The Sun enters Leo II — The Laurel Wreath in Austin Coppock‘s naming conventions, or Your Moment in the Sun in T. Susan Chang‘s. Associated with the goddess Isis in the city of Alexandria during the Roman era, it’s a place of temporary honors and short-lived recognition for achievement — but this tends to discount and hide the enormous amount of practice and long-term effort that went into achieving that brief victory. Olympic athletes work considerably harder and longer than we can perceive for an average of four minutes of glory every four years, but the effort for that triumph is rarely seen until the very end of their story. So it is with the tale of the goddess Isis.

It’s reported that the sun god RA was lording it over the other gods of Egypt, and causing trouble. None could sway him with counsel or with threats from whatever course of action he pursued, and the Earth was being burned and destroyed through his recklessness. But it was Isis, who knew magic and also knew the arts of recipes and baking and cooking, who made a pot of the most delicious thing that RA loved to eat — and seasoned it with a poison that would make RA sick and helpless, but not immediately so it could not be traced back to her. The sun god could not help himself, and ate the whole contents of her dish… but shortly after that became ill. Isis alone knew the medicines that would cure him, he knew — and so he asked her help. But she refused to help him until she gave him his secret name. Fearing for his life, he did so… and in this way Isis gained power over RA himself, and he could refuse her nothing from that time forward.

It’s worth reflecting on the way in which Isis came to this power, though, rather than simply assuming it’s a one-time thing. Consider: she was an excellent cook, an excellent maker-of-spells, and an excellent combiner. She also had fantastic bedside manner, and persuaded RA to give up his power so that she could cure him. That indicates brilliant communications skills, expertise in chemistry and pharmacy, and a deep attention to detail in the kitchen. Oh, yes — and absolute baller confidence, as some of my former students would say, poisoning a god?? Are you so well-practiced? Do you train like an Olympic athlete for the rare moments you can work a perfect magic in the world?

The dodeks of Leo II support this vision of an athlete preparing for a competition in the most deliberate way. It begins with Sagittarius, moves through Capricorn and Aquarius, and ends in Pisces. From one perspective, this looks like a weird journey toward wishy-washy-ness, but consider: the centaur-sign has always been considered the blend of animal strength and human deliberateness in technique — the training regimen begins with a mix of brute force and human finesse. Then come the two signs of Saturn; the despair of seeing no progress at all, followed by the knowing and growing awareness that the nighttime effort has yielded daylight results. Finally comes the complexity of Pisces — knowing you are ready for the competition, but knowing equally well that your opponent has trained just as hard as you have: who is truly ready for the moment about to begin?

Planetary Placements

The Sun above the horizon makes this a Day Chart, but Mercury’s presence in Virgo in the first house gives particular eminence to the herald-planet and their significations for the next ten days. Matters of expertise, analysis, study, and reflection are critical to success, and failure is more likely when we charge in. However, the presence of Mars below the horizon urges us not to give ourselves over completely to cautious analysis alone — when you have a significant sector of the information in hand, act — you cannot solve the problems of the present simply through more study — deeds are also required.

The Nodal Axis has begun its motion through Aries-Libra for the next eighteen months, with the fire sign ramming us at top speed into taking on more responsibility — at work, in our private lives, in our family, in our volunteer organizations. The Air sign suggests that there’s an imbalanced intellectual fervor here; as though we have not fully accounted for the costs in both time and treasure to take on extra labor; nor fully contracted the expectations of higher rewards in return for our services. We’ll return to those themes in due time.

In the fifth house, Pluto is retrograde, inviting us to review and reconnect with our hobbies — and to test their usefulness for commercial viability. There’s been all sorts of warnings, all sorts of directives, to learn how to build a side-hustle from the things you love to do. The lord of commerce wants you to look at those dire warnings and urgent edicts with clear eyes in the next ten days, and make some useful judgements about the realities and likelihood of those expectations.

In the sixth house, Moon sits in her own decan, The Knot, and in the 25th Mansion of the Moon called The Lucky Star of Hidden Things. The decan is well-known as a place for dissolving and untangling what has long been a wound-up and intractable problem; while the Mansion is country-crossroads dive bar famous for honky-tonk dancing by night and farmers comparing weather reports at lunchtime… and a not inconsiderable number of middle-aged men sporting tan lines where a wedding ring ought to be, looking for temporary consolation from a domestic relationship they have no intention of leaving. Many women drive by, fearing to spot a husband’s truck… and at least a few drive by, hoping to spot the vehicle of their high-school crush, parked out front. It’s a cliché, perhaps, but one oft repeated from ancient days til now. Moon in this placement promises more than a few unravelings. We can expect to see some highly emotional separations between employers and employees based on this configuration.

The seventh house of peers and significant others is home to Saturn, The Lot of Fortune, and Neptune — our relationships with others will be limited in this next ten day period, partly for long and winding rationales that may not make much sense. Some of it may be the ongoing excuses of COVID, some may be political or familial arguments. Some of it may be reasons of enthusiasm or zealousness about real or perceived threats or opportunities. One way or another, expect plans to fall through, routines to be undone, and our most intimate relationships to be subject to unexpected constraints and dreamy new potentialities.

In the ninth house, relating to journeys, Jupiter and Uranus activate favorable relationships with the first and seventh, and unfavorable connections to the twelfth and sixth. Some unpleasant surprises wait for those who are “going it alone”, whether isolating themselves through graduate school, or trying a “lonely visionary” act with their employees, or trying to steer a new course for their religious life. However, leaders working with their team to achieve a common vision, or to build a new spiritual foundation, are likely to achieve some notable breakthroughs. Even college students should think “study group” or “road trip with friends,” not “hide in dorm room,” these next ten days.

The eleventh house is empty, but the Moon will arrive here by the end of the Sun’s time in Leo II — bringing with it a series of changes to our relationships with friends, due to the coming changes in relationships with our partners, our jobs, and our summer travel plans.

Finally, in the twelfth house, the Sun shares the sign with Venus retrograde, leading to a Venus Cazimi on August 13. The twelfth is home to both our long-range vision, and our sense of insurmountable obstacles. We are often our own worst critics, and we are likely to see our own performances and behaviors with some significant disappointment in the next week or so. Yet Venus should incline us to be forgiving, even as we try to do better. Don’t beat yourself up; give yourself a gracious pardon and move on.

Horoscopes by rising sign

Decan I of any sign (usually covering the 21st of the month to the first of the following month) is free to all visitors; Decan II is only available to Patreon and Ko-Fi.com subscribers; and Decan III is available to Patreon, Ko-Fi, and MailChimp subscribers.