving instead of getting. As much our Leonine side wants to be the center of the universe, we must provide warmth to others, and put our desires to be worshipped aside.

The Fine Print: This New Moon occurs at 19 Leo. If you have personal planets or angles around this degree area in fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), you're either the star of the show, or the understudy.