the full moon in leo for writers

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Today, we have a Full Moon at 5* of Leo that arrives at 12:54pm Eastern. This is our first Leo lunation that involves Pluto in Aquarius – the first of many. With it being a full moon, something is coming to fruition, supported by expansive Jupiter. 

But with Pluto involved, there is the decided energy of a volcano rumbling to life after centuries dormant. A veritable Mount St. Helen’s, or, even more dramatically, Mount Edgecumbe in Alaska, which is showing signs of waking up after an 800 year slumber.

This lunation has all the energy of the kind of completion, the kind of arrival, that erupts through the surface, bathed in lava. And those of us who tell stories, especially, know that there is no outrunning the lava flow: rebirth demands destruction of the old in order for the new to begin. 

But this is also true: in the ashes of the old self, there is fertile ground. Volcanic rock and ash offer some of the most fertile ground on earth, rich in magnesium and potassium, a natural fertilizer. So, too, does the compost of our old selves, and our old stories about ourselves, offer a new place to begin.

Consider where you were six months ago, during the last New Moon in Leo on August 16, 2023. Then, I wrote: 

This season requires us to challenge things we have perhaps taken for granted and thought were done deals, to reckon with and even rebel against the status quo. Where we face down book bans and bigoted publishers, algorithms that don’t want to pick up your promo and a slow end of summer with everyone out on vacation. This is a moment where we must, not to quote Lady Macbeth (but to quote Lady Macbeth), screw our courage to the sticking place. 

Courage goes hand in hand with creative work, for courage is required of us if we are to face our vulnerabilities and our fears and make something of them. (“Make it matter/make it matter,” as Diana Rose Harper recently told me.)

The root of courage, of course, is cor, the Latin for heart. It is only by operating from our heartspace that we can create, that we can look at what we fear and write anyway.   

Where did your courage succeed, and where did you fail? But where did you learn from failure? What ultimately mattered? What did you take with you? What did you leave behind? What didn’t survive the eruption? What are you surprisingly okay with having lost?

And what seeds are sprouting up — a spot of green in the ashy soil?

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Also also also. My workshop Enchanting Your Writing is this Sunday! 1-3pm Eastern on Zoom! Registration closes Saturday at 11:59pm Eastern.

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