At certain times of year, astrological prediction feels especially taxing. Summoning the fiery spirit of Leo in the final days of Cancer season, for instance, feels like shouting up at the sun from the bottom of a deep pool. But as my deadline loomed and I began to grow desperate, a savior arrived in the form of Barbie.
Did Margot Robbie’s strike-truncated style tour for the hit summer film inspire me to immediately sit down and write? Of course not! No, the first frisson of Leo feelings would never be so drearily pragmatic! Instead, I was seized with a vision for my Barbie-viewing outfit. In order to pull off the exact look I envisioned, I would have to make my own skirt, and my movie ticket was scheduled for the very next day. “Yes, the horoscope is going great!” I assured my editor, while I whipped out my fabric scissors and embarked on a flurry of entirely unrelated activity.
Approximately 10 hours later, having neglected every other responsibility in my life in order to rip out and reset the zipper three times, the effort proved triumphant! My outfit was perfect. My selfies looked glorious! Uncharacteristically, I actually arrived at the theater early enough to sit through all of the previews, and I looked just the way I wanted as first, the enormously magnified eyes of Nicole Kidman, and then dozens of Barbies peered down at me from the screen. Finally my Leo feelings were reawakened and I felt prepared to contemplate the coming season! All it took was a 24-hour period of obsessive laser focus on physically manifesting a particular style aesthetic. Thanks, Barbie! You’re a peach.
Leo’s traditional archetype is a bit like that of a stereotypical Barbie: brilliant and beautiful, a trendsetter while remaining a classic. Leos and Barbies are both hyper-capable, succeeding and exceeding the standards for any (and perhaps every?) new undertaking they attempt. Perfectionism comes packaged with dangers, however. Both Barbies and Leos run a risk of inflexibility when confronted with circumstances beyond their control, and they can at times overlook subtle, insidiously damaging aspects of their work in order to burnish their shiny image. To Leo (and Barbie’s) credit, this is a very effective method of avoiding the messiness of vulnerability: If you grin widely enough and refrain from shouting about death in the middle of your Dreamhouse dance party, who could ever accuse you of harboring existential uncertainty?
But Leo is much more than the sum of their stereotype. Instead of hewing doggedly to rigid, outdated ideals, Leos can expand on their original factory form in order to better serve themselves and their communities. Where Barbie’s changes have been driven by market demand, Leo’s growth is dictated by the shifting needs of their actual human souls. Barbie’s constantly proliferating identities are meant to be aspirational: she’s a doctor, now she’s a marine biologist, now she’s the president! When Leos crave inspiration, however, they rarely seek external role models; instead, they simply become the icons they already knew they could be.
This summer, Leo’s starring season is unfortunately anticipated to be punishing. Venus moves retrograde in Leo throughout the month, thwarting desires and imparting difficulty. Dark-side ruler Lilith likewise abides in Leo, potentially inciting the sort of insecure envy that could tempt a dissatisfied Ken to covet Barbie’s Dreamhouse, rather than seek out an individual purpose of his own. Happily, in spite of their occasional forays into melodrama, Leos are incredibly resilient and enduring. The coming weeks may toss us all around like a hand-me-down Barbie doll in the care of a sugar-stimulated 4-year-old, but Leo will eventually strut out the other side of the ordeal looking even more fabulous than ever.
To find out what Leo Season 2023 has in store for you, keep reading.
Click here to jump to a sign: Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer.
At the time the Sun lands in Leo, you’re already harboring three other astrological influencers: Mercury, Venus, and Lilith. Mercury finishes its race across your space and leaves for Virgo near the end of July, but shadow ruler Lilith and retrograde Venus will remain for the duration. The next four weeks will present a particularly intense period of your ongoing work to reconcile your worst impulses and desires. Venus, which regulates beauty, yearning, and attraction, plans to act like an asshole for the entire run of your season. Lilith, which governs your buried instincts, is a helpful, but dangerous ally. The two team up directly in the first week of August, when Venus slides back to snatch Lilith’s hand and suggest some seriously terrible ideas. Mid-month, your sign ruler the Sun will take turns moving through conjunction with Venus, then Lilith, amplifying sensations of want and selfishness to a fever pitch.
All of the bodies passing through your sign this summer play nice with the current denizens of Aries, but they’ve got a problem with guests of Taurus. Mercury introduces the pattern before jetting away to Virgo; the little planet of communication disdains any attempt at innovation in square with Uranus, but encourages you to take a jump toward destiny in trine with the North Node. The Sun and backwards-strutting Venus concur, even going so far as to seek opportunities for recovery in cooperation with Chiron the healer! Unfortunately, these chances for restoration are likely to be grueling. Both the Sun and Venus are absolutely disgusted with the ease of lucky Jupiter, and the New Moon likewise sneers at the representatives of imagination and expansion.
This is an awfully grim forecast for the sunniest birth season, but take heart! Nobody carries a dramatic narrative with quite the same verve and charisma as Leo. Venus retrograde will sadly find everyone in the zodiac not only feeling, but even looking kind of busted for the next month and a half. That sucks for us all, but you will remain strangely compelling in a time of unfortunate hair — think Angelina Jolie with the fucked-up bangs in Girl, Interrupted, or Kate McKinnon’s disheveled “Weird Barbie” mohawk.
Furthermore, the Lilith-driven urges of your season don’t necessarily demand a performance of villainy. While Lilith can at times encourage you to act like a monster, Lilith’s influence should more often guide you to self-protection and enforcement of boundaries. Prioritizing your own interests occasionally results in resentment from others, but it’s necessary to clear space for your own growth.
You’re already busy tearing through to-do lists with Mars, then at the end of July your sign ruler Mercury comes along to join your get-shit-done party. Unlike the celestial bodies currently occupying Leo, your tenants get along excellently with the planets in fellow earth sign Taurus. Mars makes friends with oddball Uranus in mid-August, and both Mars and Mercury are pleased to work with generous Jupiter. Even as Venus retrograde stomps all over everyone’s desires, your energy stays high and your ability to articulate issues remains unparalleled. (Enjoy the weeks of eloquence! Mercury will betray you with a retrograde at the outset of your own upcoming season.)
You have less rapport with Saturn and Neptune, both currently retrograde and distant across the wheel in your sibling sign Pisces. As for Neptune — whatever. You’re often the type to overthink your own instincts; you’ll cope with the problem of your intuition being inaccessible. Being removed from responsible Saturn is more distressing to you, a noted lover of organization and constancy. Still, the situation could be much worse! Most of your woes this season will probably arise from the flailings of other signs feeling unmoored by various retrogrades.
Venus retrograde is a dire time for Libra. Your sign ruler is out for blood, and only too happy to wreak havoc on the lives of its own beautiful children. Butterfly metaphors are often apt for Libra individuals, who crave fluttery occasions of socializing in order to thrive, but also require significant time alone in order to maintain balance. The next six weeks will impart less of a “hello world, admire my glorious wings!” vibe, and more of a “caterpillar-dissolving-its-entire-body-inside-the-cocoon” scenario. And that’s fine! Y’all know how to go quiet and dark when necessary. It freaks out friends who rely on Libra lubrication in social settings, but they’ll just have to deal while you figuratively digest and rearrange your own psyche.
The South Node of the Moon’s orbit, perpetual echo of the past, recently moved into your sign. The coming weeks present an ideal opportunity to wallow inmemory and really absorb the effects of your own history. Though unfinished business lurks in the South Node to surprise the unwary, this point of the Moon’s orbit also holds comfort and familiarity. Snuggle deep within yourself and allow the South Node to cradle you while Venus rampages roughshod over the present.
You host the Moon twice this season. The First Quarter Moon feels social after passing through a square aspect with the Sun from its vantage in your sign. It loves the retrograde planets in Pisces and gets along nicely with Mars in Virgo and Pluto in Capricorn, but feels isolated from Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus, and outright inimical to retrograde Venus and Mercury in Leo. Looks like a moment for self-realization, followed by a proactive urge to pursue change! Communication and cooperation with others will be the problem here.
The Moon still loves dependable Saturn at the end of the season, and your emotions should feel sensibly arranged by that point. Organized doesn’t necessarily mean satisfied, however; the Moon’s last moves of Leo season threaten luck and love in your life just before the Sun travels to Virgo.
The Sun is mad at your sign ruler Jupiter this month, as is retrograde Venus. Rude! Mercury and Mars both approve of your planetary patron this season, though, bestowing you with enhanced intellect and energy.
The Moon’s relationships in your sign this season differ: it dislikes Mars (and Saturn, and Neptune in Pisces), but flirts with the Sun and Venus in Leo. Daydreams are a worthwhile use of your time this summer, so long as you don’t nurture disappointment for their fleeting unreality when you have to “wake up” and deal with the real world.
The Moon in your sign at the end of July is exquisite. Sextile to Saturn and Neptune; trine with Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus; and directly in conjunction with Pluto, the waxing gibbous satellite has a truly excellent range of feelings in store for you! Other than that, you're in a bit of a holding pattern with retrograde Pluto, which disagrees with the North Node of progress in early August. Just keep getting where you’re going in small increments! There’s no need for large risky leaps this season.
Warning: mild spoilers for Barbie
I liked the Barbie movie! I also had some issues with it. I feel intimidated by the sheer amount of discourse it will generate, but genuinely excited to read it, especially work about Barbie’s resonance with queer people.
For my part, a particular line from Barbie’s lowest moment jumped out of the movie to knife me directly in the heart. Lying prone on the floor in a depressive episode, overcome by the shocking social devaluation imposed by patriarchy’s hostile takeover of Barbie World, Stereotypical Barbie has a revelation: “Either you’re brainwashed, or you’re weird and ugly. There’s no in-between,” she drones flatly.
In context, this statement is a comment on women’s impossible position in patriarchy, but that realization is more broadly and intimately familiar to every queer person marginalized by an oppressive society. If the truth of your identity prevents you from fitting into a system that demands your erasure, then you’re automatically out of the running for official social worthiness! You have no choice but to bear a designation of “weird” and “ugly” from that world when you forsake its bigoted brainwashing, even as you actually grow increasingly lovely in authenticity. What Barbie doesn’t yet realize, but Kate McKinnon’s “Weird Barbie” seems to grok, is that the outside of a cruel and unjust system is the freest place to be. That’s where queer joy lives!
Anyway, I guess all that is supposed to ease you into the news that the Full Moon in your sign is going to suck, a lot. As it passes square to Jupiter, square to Uranus, and opposite retrograde Venus, your emotions will be out of luck, incompatible with your own essence, and distant from beauty. But! If anybody can wring some redeeming insight from this gauntlet of feelings, it’s you.
You continue your role of responsible stewardship over retrograde outer planets Saturn and Neptune. Both will drift perspectively backwards until the last months of the year, while you provide them with a safe space to float. Mars vaguely hails your sign ruler Neptune in late August, waving distantly as it passes in opposition.
The waning gibbous Moon in your sign is mostly pleasant, and particularly powerful for your senses of order and intuition. This Moon also encourages growth, imagination, and reinvention, but probably not in a social setting, as it pulls itself aloof from the representatives of communication and assertion.
Yeah, Venus retrograde is shitty! Who cares? You're too busy chasing down your future in the company of the North Node to be distracted by unrequited desires, even before the Sun’s late season trine collaboration with the ruler of destiny.
The Sun also beams upon Chiron the centaur in your sign, currently retrograde but still relentlessly fixated on eliminating injury. During Chiron’s retrograde, it’s dangerous to attempt to force your recovery to speed up. Pushing too far, too fast can way too easily make things worse. Make a conscious effort to take it easy, and allow healing to happen in its own time.
My sincerest regrets for delivering the bad news: this month is mostly not nice to you. Mercury, Venus, and the Sun in Leo all have beef with Jupiter and Uranus in your sign. Communication hates you, desire resists you, and your own psyche rejects your attempts to invent and expand. Plus, your sign ruler Venus is retrograde for six weeks, adding a layer of obstruction to your general functioning throughout that time.
You have a better relationship with Mars, and with Mercury once it moves to Virgo. Your energy level should stay up, and previous miscommunications will eventually smooth out. The Last Quarter Moon in your sign is pretty awesome, cementing alliances with all of the celestial bodies occupying Taurus and Virgo, though it remains determined to fight with Venus in Leo. Cling tight to lucky Jupiter in your sign this season, and look to Uranus to find comfort in creativity.
Your ruler Mercury starts the season in Leo, then hops over to hang out with Virgo. In July, Mercury briefly dislikes conversational tangents when it fights with oddball Uranus. More stressfully, the smallest planet moves through conjunction with shadowy Lilith and the retrograde renegade of the moment, Venus. Try to listen to yourself when you talk. You may find yourself revealing interesting things you haven’t consciously thought of yet! Mercury departs from Leo on a productive note, furthering the plot in trine with the North Node of destiny.
Once Mercury moves to Virgo, your patron planet expresses a mild distaste for the cold demeanor of strict Saturn. Mercury feels great about Jupiter, however, and leaves you with a boon of ease in communication as a final gift to smooth your path before turning retrograde at the start of Virgo season.
Your Leo season Moon likes everyone but Pluto, with whom it just can’t quite connect. That takes “radical paradigm shift” off your emotional agenda for the time being. Instead, you’ll be occupied with maintaining order and nourishing joy, spending quality time talking with your loved ones, pouring your energy into creative projects, and taking time to check in with your own deepest feelings. No shit! See for yourself: trine Saturn, sextile Jupiter, sextile Mercury, sextile Mars, sextile Uranus, trine Neptune, opposition Pluto.
Your own recent weeks with the Sun were demanding, as water seasons usually are. While chaos around the zodiac wheel will of course stir your surrounding environment, this difficult and dramatic Leo season feels almost like a vacation to you. Relax back on your inflatable float, and enjoy the rocking of the waves.
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