NEW MOON IN LEO TAROT (for 7/24/2025)
Coming out of the watery morass of Cancer Season into the blaze of Leo’s razzle dazzle (SHOW TIME BABY!) can throw us for a loop, emotionally and energetically.
This new moon is giving us the opportunity to dry out the mud from last month, and begin to sweep away wherever we may have gotten mired in over-giving, codependency, and feeling other people’s stuff for them.
It’s true that Leo centers the ego, but that doesn’t have to be a negative thing, necessarily. It is through understanding and caretaking our own self-hood (who were are in these bodies, this incarnation, this version of ourselves in this timeline) that we can show up for the sacred reciprocity.
It’s impossible to serve from an empty cup, and yet all too often, we embody the archetype of the Queen of Cups at her most dysfunctional (especially in Cancer season), when we try to launch into savior mode, and go without the self-care that we need, or refuse to ask for help from others. I’ve had to confront this lesson very recently, and it has been a humbling wake up call, for sure.
Self-abnegation isn’t a gift to anyone. Our suffering doesn’t lesson anyone else’s. When we try to come at taking care of others from a place of centering ourselves, the giving can become toxic, and even destructive (to ourselves and others) FAST.
I can remember (many) times where I threw myself into mutual aid efforts during disasters — forgetting to eat, staying glued to the news and social media, staying up all night running comms — and becoming a total menace while I was trying to be helpful… But because everything I was doing was rooted in trauma response, not wanting to feel my own feelings, and a big heap of unhealed woundedness — it wasn’t actually healthy.
I was lashing out at people for not doing enough, not saying enough, not caring enough. It fucked up a few friendships, and didn’t actually help anyone. I can have some compassion for that activated, confused version of myself. I’m still that person, some days — but I’m trying really, really hard to be more balanced about it all, now.
This time around (with the catastrophic flooding) in Texas, I’m trying to shift and rebalance that — to ask for lots of helps with my fundraising efforts, make sure I’m eating and sleeping well, unplugging from media and news, and not forcing myself to read triggering accounts of rising waters that bring up a lot a Katrina PTSD for me. I’ve been saying to myself at the end of every night, “I can only do what I can do.”
This is hard when it feels like I haven’t done enough, but it’s late, and I still need to go to bed — or when there’s one more thing to add to the to-do list, or I can’t remember when I last had a nice soak in the bathtub.
It’s extra tough when I take on the story that everyone’s depending on me, and that if we don’t get a big enough crowd at the fundraiser show, or not enough raffle tickets sold, that I will have failed… But — I can only do what I can do. And I have to trust that it’s enough, and turn towards my own needs for rest, gentleness, and self-acceptance, as much as possible.
I had to ask for some help after some unlucky turns with my old car, and elderly animals got super expensive all at once — and found that it’s getting easier to say, hey — here are some ways you can support me too, so that I can keep supporting others, with a nice full cup.
Does anyone else relate to this? I feel like I’m probably not alone in trying to shift out of these unsustainable ways of being…
Leo’s physicality brings up the wisdom of the body, and recognizing that our human forms need resourcing. We simply do not GO without food, water, and rest.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge the immense privilege that we have, to have (mostly) reliable access to these things — especially while there are so many people in G4za, and across the world suffering and starving to death. No one should ever be forced to wither away (or witness this happen to their children). Food should never be withheld from those who need it — for any reason.
The helplessness I know so many of us are feeling to be able to influence the homicidal governments who are causing this devastation is just hideous. I’m making the calls to my reps, and donating to the people on the ground who are there to help — but when even they can’t get aid through to their own staff members (@aneraorg) who are also starving, you know things have gotten beyond dire.
It all feels like a pitiful drop in the bucket, I know. I’m seeing friends writing about how awful it feels to be cleaning out their fridges and finding wasted, molding food — knowing what plentiful and over-abundant access we all take for granted here, while others go without, and have less than nothing. It feels pretty gross to sit at a full table, knowing that so many people (and children) are dying of hunger, at this very moment. And knowing how preventable their deaths are.
If you’re struggling with the grief of it all, please ask for help, for support, and for witnessing. Do what you can, but please do not neglect yourself. The Grief Circle is coming soon, I promise — I just gotta get through this upcoming fundraiser (please come out!) and then I’ll send word to everyone who needs it.
Take care of your precious bodies, and your beautiful hearts. Ask for hugs, touch, sweetness. Make a good dinner, and acknowledge how blessed you are to eat it. Savor every bite, knowing that nourishment is giving you strength and grounding to keep fighting the good fights, on all the fronts where we’re being asked to step up right now.
Please don’t burn out, babes. Take it from me — it takes a lot more time to build that strength back up from the rubble. If the old structures are going to fall, let’s make sure they don’t take us out in the process, okay? Stay rooted in the knowledge that we have to be part of the re-balancing — and that means keeping our cups full, our bodies fueled and rested, our hearts receiving, and our spirits full of sustainable compassion.
