Full Moon in Leo: January 28, 2021
The Full Moon is the energetic peak of the Lunar Cycle and this Full Moon in Leo is an extremely important one for 2021 in addition to it being the first of the year! Generally speaking, the Full Moon is when our emotions can feel like they’re at their most powerful and uncontrollable, so if things feel heightened now, it’s completely normal!
In this article, you’ll get the full scoop on the astrology of this Full Moon in Leo on January 28, 2021.
The Scoop | Full Moon Requires Balance | Aspects to this Full Moon | Being Grateful at the Full Moon | Full Moon Ritual | Wise Words for this Full Moon
The Scoop
Release Everything Preventing You From Shining!
This Full Moon encourages us to release all of the things that lower our feelings of self-worth. The Ego is one of our greatest enemies when it comes to self-worth because it attempts to claim the ‘worthy parts’ of you for its shining self and relegates the rest, deemed ‘unworthy,’ to the shadows. Your whole self is worthy, and any transformations you’ve undergone over the past year have been meant to show you exactly this. Release anything that keeps you from knowing this truth in your heart of hearts, forgive yourself (and your Ego) for not knowing it before, and be grateful!
This is a special preview of one of the Transit-Based Scope Scoops that Cam writes for each major astrological event in the Monthly Energy Guide. It is available exclusively on Patreon at www.patreon.com/888Collective for the low price of $11.11/month!
Full Moon Requires Balance
The Full Moon happens when the Moon moves into exact opposition with the Sun. Astronomically, this means that the Sun’s light is shining on the ‘full’ face of the Moon.
We see the cosmos from our perspective on Earth, and from this viewpoint, it appears as if the Moon moves through the ecliptic (the zodiac wheel), just as the Sun and all other planets do. So, when the Moon opposes the Sun, it is always in the zodiac sign that opposes the zodiac sign that the Sun is in.
The astrological oppositions include Aries-Libra, Taurus-Scorpio, Gemini-Sagittarius, Cancer-Capricorn, Leo-Aquarius, and Virgo-Pisces. Whenever the Sun is in one and the Moon is in the other, we have a Full Moon.
Whenever an astrological opposition happens, it calls on us to balance the opposing energies. The opposition aspect teaches us that all opposites are, in fact, unified entities that cannot exist without the other. They are more than interrelated, they’re interdependent. There is no ‘up’ without ‘down.’
Astrological oppositions, like all aspects, are based on the zodiacal wheel being a 360° circle, and opposites lie at 180° away from each other. This means that the signs in the pair are exactly one half of the zodiac (or six signs) away from each other.
Interpretatively, sister signs (the opposites) are depicted in many different ways. One helpful way to think about them as two sides of the same coin: one of the sides is the ‘head’ and one the ‘tail.’
The head relates more to us where the tail relates more to us out in the world. So, to give an oversimplified but relevant example, Leo is how we shine, but Aquarius is how we want the world to shine.
This need to balance the sides of the coin is why astrologers (and many other fields of spiritual teachers) seem to constantly be talking about the Full Moon practices of forgiveness, gratitude, and releasing. These are practices that help us balance this inner/outer opposition.
Aspects to this Full Moon
The energy of this Full Moon might feel a bit more rigid than we are used to because of the activation of the Fixed T-Square that is happening around it.
T-Squares happen when there are at least three planets activated by being on (or very close to) the same degree, but 90°s away from each other (thus in different signs that share a modality). Because there are three planets involved, that means that there is one planet that forms a 90° to the other two, and these form a 180° to each other. The planet that forms the 90° angles is like the ‘release point’ of the opposition between the other two.
It looks and functions exactly like a triangle, which is really interesting to think about in relation to the psychological theories of the ‘relationship triangle’ (e.g., the drama triangle from Karpman).
At the time of this first Full Moon of 2021, the Sun is in conjunction with Jupiter at 9° of Aquarius and this expands the tense energy of the opposition to the Moon at 9° of Leo. And the releasing point of all of this tension is Mars at 10° of Taurus, which forms a square to both the Moon and the Sun/Jupiter.
These aspects are interesting to interpret in light of the general symbolic meaning of the Leo-Aquarius opposition. The face of the coin, Leo, represents our individual understanding; the tail of the coin, Aquarius, represents our collective understanding.
Another way of seeing it is that Leo represents how we want our individual selves to shine, get recognition, and gain confidence and Aquarius represents how we want the collective to be a utopia where everyone can equally shine, get recognition, and gain confidence. Of course, cultural understandings of ‘shining’ and ‘recognition’ are important here and therefore we should not keep our minds closed to only Western perspectives.
The shadow side of both Leo and Aquarius is a superiority complex (the narcissistic individual; the hegemonic culture), and the best way to combat this is by cultivating gratitude.
Jupiter’s direct involvement with this Full Moon expands our abundance potential. And Mars’s direct involvement indicates that if we actively practice gratitude enough, whatever we’re grateful for will become more abundant!
Being Grateful at the Full Moon
Let’s take a deeper, scientific look at why gratitude is a practice that’s associated with the Full Moon.
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Full Moon Ritual
There are a number of different live events and videos that you can attend/watch at the time of the Full Moon. You can also make your own personalized ritual. The main general routes that you can take for creating your own personal ritual include any combination of the following practices: grounding, forgiveness, releasing, and gratitude.
The best thing to do is to join the Rose Quartz tier of the 888 Collective’s Patreon, which gives access to the Sacred Si-Stars New & Full Moon Ceremonies led by the amazing goddess, Ally, of Shanti Community (www.shanticommunity.com). You also get access to all of the 888 Collective’s incredible retreats on the four major seasonal changes of the astrological year. And we happen to have an absolutely incredible Chakra-themed retreat coming up for the Spring Equinox, so mark your calendars for March 13-20, 2021!
Grounding
Grounding is the practice of centering yourself. Our energy can become quite chaotic around the Full Moon, especially this one because of Mars’s involvement. There is so much benefit to simply taking a moment to yourself and reconnecting with your core energy, which is best conceptualized as the breath (prana, life force).
The best thing to do is to go to @TheSpiritualStove on Instagram or www.thespiritualstove.com to get meditation guidance (including several free guided meditations and a free session option) from the amazing Steph!
In medical astrology, Leo rules the heart and Aquarius rules the circulation. That means that one of the best ways you can ground yourself at this Full Moon is by doing what’s known as heart breathing.
But, in general, any kind of breath-based meditation is a fantastic method to get your Mind and Spirit grounded. You can do a guided meditation on Youtube or you can follow The Scope Scoop’s recommendations below.
Forgiveness
One of the most powerful practices to incorporate into your Full Moon ceremony is forgiveness. Holding a grudge against someone (especially if that someone is yourself) is a manifestation of a cleavage that has happened between the Ego and the Soul. Forgiveness brings them back together.
How does this work? Basically, the Soul is not capable of holding a grudge against anyone because the Soul is everyone and everything; that means the Ego is part of the Soul. But, the Ego can also trick itself into thinking that it is isolated and independent.
Paraphrasing Deepak Chopra, when the Ego feels hurt, it wants to lash out against the attacker. In order to do this, it must separate itself from the Soul, which encompasses both the Ego and its so-called attacker. It must act as if it is ‘opposed’ to the other, just as the Sun and Moon are opposed to each other at the Full Moon.
The Full Moon is actually one of the times when we are most likely to get angry and hold grudges because of this astrological opposition, that’s why forgiveness is so important!
Practicing forgiveness reincorporates the Ego into the Soul; i.e., balances the opposition between the Sun and the Moon.
Releasing
Releasing is inherent in both grounding and forgiveness, but is also a thing unto itself. It means “releasing control.” Another way of saying it is, “letting go.”
There are many different strategies for how to practice letting go of the delusion that we have any control over anything other than our own perceptions of the world. To figure out the best strategy for you, try a bunch of different things!
Or, you could also book a session with Cam, who can go over your chart and see what kinds of releasing strategies your astrological placements indicate would be the best for you, personally!
The easiest thing to do is write down a list of all of the different things you want to release at this Full Moon (e.g., behaviors, patterns, urges/tendencies, and grudges—so this could also serve as a forgiveness practice).
It is best to read this list out loud directly to the shining light of the Moon and then either burn or bury it!
You can listen to a curated playlist during this ceremony, and we highly recommend adding the amazing song by Alexa Sunshine Rose, which gives us the best mantra for practicing releasing at the Full Moon:
“I release control and surrender to the flow of love that will heal me.”
Gratitude
This one is really easy to practice not only at the Full Moon but every single day of your life!
The classic method is keeping a gratitude journal and simply listing a certain number of things (e.g., 3 a day and 6 at each Full Moon) that you’re grateful for. These can be anything: your health, a raise at work, the show you’re watching, some food you ate, your partner, your pets, something specific someone did, etc.
It doesn’t matter how big or how small: no one is judging your gratitude, so you shouldn’t either!
Wise Words for this Full Moon
Evangeline Adams (1868-1932) was born on a Leo Full Moon, so her Sun sign is Aquarius and her Moon sign is Leo. She was one of the first popular astrologers to emerge into the mainstream out of the occult revival that took place in the 1900s. Her book, Astrology: Your Place Among the Stars, originally published in 1930, was one of the first to describe the meaning of what each placement means for all of the known planets at the time, so all of them except Pluto.
She is a great example to examine for the Full Moon in Leo because the major theme of her life is a classic Leo-Aquarius opposition theme. Namely, her notoriety—and the appearance that the thing she sought most was this notoriety—have shaped her into quite the ambivalent figure in the history of astrology. Of course, there is also the context of various patriarchal processes and narratives attempting to dismiss the successes of any female.
Another interesting factoid for this cosmic explication is that Adam’s natal Pluto sits in Taurus and completes a Fixed T-Square with the Sun and Moon. We can interpret this in many ways, but it seems interesting that the release point she found for the inner tension she had around seeking notoriety and fame (i.e., the Leo-Aquarius opposition) was through initiating a transformation in mainstream consciousness via her pioneering work in popularizing astrology.
This demonstrates as the quote says, that everything is interconnected. Everything is influenced by and influences everything else. The Full Moon in Leo-Aquarius calls on us to release our fallacy of individualism but in a way that also honors this individual fallacy as part of what it means to be human.
