Insights by Kerstin Hern of The Mirrored Lantern / Original art for J. Southern Studio by Spirited Animals
Happy zodiacal new year! The last week of January welcomed the Chinese New Year… The year of the Water Rabbit/wood element. Some general themes for this year through the veil of the Chinese zodiac are: peace, comfort, thoughtfulness, longevity, and prosperity.
We start February, the month most associated with love—both romantic love, self love, and agape— with Venus in Pisces, adding a dreamy, soft energy swirling around our hearts… The low vibration of Venus in Pisces is being gullible in love or money, overly generous to a fault, and/or getting completely lost and dissolved in another, which *can* be an ecstatic fantasy space to pop in and out of for connection, but if you stay too long, you stray from your Self and your core light (and therefore, needs and protective boundaries).
This is also Black History Month, so activate and link the compassionate frequencies of Pisces with the love, values, worth, and connection themes of Venus. Reflect on and participate in allyship, progressive ideals and humanitarian community needs (sun in Aquarius), and how to connect with everyone with more authenticity and depth (Pisces).
Venus in Pisces plays a big role in both lunations, so really let yourself go and flow into that space of exploring needs, desires, relationships, what is valuable to you, and how/who you love, while remembering to leave some bread crumbs so you can always return home to yourself.
Make note of the specific full and new moon energy and some of this month’s significant transits below to prepare for and work with the cosmic flow in January. Use the full and new moons’ symbols, themes, each lunation’s tarot card partner, herbs for candle magick, crystals, affirmations, and more to personalize your own rituals around invocations and releases during those energetic portals.
Notable Transits:
SYNOPSIS:
The full moon in Leo has an introspective and healing vibe to it, although its essential nature is to be big and fiery and take up space. This counterbalance opportunity in the living sky shows up as the sun and moon both square Uranus, which will be sextiling Venus. Your full moon action plan can be to ground your energy into your body so that the playful fire of Leo and the transformative electricity of Uranus can run free to explore under the light of the full moon with a safe base to return to using the life rope of Venus (connection).
Maintain last month’s dialectic of oscillating between two poles: Leo is self-pride/the ego and Aquarius (the opposite of the moon) is altruism/the superego. In this negotiated space, you can find insights, connection, and therefore know yourself better, through the mirroring of others/the Collective. Prepare for the unexpected leading up to the full moon as feelings and awareness take up precious real estate in your psyche… You will be able to receive the unexpected with curiosity and therefore, less (or no) fear.
Allow the Lion’s fire to illuminate your inner child’s needs, illuminate what your ego is crying out for or fears, and how you can be in connection AND participation with the collective to build a meaningful future. Balance for some can look like self-detachment to gel into community wholeness, and for others, if you are too enmeshed, engage your Lion heart (shoutout Kate Bush fans!!) to individuate from the flock and embody pride and self-love. Flow with change, knowing you may always return to the anchor of your heart.
THEMES & SYMBOLS:
Warm + cool vs hot + cold, ego awareness, superego alignment, inner fire, inner child, pride, releasing fear, naming our dreams for the future, unexpected changes, flowing with shifts, allowing change, balancing control, trust, creativity, flexibility, being seen, revising how we partner, matters of the heart, how we express ourselves, playfulness, fire energy, passion, desire, agape, love language, abundance of vision, gratitude, forgiveness, orange, yellow, poppy red, lion, dragon, peacock, royalty, sunflowers
YOUR FULL MOON LUNATION HOUSE:
Find your sun or rising sign below to see what area of your life will be most impacted by this full moon:
RITUAL + ALTAR INSPIRATIONS
FULL MOON PETITION
For this fire moon, write out your full moon releases, speak them aloud facing south (fire element direction), then light it on fire and place in your cauldron or a fire-safe dish to burn to completion. If you are in a no-fire zone, place your folded petition outside or in a window sill where it will be warmed by the sun for at least one day.
SUGGESTED MANTRA or AFFIRMATION
“Under this full moon in Leo. I engage my Lion Heart that is rich in bravery, trust, confidence, passion, and sacred play. I move through changes with grace and claim safety and security while I am eagerly expecting the unexpected. I set the intention to ground my energy into my body-heart so my playful fire can run free to explore all that is illuminated in my life. May I garner meaningful, powerful insights. May I claim my safe base to always return to within my crowned heart, guarded by the knights of my spirit. So mote it be.”
FULL MOON MEDICINE
Leo rules the heart, our blood, circulation, spine, upper back. Focusing on the heart chakra while envisioning bright green light spinning in a spiral and chanting the bija mantra (sounds like “YAHM”—heart chakra) will clear, strengthen, and connect you to this space. Doing yoga that gently rolls the spine will help with energy flow. Get your unconscious involved with Jungian Active Imagination! There are many articles and videos available online.
This is the second super new moon in a row which is also at 1 degree when exact… This speaks to a theme unfolding early in this year encouraging total resets and refreshes around intentions, goals, and self-discovery during the new moon cycles. If you are finding yourself wishing for the same things to change/come in every new moon to new moon, perhaps reevaluate what the blockages or unconscious resistance to these manifestations actualizing may be. Feel into a beginner’s mindset, take a very panned out view of your life, and see if you are in an auto-pilot habit of wishing versus being present with agency in participating in your dreams. If you feel clogged, blocked, or disconnected, practice mindful awareness and mindful presence, meditation, or dream journaling: all Pisces activities that connect you to all worlds, timelines, and parts of your Self that provide clarity.
Sometimes wishes keep us trapped in the liminal where we remain in fantasy. Ground one or two sparkly threads of your dreams so you can start weaving goals that can be actualized and experienced as time unfolds. Keep dreaming as big as you can, but remember to ground parts of the dream seeds into Saturnian soil.
Propelling this energy is Venus in Pisces is sextiling Pluto in Capricorn… Love, connection, beauty, values, and self-worth are swimming in dreamy and compassionate waters that also detox what is outworn, thus allowing for new growth to transform you and your dreams. As a sextile, there is harmony; these are flowing, gentle waters that promote growth, new paths to take, and ease. There is also an “out-of-sign” conjunction to Saturn, which helps you ground the dream seeds AND invites you to put in the hard work—the watering and infrastructure—your plant beds for your dreams to grow.
Participate in your manifestations! Magick is not writing things down, lighting a candle and BOOM, manifested! You must engage your Will and feel/conceptualize/visualize your intentions to participate in building your intentions (which are grounded dreams) in order to live in them. In the words of Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”
THEMES & SYMBOLS:
new/updated dreams + intentions, spiritual seeds, dream threads, growth around intuition, depth in communication, imagination becoming reality, ease + flow, new paths, mysticism, compassion, empathy, connection, dissolution, new spiritual beginnings, manifestation through visualization, personal transformation, courage to change, meditation, plant medicine, deep sea caves, the ocean, sea glass, blue, emerald green, aquamarine, cobalt, sea foam green, turquoise, all blues + greens, lavender, mugwort, fantasy, dreams, spirituality, intuition, pineal gland, pinecones, Neptune (planet and god)
YOUR NEW MOON LUNATION HOUSE
Find your sun or rising sign below to see what area of your life will be most impacted by this new moon:
Write your intentions as specifically as possible on a small piece of paper, in the present tense, as if they are already happening or already happened. Fold it 3 times toward you, symbolizing bringing energy to you, and place on your altar under your crystals. You may also place your petition under your Water Element Candle or chime candle before you light it. This is a water moon, so you can submerge your petition in moon water, rainwater, ocean water, or fresh water with a piece of clear quartz (or any insoluble crystal) on top.
SUGGESTED MANTRA or AFFIRMATION
“On this new moon in Pisces, I bravely swim deep into my psyche to recover the lost gold of my dreams. I invoke, embrace, and give love in all of its forms to promote connection, protection, and healing. I allow all old dreams, old patterns, old energies to detox and release and allow for new incoming growth this lunation. I am transforming as my dreams are updated and take shape. I am flowing and glowing on my new paths with ease and so much love. So mote it be!”
NEW MOON MEDICINE
Pisces rules the feet, melatonin (sleep hormone and connected to our circadian rhythm), and endocrine system, including the pineal gland (our consciousness gland and our third eye!). The pineal gland was dubbed “The Seat of the Soul” by French philosopher Descartes, and connects us to creativity, spirituality, and lucid dreaming. If you work with plant medicine, this is an auspicious lunation to activate your pineal gland (where we naturally produce the hallucinogenic compound, DMT) and visualizing what you want to bring into your life. Also, wading in natural water (the ocean, a stream, lake) can be both grounding and opening a spiritual flow. Dream journal around this new moon—drink mugwort tea before bed then record your dreams in your dream journal the next morning.
Wishing you all harmonious and dreamy full and new moons this month!
Kerstin from The Mirrored Lantern has practiced right hand path magick and tarot for over 30 years and has been a lover and learner of astrology and tarot for just as long… She is currently in graduate school for Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Spiritual & Depth Psychology and is a pre-licensed psychotherapist in Los Angeles. Follow her on Instagram @themirroredlantern for witch tips, tarot, occulture, and depth psych tidbits!
