Leo Birthday Reports 2005

July 22, 2005
Happy Birthday Leo!

The kinds of changes that take most people years or decades, you are going through in a few months or a few seasons. A rare, even unique, combination of factors is providing you with the motivation and awareness to develop yourself in unusual ways.

By this time, if you have even a vague interest in astrology, you have heard that Saturn has entered your birth sign. Indeed, Saturn's progress over the next few months will specifically cover those born in the first week of Leo, through July 31. So we can say for sure (with unusual certainty for astrology that does not specifically address your chart) that you are, or will soon be having, a direct experience of Saturn conjunct your natal Sun.

In the simplest terms, this is not a sign that your life is changing; rather, it is evidence that you are changing, and changing now. It's a strong indicator of a maturing process underway at this moment, and a reminder that you were born into this life to be your own master.

One of the keys to this is going to be taking the lead role in your relationships. I don't mean that you're going to walk all over everyone, but I mean that you become either the agent of change, or the main person in the situation who is ready and willing to change. Sometimes being a leader means following the example of others, or responding directly to what they are doing or becoming.

With both Saturn and Chiron so strongly affecting your sign now, balancing out these two aspects of leadership, the passive and the active, are vitally important. If you can remain highly sensitive to your environment, you will know what to do, who to cooperate with, who to avoid, and you'll see the various two-edged aspects of many of the decisions you face.

There appears to be some work-related or health-related matter that you will soon have an opportunity to attend to. This extends through the season into the next; by September, you'll be onto exactly what you need to do. Since this is an old situation, you've had time and space to make the decisions you need to make in order to move this process along.

As with all things Saturnian, your new way of life will be increasingly incremental. A series of small adjustments made over a long period of time is what will gradually guide you to the new place that you want to be, and help shape you into the new person you are becoming.

Perhaps the most important thing that will change is your method of self-assessment. What most people do not realize is that behind your confident exterior and heart of gold is a person who has many more questions than is apparent. There is a difference, however, between evaluating yourself with a sharply critical eye, and doing so with compassion and love.

When Saturn is present in our lives, all things become fodder for discipline and growth, and this challenge is one of the more important ones that will assist you in having an easier life as well as true peace of mind. There must be no question that you are a kind, compassionate and fair person. The question is how you identify and change the things about yourself that you need to change.

For this project, certain people close to you will provide both negative and positive examples. Be sure you choose between them carefully.

July 29, 2005
Happy Birthday, Leo!

At the moment, the universe is playing all its cards face up; you know what you've got going for you, and you're aware of certain pitfalls as well. You may wish those pitfalls weren't there, but you're a lot better off knowing about them, because at least you can put your intelligence to work — intelligence which has never failed you, once you've asked for its help.

The most important thing you'll be making your mind up about this year is how you feel about your own life. You have many reasons to think you're completely sorted out on this matter, but emotional business is a little more complex than that. But when certain tensions arise — such as a potential identity crisis between who you are, and the various commitments and professional callings you feel — you will have many opportunities to quite literally rise above the conflict and learn something new and spectacular about yourself.

That, in itself, is an achievement, and it will open the way for more.

It's amazing what can work out in the world when we work it out emotionally first, and when we insist on a policy of honesty in our most intimate partnerships, no matter what the culture may demand. That's never done as a single leap, but it does come naturally to you, as long as you can keep yourself emotionally clear. And you have reason to do so: Saturn newborn in your sign is sending you the message that you need to take over your life. There's nothing like an emotional fog to make that impossible, and nothing like clarity and a sense of commitment to make it seem like the most basic thing in the universe.

It is scary seeing what other people often go through in the world, and nobody really likes to think they are immune from chaos setting in. But in many respects, you know it's all a matter of how much responsibility you take for your own life. At this point it would seem like you're feeling an unusually important calling, perhaps involving both a creative drive and also an instinct to better yourself materially. These alerts we often must follow when we have the chance.

If you run into complications as you go, you must be patient, and allow the original seed of your idea to propel, direct or guide you into the future. All progress involves some degree of conflict and thus overcoming conflict. Those who get past it are the true achievers in the world. Those who get trapped are the ones who seem to fail. But to state it again, the extent to which the seeming differences in agendas or values will best resolved is as a function of your own growth and consciousness — not what you put others through. Get their help if you need it, but resolve to take the lead, and resolve to change old patterns if that's what you must do.

You are, at the moment, able to have some unusual insights into the otherwise impossible to discern inner worlds of other people because you're deeply in tune with certain factors from your own past. Understanding the psychology of past friendships (which may be surfacing in strange ways) will provide you with some rewarding information when it comes to building trust now. You don't take well to being lied to, or deceived in any way, but the reasons this may have happened, and the reasons you may have missed it, are about to be so apparent that you may well figure out how to never let it happen again.

Perhaps the greatest challenge you will meet with your usual Leonine gusto is integrating your personal affairs with your work responsibilities. Most resolve this boundary issue by doing meaningless work. Then it's easy to "leave work behind." But you're on a higher level; you must live with meaning, in all aspects of your life — and you know it. This is a process that has come into full awareness during the past six months, and you are learning, if nothing else, that work relationships really are relationships, and that personal encounters, romances and love really are working partnerships.

In some mysterious way, each small or large experience in any of these relationships hands you a key to yourself. Each time you solve a problem or resolve a situation, you open up a new room in your inner world, which is nature's way of giving you incentive to stay on top of whatever you may face, and to face your future with optimism and gratitude that you really do have a life, and a good one at that.

Aug. 5, 2005
Happy Birthday, Leo!

WITH A SPECTACULAR New Moon in your birth sign so close to your solar return, there must be good things on the horizon. Saturn's recent arrival also suggests that this is a time of learning, maturity and most of all, striving for success. With Saturn, leadership is always the keynote, and in the first instance, that means taking over your own life.

Part of what you must make certain of is that those you call friends are working with you rather than against you. Many people resolve to get their lives together, and then unconsciously assign the task of certain individuals around them to be what I call spoilers. Their job is to be jealous, resentful, and make little problems — anything so that your success does not threaten them. Then, everyone struggles.

Because this is considered normal behavior in a society so dedicated to mediocrity, where so many so steadfastly refuse to take responsibility for their lives, it often goes unnoticed or at least unnamed; and of course, they're our friends, after all. The word friend, however, is something you need to use with great discretion at the moment. At this point this may be the single most important concept in your life, applicable to any relationship.

Whether someone is an old or new arrival in your life is not the deciding factor. It is, rather, how you feel in their presence, and the particular way in which their influences affect you. To discover this, pay close attention to your own responses, the flow of your life, and your general state of happiness. Then, figure out what everyone else has to do with it. The causes and effects may not be obvious at first — but if you look you will notice the connections.

I don't mean to make you paranoid, only to alert you to an energetic condition and leave the observation process to you. Try a little experiment. No need to judge anyone, just to notice what they say and do over the next month or so. There will be a clear pattern if there is any pattern at all. Notice whether people seem to care about your schedule; how they respond when you have a breakthrough; and whether the ideas they share with you seem to build on or detract from the ideas you share with them.

Most of all, notice how they respond when you are feeling good, or when you make a decision that involves seizing back some aspect of your life previously consigned to authority figures.

In its most positive expression, your communication with friends can inspire you to think differently; their point of view can provide an alternate to your own. As well, they may be able to show you, by their example, how you can do things differently, better or more innovatively. But this must never rise to the level of conflict, or even pressure, and if it does, I suggest you draw the border and keep your space, psychic, physical or otherwise, clear.

The extent of the changes associated with Saturn in Leo will have far reaching implications for everyone, though for you, it's a matter of a complete revision of your personal sphere, the way you define yourself, and who you feel you are on the deepest level. To go along with this, it's necessary that your idea of what it means to relate to a person in a deep and meaningful way evolves. Consider that in traditional astrology, Saturn is the ruler of your opposite sign Aquarius. This puts a stronger emphasis on relationships, which is to say, relating to others in what is the highest possible expression.

Not only don't you have time for games; all you do have time for are people who feel that in some small but meaningful way, the world depends on them, and that they are at the center of their own lives. At the very least, a shared value to making the most of life is vitally important. Under such an agreement, people are supportive of one another's successes and also supportive when things are not going perfectly. There is an ethic to not take advantage of another person, at the same time not letting someone else take advantage of you without your expressed consent.

Because Mercury is now so prominent in your chart, I suggest you be conscious of three things: children, language and cash flow.

One way or another, a child seems to play a vital role, or demand special attention. If there is a child in your life, you must ensure that their needs are met no matter what is going on with you. There is likely to be some kind of contradiction in the environment; some aspect of life that is not kid-friendly.

As for cash flow, this is a time for some restraint, for setting priorities, and for taking care of old problems, such as bills and debts.

As for language, remember that much of life really is a matter of interpretation. How you define things, including how you describe them to others, has a mysterious way of suggesting what they will become, and over that, you have real influence. There may be many times in the approaching seasons that you will decide between living in the past and living out the future; that is, between what you wanted before, and what you want today. There is a difference. Please make sure you know what it is.

There is nothing you encounter in life that will not yield to a touch of daring creativity, and any creative endeavor will respond brilliantly from taking a fresh approach and unusual angle. It can be subtle; but the key will be taking a little chance and putting some energy into the project — which is another way of saying putting some extra energy into you.

Aug. 12, 2005
Happy Birthday Leo!

When my mother was little, the Smokey the Bear campaign was introduced by the National Forest Service. It reminded everyone, "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires." But as a little girl living in Brooklyn, she said that she had no idea how she could actually do that.

Given the wide variety of tensions in your solar return charts this year — most of them internal, and most of them affecting you on the psychological level — you will need to learn how to prevent forest fires, even if you live in a city. Smokey (born Aug. 9, 1944) was a Leo, and so are you. What you have going for you is stability, but what you need to remember is that sometimes being too rigid or inflexible creates the spark that can light up the woods.

The way you can prevent forest fires, and for that matter, house fires, is to stay flexible, keep your temper, and allow your opinions some room to change. In fact, a lot of room to change. Because Mercury is in your sign, this predominantly points to your opinions about yourself. Leo is the sign of generosity and glowing self-esteem, but when this goes to the shadow side (as may be induced by a retrograde) the results can be extremely stressful for yourself and everyone around you.

The retrograde movement of Mercury, and two squares to Mars, strongly suggests that there's a backwards aspect to your thinking that will be challenged by a more common-sense aspect of your psyche. The past is not a safe place; it does not exist at all, except as a concept and as a set of influences that affect you in this moment. To the extent that it does exist, it can be quite dangerous to your peace of mind, because usually what we carry is trauma, and untrue information about the world.

The productive part about the tense retrograde of Mercury is that you can use any conflict that surfaces in your life as a map to what you have to heal, particularly in ways that relate to your past. You can also look at your choice of words, and the way you apply language, as a good indicator of what you can bring to the light of understanding. How do you treat yourself? What do you say to yourself?

Just because you're a strong, capable, and in many ways, extraordinary person does not mean that you're not affected in some rather ordinary ways by your history and the cruel environments that most children grow up in. We take those environments in, and we take them on. Then, we may convince ourselves they were perfectly rosy. The phenomenon of inner voices affects every person on the planet, and you would do well to understand and assess just where those inner voices you carry around come from.

The problem is that these inner voices are quite realistic, and are rarely understood for what they are — or for whom they speak, which ranges from the child within who needs attention NOW, the parents who sought to control that child, or the inner parts of the psyche who were put in charge of keeping control. Yes, it's nice to have a rich inner life, but we don't need to drag around our whole family as part of the process.

In looking at and living within the world for the coming year and indeed the next few years, it may be increasingly difficult for you to assess who is telling the truth and who is giving you a line. It may be challenging to distinguish true ethics from a religious television show. This holds true in all forms of relationships and partnerships; and truth be told, there will be, in the end, a high price for believing what is not true. But you will need to have faith in something, and you will thus need to discern. One way you can do that is by a slow, careful process of mental assessment. Despite all that's going on for you, you're a dedicated optimist. But now your optimism needs a strategy.

You can use methods, from writing to therapy to art, to map out the contents of your beliefs and your perceptions. Once you are tracking yourself, you can go back to what you've established previously and assess whether you have reason to change your mind about something.

You can tap into deep (as in ancient) traditions, and use these as frames of reference for your various reality checks. But the most vital thing you can do is to express your actual ideas in a daring way and see what happens. Notice who and what gathers around you. Listen to what people say. See how far your ideas go, who comes to assist you, and who tries to rain on your parade.

Remember, it is art that makes the artist, and art is a form of human communication on the most basic level. Both the creation AND the expression provide you a means of testing who you are, a means of stretching your reality, and most important, a way of actually seeing the way in which you interact with the rest of the planet. While your current self-critical and less-than-trusting phase may leave you feeling like doing anything but putting yourself on the line, and while a variety of mental blocks may get in your way, you really have the perfect opportunity to learn and grow.

You'll likely notice that relationships based on progress and activity are the ones that work the best. Small achievements mean a lot. Along this vein, be careful not to sacrifice your dreams while you work toward eliminating the examples of wishful thinking in your life. The idea is to discern between false hope and true idealism. Arriving at the truth of any matter this important takes time, but it can be done.

It's often a process of assessing what hurts us and what helps us, in the long run. If you can be honest with yourself about these two factors, much else will come into focus, and you'll be able to make your decisions with greater clarity. Remember that there is no rush, and that you will learn all you need to learn in time. And meanwhile, you have a lot to be thankful for — remember what it is.

Aug. 19, 2005
Happy Birthday Leo

[The Sun changes signs to Virgo in about four days, on Aug. 23. So this will be the last Leo birthday report, and the first Virgo one will be next week. For those new to birthday reports, I suggest reading the whole series for your sign and working with the information that works best for you. The ones immediately before and after your birthday will likely be the most apropos. Birthday reports going back three years are archived on the subscriber homepage.]

A MAGNIFICENT FULL MOON around your birthday echoes the words of Moses: The truth shall set you free. The truth is that you are different than the people around you, and in the end, that is nobody's business but your own. You know you are making progress in your life; and you know why.

One of the main reasons is because you've been able to put a dividing line between the past and the present. You have discovered that your prior tendencies to dwell on the past have done little but deny you awareness of NOW, and access to the future. It's not like the past no longer exists, or no longer bears relevance; but you can now distinguish it from what you are doing today, who you are today, and what you need today.

And you've likely seen that there are some who will gladly cooperate with this process, and some who will not. And if they do not, then so be it.

However, where a particular professional matter is concerned, you need to be aware that this may be difficult to distinguish. I strongly suggest you maintain your independence as much as possible where your career is concerned, and not allow the comments, opinions or beliefs of others (or of the world) to interfere with your progress — particularly their beliefs about what others say is possible, or not possible.

In personal relationships, you may need to negotiate and enforce a boundary here. There is so much emphasis on your professional life, and on making your way in the world as an independent person, that you cannot risk your personal relationships being anything but supportive. At the same time, you may have a tendency to risk that very support, when it is there. So part of the boundary needs to be balance, and the recognition that it's only possible to build upwards with a strong foundation below.

With the forthcoming Mars retrograde involving a series of square aspects to Neptune, you will need to put honesty high on the list of priorities. Honesty, which is a relative term, must be defined in advance, and that definition needs to be kept stuck to the refrigerator door where everyone can see it. And it needs to be adjusted as necessary.

Remembering the things that undermine honesty is also worthwhile; two come to mind: substances (such as alcohol and drugs), and commitments that are unrealistic and cannot really be kept. With Neptune making its long-term transit in your house of relationships now under so much influence from Mars, there is a test of truth indicated. Take it slow, take it lightly, and collect documentation of what you believe, what you need, and what you can really come through with. Monitor the same in your partners without resorting to being a scorekeeper. Be realistic about what is likely, what is possible, and what's improbable.

There is a solution that will work for everyone.

You are entering some potentially volatile country where your relationships are concerned, and you need to be the moderator of that volatility. You will earn the respect of others by having foresight, by handling problems in a reasonable and mature tone, and by taking a creative solution whenever possible that continues to guide everyone to the better places that your own life has been going recently. Long ago you gave up certain kinds of struggles that you can now present others with the possibility to give up.

But to do so, you must keep your own real interests at heart, and be ever vigilant about what really serves the greatest good for all concerned. Something does — you just need to remain open to it.