I’m really afraid of being wrong. It’s kind of a miracle that I ever write or publish anything. The only thing that I have going for me that intercepts this is that I can’t resist the creative urge that moves through me, pulsating in my prefrontal cortex, demanding its own existence. 

There’s something in me that has the willingness to forgo all of my neurosis in order to serve this creative self-expression. Thank Goddess. 

I don’t possess any planets in Leo, perhaps that’s why it’s so challenging for me to feel free to do what I want and need to do. I adore the courage of heart that the sign demonstrates. Where I pull in and go away, Leo extends itself to me in play. Leo’s generous, warm and fiery heart constantly offers up itself for connection.

Leo has often broken down my self-imposed foreboding fortresses with the simplest of proclamations. “Because I love you and I want to demonstrate that I do!” it says with all the sincerity and, what appears to me to be, outright warrior-princess like bravery. Leo can risk its heart because it has such a big one to share. 

Leo is an energy, a mode of expression, something that people posses, but isn’t the entirety of them. We humans are complex and nuanced, we move in and out of trusting ourselves and our capacities. 

Like all signs, like all of life, Leo has a flip side. Obsessed with being seen, acknowledged and appreciated, Leo can appear as an obnoxious, needy, dangerous disaster. Leo gone wrong demands our gaze, derails dinner parties with its tantrums and shuts out everyone else from the spot light. 

Leo needs attention, part of the reason it is so endearing and/or annoying. Leo does not go quietly into the night.

Leo does not go quietly because it’s entire duty is to express itself and teach everyone else how to do the same. Leo is lit from within, inspired and hard-wired to demonstrate the human journey to its fellow travelers. 

This Saturday’s new moon in Leo just so happens to be snuggling up to the biggest benefactor out there, Jupiter, the dapper drag king that sings only the luckiest of lyrics with the biggest of bands to back it up. 

Jupiter exaggerates whatever it touches. Leo rules the heart and all the dreams that sacred muscle-chamber contains. 

It would be easier, in a way, to leave Israel out of this post. It would be much simpler to go big-time-spiritual-seeker-all-your-dreams-will-come-true-woo-Jupiter-in-Leo-new-moon-bonanza. It would probably be more popular. People want to feel good and forget. Disassociate. Decompress. We all want to hear that everything we’ve ever wanted is going to show-up on our doorstep, wrapped perfectly, bow-tied tight, awaiting our reception. 

But if we separate the astrology from the history that is in the making, we miss the point entirely. And the point, when Jupiter is in the mix, is to never, ever, give up hope. 

The chart for the conception of Israel has the moon at 4’40 Leo (sharing the same sign as then Pluto, Saturn and Mars were in, only the most violent, repressive, and utterly destructive dudes out there). This week’s new moon occurs at 3’52 Leo with Jupiter at 2’20. That’s a pretty tight orb. That’s a pretty intense revisiting.

And there is nothing small about this new moon. It is about luminous darkness, that wonderfully, rich and beautifully black void of creation that we all come from. Because, we are family. New moons remind us of the power of letting go, the strength that is found when we do and the wisdom that is ours to reclaim when we value the entirety of the cycle. 

With Jupiter’s influence here and Leo’s flavor there, we know that this new moon is an invitation to get creative and grow our hearts. Big. Bigger than we thought we could. Beyond what we have been told is appropriate. Beyond borders. Right through religious differences. Past patriotic patriarchal propaganda and right to the center of our responsibility as humans on this planet; to remember how to love one another. We are family.

I know that is no simple task. I know there is evil on both sides of this conflict, on both sides of most conflicts, this complicated. But I also know that all people should have the right to exist in peace. To grow vegetables and children, educational institutions and a sense of self (other than being criminals). No country should be allowed to exist on the backs of another’s freedom or on the blood of their children. Because we are family. 

Both Mercury and Venus are in Cancer at the moment. Cancer knows that we are all family. Cancer looks for connection, looks for its children, looks to mother, looks to protect the homeland. Both planets are in the process of going through the land mine laden fields of the Uranus/Pluto square, the harrowing, often war provoking astrological backdrop of our current times. There is a fine line between protecting our family by hurting another’s and remembering that others are ours to protect.  War will never bring peace.

Israel is in many, many of the prayers Jews pray. Israel is a prayer. When I utter the words I am praying for every Palestinian as well as every Israeli. I am praying for the land that has seen too many atrocities, too many nightmares, too many acts of brutality. I pray that hope, love and tolerance not be wiped from our hearts because we find ourselves filled with such despair. Israel is a dream Jews have been dreaming for thousands of years. What is happening on the ground today is no dream. It is a nightmare we must wake up from.

If our heart is a weapon, may we aim it and fire in the appropriate direction, in the direction of our humanity. May we cut through the heinous histories to help stop the civilian casualties. May we blow up our privilege so we may be worthy allies. May we assault the forces in us that refuse to see others as human beings and may we learn to reclaim and retell stories about ourselves and each other.  May we dismantle the loudspeakers that tell us that others deserve to suffer so that we may prosper. May we annihilate racism, demolish the walls that strip away dignity and relinquish stolen land. May we riot righteously and rebel mindfully. May we ring the alarm so loud that it awakens the ferocious beast in our heart that is hungry, starving even, to remember how to hope, how to love and how to be loved in return. 

The new moon will occur on Saturday, July 26 at 3:42 pm PST

*Editors’s note: After posting it came to my attention, thanks to IR, that the words in Banksy’s artwork were written by Dalia Sapon-Shevin. Dalia crafted this woodcut during the Battle in Seattle World Trade Organization protests in 1999. Banksy took the power of these words to the West Bank but Dalia deserves credit for their creation.