By Angel Lopez:
We enter into August with a spiritual roar, as Leo Season kicks itself into high gear. The month begins with Mercury concluding its latest retrograde, which ripped us from the early stages of Leo and back into Cancer.
Since Mercury is the planet of mentality and communication, our minds may have found themselves revisiting old thoughts and ideas, probably stemming back to our youth. Regardless of their source, it kept things feeling emotionally palpable and internally focused. People, places, or things from our past may have also showed up for a return visit, which can initially throw us off balance and raise all kinds of questions.
It’s important to remember that not all hauntings are necessarily bad. Some ghosts of the past come around to remind us of the pieces of ourselves we left behind or lost along the way. They force you to replay images of who you’ve been as a way to reflect to you where you need to go.
Here’s a helpful tip on this Mercury phase: think back on the themes derived from events that occurred around June 19th–23rd. What came up for you then is up for review once more, though now you must approach it with a renewed sense of self. You can step into it with the greater knowledge you received from these latest ancestral visits and memories, which have helped to shape your divine plan and make you who you are today.
Venus, concerned with who we relate to and how, and Mars, the God of how we get shit done, are both raring to go in Leo. So, there’s a lot of “going after what you need for you” energy right now. And that’s only bad if you have issues with asking for what you want and feeling guilty about it. Sometimes we must be selfish in order to take steps forward. Some of us easily cower from that space because we’ve been taught it’s wrong. We’ve been told our dreams are foolish or unattainable (usually from Mommy and/or Daddy and is perhaps something that came up, or should come up, for you in your Mercury retrograde). But now is a good time to take creative steps toward your dreams.
The week of August 12th is particularly potent, as Mercury will join them both in Leo and make for an unstoppable force. The only thing to remember is that everyone will be going after what they feel is theirs. So don’t wage wars for the sake of being dramatic. If your plan doesn’t align with another’s, you still must look to compromise. Just approach it with a sense that you both can win. Or just go off and create on your own for now, knowing that collaboration is something for another day.
August 12th is made even more auspicious as it’s the day that Jupiter—the planet of luck, abundance, and growth—turns direct after four months of retrograde action in Sagittarius. Hopefully, we’ve used this time to refine our relationship with prosperity.
Author and spiritual guide Tosha Silver writes, “To be used as a conduit for abundance, many things often have to be released.”
Use the beginning of August to flush out whatever outdated beliefs, relationships, or even just household things you’ve been holding on to and can finally call on the courage to let go of. You may find that you’ve been defining yourself by something that no longer suits you. Ultimately, the goal here is to gain a stronger relationship with trust. We must trust that by allowing something to exit, we are making room for something else to enter. We must find ways to trust that we are being taken care of and that Divine Presence has our backs.
The second half of August brings Virgo into play, which on its highest level brings healing through structure. We can work within the stronger systems that we’ve created for ourselves during Leo. We can be productive and do the work that we’ve dreamed about doing. However, on the low vibe, Virgo can be self-critical and over-analyze, so it’s important to lay the sturdy foundation for trust now. That way, you won’t get pulled into your head and away from manifesting your purest goals.
It’s important, now more than ever, to believe in ourselves. To step into our authentic truth and release the fears we’ve been carrying for far too long. We must be ready to take responsibility for who we want to be in this lifetime.
No one is going to come along and hand us our dreams on a silver platter. We must be in charge of manifesting them. And with that, comes the fear that we will fail. The fear that we are not good enough. But what if we flipped that script and just got excited to succeed, knowing that we are actually great enough. With that would come a need to release control. Because we don’t get to decide what exactly that success will look like. However, if we can know in our hearts that what we are striving for is our soul’s purpose and dream, then it isn’t about a defined location. It’s about an exhilarating, challenging-yet-joyful, emotionally fulfilling journey. And, we all deserve to have that rollicking soul’s journey. We just have to give over to the personal transformation that comes along with it.
On some level, we all simultaneously dream of and fear change. We want the new life, but we just want to transplant the person we are now into it. Yet, we all know that’s not how it works. We must evolve to see our lives evolve. And so, what better time of year is there than Leo Season to say, “I will be courageous for change.” That is what we all must speak, from our hearts, with gusto and pride.
Standing stagnant in the wind will leave one cold. But moving freely in the wind, well, that’s called dancing.
Happy August to you all!
Angel Lopez is a film producer, writer, astrologer, and co-host of the podcast, THE SPIRITUAL GAYZ alongside his husband, our Spiritual Guru Brandon Alter. Angel has been studying and working with both tarot and astrology for twenty years. He hosted the astrology web-series, ASTRO TALK WITH ANGEL, and writes the blog ASTROLOGY REALNESS. He has also had pieces published on Upworthy.com and The Huffington Post.
On the film side, Angel produced the Sundance Film Festival award winning film DEAR WHITE PEOPLE, as well as the features THE DINNER and STATE LIKE SLEEP. He also wrote and directed his own short film, I CAN’T WITH YOU, which had its premiere at the 2016 HollyShorts Film Festival, and he recently finished producing filmmaker Justin Simien’s second feature, BAD HAIR.