04.08.24: New Moon in Leo
"We're taught to think of our psychic and physical wounds as the irregularities in our lives, deviations from what should have been; sometimes, as source of stigma. But our stories of loss and separation are also the baseline state, right alongside our stories of landing our dream job, falling in love, giving birth to our miraculous children. And the very highest states - of awe and joy, wonder and love, meaning and creativity - emerge from bittersweet nature of reality."
– Susan Cain in "Bittersweet"
Dear One,
I'm writing to you from the yellow sofa of the apartment I've called home for the last year and a half in Mexico. It's a space I've nurtured, invested in, and will soon leave behind as I move deeper into the jungle, stepping into the next chapter of my life here.
This morning, while reflecting on the archetype of Leo, I found myself listening to Kae Tempest's beautiful piece that goes, “But love said: If you bring forth what is within you, What you bring forth will save you. But if you do not bring forth what is within you, What you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
Leo, tied so closely to the heart, reminds us that true creation stems from within. Yet, in our society, with the pressures of Instagram, AI, and the constant push to produce, we've forgotten that creation requires time and a deep connection to ourselves. It's as if we're being molded into little creation machines, where not producing on demand is met with punishment from the algorithm, stripping the joy from the creative process.
But Leo teaches us that creativity isn't about delivery or output. It's not a switch we can flip. True creativity must come from the heart, from our inner fire.
LEO AND THE SUN: OUR LIFE PURPOSE
By now, you know that New Moons are times to plant seeds for a new cycle, to reflect on what's missing and what we wish to invite into our lives. A New Moon occurs when the Sun and Moon align in the same degree in the sky—today, that's 12 degrees in Leo.
Leo is a Fire sign, fixed in its energy and directed outward from the center of our hearts. While Cancer forms our self-image, Leo, connected to the 5th house, is where we step into the actualization of that self.
Leo's ruler is the Sun, the central force in our cosmos. Everything revolves around it, and without the Sun, life on Earth wouldn't exist. That's the grandeur of Leo.
In Western Astrology, the Sun represents our values, our personality, and how we shine our light into the world. It symbolizes how we integrate our life purpose into our everyday lives, manifesting what's within us into the outer world.
CREATIVITY AND SADNESS: A CONNECTION?
I'm currently reading a fascinating book called Bittersweet by Susan Cain. It explores how we can transform pain, sorrow, and longing into creativity. The book delves into studies that reveal a deep connection between these two aspects of the human experience.
"Is creativity associated with sorrow and longing, through some mysterious force? The question has long been posed by casual observers and creativity researchers alike. And the data (as well as Aristotle's intuition, per his question about the prominence of melancholics in the arts) suggest that the answer is yes. According to a famous early study of 573 creative leaders by the psychologist Marvin Eistenstadt, an astonishingly large percentage of highly creative people were, like Cohen, orphaned in childhood. Twenty-five percent had lost at least one parent by the age of ten. By age fifteen, it was 34 percent, and by age twenty, 45 percent!
People who work in the arts are eight to ten times more likely than others to suffer from mood disorders, according to a 1993 study by the Johns Hopkin's psychiatry professor Kay Redfield Jamison. In his study of the artistic psyche, Tortured Artists, a 2021 book profiling forty-eight creative outliers from Michelangelo to Madonna, author Christopher Zara found that heir life stories share a certain amount of pain and suffering.
In another study, Karol Jan Borowiecki, used a linguistic analytic software to study 1,400 letters written by Mozart, Liszt, and Beethoven throughout their lives. He traced when their letters referred to positive emotions (using words like happiness) or negative ones (words like grief), and how these feelings related to the quantity and quality of the music they composed at the time. Borowiecki found that the artists' negative emotions were not only correlated with but also predictive of their creative output. And not just any negative emotions had this effect. Just as scholars of minor key music found that sadness is the only negative emotion whose musical expression uplifts us, Borowiecki found that it was also “the main negative feeling that drives creativity.
WHAT IF WE CREATED FROM OUR DEPTH OF FEELING?
So, what if we allowed ourselves to create from a place of inner depth and vulnerability, rather than trying to meet external expectations?
There's a reason Leo follows Cancer in the zodiac — being connected to our emotions is the foundation for creating something that truly touches others.
What if we didn't need to be perfect or have all the answers? What if we simply let our tender hearts speak, whether through words, music, paint, or movement?
Imagine parking the perfectionist and the imposter in the passenger seat, telling them they no longer drive the ship. We're allowed to mess up, to be human.
It's easier said than done. I've been sitting here, trying to record an Instagram Reel for a month now, constantly finding reasons not to, with an inner voice screaming, “I WON'T DO THIS!”
LEO NEW MOON IN SYNC WITH JUPITER AND MARS
This New Moon in Leo is harmonizing (Sextile) with Jupiter and Mars in Gemini. What does this mean?
I imagine it like this: Jupiter, the planet of abundance, luck, and expansion, is calling out to the Moon, “Hey Moon, bring more of your creative life force, more of your generosity, more of your inner creative child. Share it with the world.”
Mars, also in Gemini, adds, “Hey Moon, your emotions are fiery, and I'm going to stoke that fire even more. Don't let it burn only within—find an outlet. Let your creativity blaze and let your passion lead. Enough holding back—share it with the world.”
QUESTIONS THE MOON WOULD ASK
If the Moon could speak, it might ask:
Where are you holding back the expression of your creativity and, in turn, your life force?
What if you began to create from a place of connection with your inner world and the stories life has offered you?
What would your inner child want to do today that you haven't allowed for a while?
Are you reacting from an inflated sense of self, or from your inner fire?
What talent did you bring into this world, and how could you give it a little room for expression today?
CREATIVITY: THE SOOTHING PLASTER WHEN LIFE GETS TOUGH
Do you see where I'm heading?
What if we embraced our vulnerability, our lows, and our suffering as a path that brings us closer to our true selves, to our creative life force?
Creativity has a unique power to transform sorrow, longing, and grief into something meaningful, both for ourselves and for others.
As a friend once asked me, “What are you going to do with that anger?
Creativity, in its purest form, isn't about fame or fortune—it's about expressing what our hearts are feeling. It's about turning sorrow into passion, just as many great minds have done to survive the most challenging times in their lives.
So why not start alchemizing those feelings into something greater? For our own sake, and for the sake of others, to show them they're not alone.
Sadness may be bittersweet, but it can give birth to something unique in this world. And more important, it has the ability to touch hearts and help them open.
Perhaps that's why Leo and the fifth house are associated with children. There are so many different things we can bring into this world—we just need to find what lights up our inner fire.
Or, as Susan Cain might say, “Whatever pain you can't get rid of, make it your creative offering.”
With love,
Karina
** header graphic from GIPHY.com
