Dear Chronogram Reader:
Imagine you are focused intently on making your car fit into a tight parallel-parking space. You get it partway in, but maybe your approach wasn’t quite right. At a certain point, you realize that going back and forth at the same angle isn’t getting you where you want to go.
You need more wiggle room. But the other cars are not going to give it to you. The curb is not going to give it to you. Even your own car is not going to give it to you. You are the only one who can give yourself more wiggle room—and you do that by pulling out and realigning, giving yourself space and perspective.
You have to try something new—even if just subtly. Your pride at typically being a great parallel parker will not help you, nor will letting your ego flare up at the nerve of these other people not giving you more space. You might need to try an approach that is different in its speed, angle, head start, and so on.
You might even experience the epiphany that you don’t have to keep trying that same parking spot, let alone keep trying in the same way. Far from abandoning the process, you have given yourself the space to see the process for what it is and negotiate it differently.
It’s not a perfect metaphor, but you may find it useful as Friday’s Aquarius Full Moon approaches. The Full Moon is exact at 6:43 am EDT July 31, a so-called Blue Moon since it is the second Full Moon this month (the first was July 1, with the Sun in Cancer and the Moon in Capricorn).
Leo and Aquarius are both "fixed" signs. As such, they can lend a sense of rigid intractability to astrological events. And Full Moons often represent a relational stalemate that has come to a head.
Something needs to give. In some sense it will regardless of what you do, at least somewhat; as the Full Moon wanes, the undercurrent of energy that had been intensifying begins to dissipate. But what if you actively help things along by using your awareness to react differently than you might have otherwise?
What if you consciously choose to give some wiggle room to your emotions, to your thoughts, to whoever you are dealing with—and therefore to yourself—as this week winds down?
Leo and its ruler, the Sun, both represent ego, which can be a very rigid facet of self. In its efforts to protect you from what it perceives as "dangerous risk," ego can also block you from the vulnerability you need to allow if you wish to experience intimacy, healing, growth, and creativity.
Emotion and intuition, represented by the Moon, want to flow freely. Yet in Aquarius, they can get fused with rigid thought forms and become detached from empathy—both toward others and toward ourselves.
Luckily, Leo and Aquarius offer solutions through their "flip side" qualities. At its best, Leo is about heart: generosity, compassion, courage, warmth. Aquarius offers surprising inventiveness and clarity of intellect. So the trick is to lean on these more productive qualities to allow yourself and a partner, work colleague, friend, or relative some extra wiggle room.
Rather than getting stuck in a detached view of a situation, try leaning into any unusual impulses that occur to you, and see if your passion follows. When you step out a pattern of confrontation that won’t seem to budge, you allow yourself to see it as "not really you." In doing so, you are actually showing yourself some compassion. Because a relentless external battle or blockade is likely mirroring an internal dynamic that’s eating up a lot of your psychic and emotional energy.
Which brings me to a couple final points about astrology happening simultaneous with the Full Moon. The first is that Venus, which stationed retrograde in Virgo last weekend, backs out of that sign and re-enters Leo about five hours after the Full Moon on Friday. This should bring some warmth back to any investigation of your "inner critic" you’ve been involved in.
Specifically, notice over the next month if you gain better understanding into the childhood roots of your inner critic’s voice. You may want to offer a little extra kindness toward your inner child (and your adult self) as you do.
Also this weekend, Saturn stations direct in late Scorpio and squares Jupiter in Leo. If you’ve been making slow but steady progress toward a particular goal over the last few months, take any opportunity to move things forward tangibly this week. With the extra wiggle room you give yourself around the Full Moon Friday, you can use the freed-up energy for some actual follow-through on a project.
This is the kind of thing that does not happen by itself. The universe may show you the open spot, but you’re the one driving the car.
Yours & truly,
Amanda Painter
