Savoring the Pleasure of the Sun in Leo

Sun in Leo on lion cubs

The Sun rises in Leo on July 22, 2020 at 12:36am PST.
The New Moon rises in Leo on August 18, 2020 at 7:41pm PST.

Hello there, Heart-Centered Entrepreneur!  I just ate the most delicious breakfast.

It was one of my old time favorites from childhood that has been updated to suit my adult palate.  It’s banana toast, and my grandmother used to make it for me when I was a kid.  Her version involved some generic white bread with margarine, cinnamon, white sugar and a ripe banana.

But my adult version cuts a slice from a whole wheat loaf that comes fresh from my local baker.  It’s got pumpkin seeds and chia and the texture is firm on the outside, but soft and slightly chewy on the inside.  Though whole wheat, this bread has a lightness to it that I just love.  I cut a thick slice and lather on a hefty spoonful of coconut oil (or rich cow’s milk butter, when the mood suits.)  I then take a touch of sel de Guerende and sprinkle that lightly.  Then comes a touch of Ceylon cinnamon.  I then pop it into the broiler and grill the top layer for about a minute so that the bread is lightly toasted and the cinnamon and coconut oil are starting to melt together.  Then I layer on some thinly sliced ripe banana. I add another sprinkle of cinnamon and back into the oven it goes for another 2 minutes.

This is one of my favorite breakfasts and it’s healthy, comforting, filling and energizing (which is just what I need to loll around in bed writing.  Oops! My bad!  Probably not the best choice of breakfasts for me today!)  The benefits of the breakfast are great, but it’s the eating of the breakfast that brings me to this article about how to benefit from the Sun and New Moon in Leo.  You would think that with all the love and attention I put into that breakfast, I would have enjoyed it with equal love and attention.  But I did not.  Oh, I enjoyed it– it was delicious.  But I did not savor it; and that is a pity.

A few years back I did an hour long interview with sensuality mentor, Kitty Cavalier (who has, by the way, gone back to her original name, Mary Lofgren.) I asked her how we can welcome pleasure into our lives without going overboard.  I am someone who, when offered something wonderful, tends to overdo it.  I am a bit of a glutton and so because I have never really learned how to enjoy things in moderation or to stop when I am satiated, I have chosen to extremely restrict and limit pleasure in my life.  I mete out the pleasure like a stingy parent meting out a meager allowance.  It produces a tremendous feeling of deficit in my life, actually, and very often I feel deprived on a deep level, which, of course, makes me overeat in rebellion.  I shared this with Kitty in our conversation and the most powerful piece of advice she gave was to slow down and savor the moment.

How to Savor the Moment

We are now entering a new astrological season with the Sun in Leo (and the New Moon coming late in the season) so savoring and pleasure are both coming up as Spirit Guides to help us improve the quality of our lives.  In this period of change, it can be difficult to relax into peaceful contemplation, but a regular mindfulness practice will show us that savoring the moment feeds the soul.  Slowing down the lifestyle and taking the time to find pleasure everywhere nourishes us to our core.  And a properly nourished Soul is a balanced Soul and is one that does not over consume.  When I find something pleasurable, I tend to take it beyond the point of healthy satiation.  I become satiated when I reach the level where the hunger for pleasure is proportional with the emotional fulfillment.  This is inner child satisfaction and in that moment, I feel good. But there’s a drama that’s unfolding in the deep recesses of my psyche.  Somewhere inside my mind is a wounded child who is hungry for too much because she doesn’t trust satisfaction.  So I reach for more of the thing that was pleasurable a moment ago and I shove in more of it even though it has lost its flavor; so now it has become an obsession.  I take more and more of this thing and even though it has ceased being pleasurable, I still take it because it is feeding the wound.  It’s not about nourishing anymore.  It’s about having, possessing and it’s mindless, powerful and dangerous.

Whew!  So yeah, thanks for taking that little journey into Shadow with me.  Let’s NOT explore the story of why I have that wounding and instead let’s focus on the soul-ution for that wounding:  Savoring. And this is why the Sun and New Moon in Leo are such important events for us, especially right now while we’re going through massive social change and suffering the anxiety that goes along with it.  If you are in my Heart-Centered Entrepreneur Facebook group you will know that I’m really ramping up support for you. We’re doing two group livestream sessions per week now and all of the participants are really finding their rhythm in the uncertainty. I’m also offering a free masterclass called Healing the Healer: 3 Powerful Tools for Healing, Transformation and Self-Realization. I invite you to join me for some serious coaching, healing and inspiration.

As I said earlier, I did not savor my banana toast this morning.  I enjoyed it, but I did not savor it.  I ate it while watching Stephen Colbert on Youtube.  Instead of savoring, I multitasked.  Savoring is about doing one thing at a time.  Of course, it is possible to enjoy Stephen Colbert AND enjoy my breakfast, and I did.  But split attention is not as powerful as whole attention.  We are accustomed to splitting our attention over MANY different fields and that’s okay.  But we also need to have moments where we focus fully and connect.  This is particularly nourishing behavior.  Meditation, for example, is an intentional act of feeding yourself powerful nourishment in the form of focus or expansion.  It doesn’t have to be a perfect meditation where you slip easily into Samadhi without any interference from your ego.  99.99% of your meditation may never be that way.  But just the act of intentioning your physical body and your mind to this act is opening the pipeline to getting what you need.  Take a moment to savor a breath or two.  You don’t need to change your posture.  Just close your eyes and focus on your breath.  See the back of your eyelids and inhale.  Relax your mind and focus on the back of your eyelids as you exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Feel yourself inhaling.  Just observe how your body receives the air.  Exhale and notice how your tummy contracts.  Inhale.  Exhale.

I am hoping that in your brief moment of quiet, you were able to focus on and savor your breath.   The opportunity that comes when we savor our breath is the chance to connect with our body—to bring awareness to our vessel, to quiet the mind, to relax, and to receive messages from our Inner Wisdom.  There is a tremendous sense of wellbeing that washes over us when we take a moment and savor our breath.  It’s like a reset for our whole system.

We can also use savoring to help us establish intimacy.  For me, intimacy is closing the gap between myself and another being.  I am  always striving for intimacy with the people I love.  Savoring can help me do this by intensifying my presence.  So it used to be my practice that whenever I would talk to my friends on the phone, I would be doing something productive but that was mindless.  For example washing dishes or any type of cleaning, driving, walking, cooking.  I had no need to be quiet when I was doing any of those things and because I used busy-ness as my guiding principle, it made sense that I would multitask social pleasures.  In my world pleasurable things were not as important and valuable as busy, productive things.  For the last few years, though, I have felt differently about myself, my time and my priorities.  Friends have come up in importance and busy-ness has dropped sharply.  I realize that I am becoming more Leo-like. Do you know Leo? Of course you do because every year around this time you become one. Imagine gorgeous golden beasts majestically walking the plains, hunting, sexing, priding. Have you been ignoring yourself during this time for all your life? No!  You couldn’t possibly.

Exploring the Sign of Leo

The sign of Leo is ruled by the Sun.  Both the Sun and Leo are masculine, which means that they express themselves in a more mental and outward manner.  OOoOh!  Hey!  Do you know who’s a Leo?  Roger Federer, the tennis champ.  Man!  What a ferocious beast on the court and yet so graceful and endearing in interviews.  There are lots of famous Leos, by the way.  They run the spectrum of achievements and leadership.  Think Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Leonardo Dicaprio and Robert de Niro, and every other sexy male being that makes you heart flutter in a very provocative way.  He’s probably a Leo.  For women, think Jennifer Lawrence, Viola Davis, Kristin Wiig, Jennifer Lopez, J.K. Rowling and every other intelligent and gorgeous babe on the planet.  Okay.  Not every intense hunk and sassy babe are Leos, but I gotta say that this sign really does stick out in my mind for its dominance.  The WONDERFUL thing is that when the Sun and New Moon move into any sign, we all get to take on the qualities of that sign.

While the sign of Leo rules pleasure and fun, which we can all bring more powerfully into our lives at this time, there are four significant opportunities that are like phat juicy plums just waiting to be picked and enjoyed:

  • Taking action on your Badass Heart-Centered Entrepreneurial ambitions
  • Healing wounds around sexual connection
  • Powerfully manifesting your heart’s desires (emphasizing your HEART. Think passion, vibrancy and things that make you want to roar)
  • Feeling at home on planet Earth

Now that Cancer’s inner healing work has been done, the Sun and Moon in Leo calls us out of the Shadows and into the Light. As we age from day to day and week to week astrology advances us with each planetary transit. Since the Sun rules our outward expression and Authority, we can expect to see some great growth and challenges in these areas. So last month with the Sun transit Cancer, we experienced a blossoming of our Inner Authority as our true emotions came forward into our conscious awareness and we were forced to deal with them. The more willing we were to be present and unconditionally loving with our Authentic Selves, the more creative, light and intimate we became with OURSELVES and thus more rich became our engagement with other people. The Sun in Cancer was absolutely rich with opportunities to break free of limiting beliefs and self-negating dialogues. Freedom from that crap means a life of creativity, optimism and deep intimacy as you free yourself from fear of vulnerability. Vulnerability can be your friend or enemy depending on how you look at it. Personally, I am looking for more vulnerability in my life because it means that I am naked, pure, unhidden, raw, true and SEEN. I have a deep need to be seen, but at the same time I fear it above everything. I am afraid of being judged, of getting it wrong, of being exposed as a failure, of being kicked out because of my failings, of being abandoned.

But contrary to our egoic instinct, we cannot treat fear of vulnerability with defensive practices such as protection, hiding, masks, and isolation. The only real solution for this and any fear is Unconditional Love for the Self. When you probe intimately into yourself, discovering all your Shadow and Light and you embrace ALL of what you are (the good and the bad) with equal appreciation and love, then you no longer fear vulnerability and intimacy. You no longer see yourself and your ‘mistakes’ as unlovable, unworthy or uncool. You KNOW yourself as a beautiful, DIVINE being that is not merely worthy of love, but that IS LOVE personified. Unconditional Love is the cure for all ailments, including vulnerability, isolation and loneliness.

As the Sun leaves the sign of Cancer and the world of Inner Authority (the right to author your own interior landscapes and to write your own life story according to your own vision,) it moves into Leo, which expresses itself in the material world as an Authority unto itself. Here is both our challenge and our opportunity—to take what we have discovered, explored, and nurtured within ourselves and to express it outward in the form of great works and intimate relationships. Hahahahaha! We can’t keep ourselves locked away. We have to go out there and show the world our faces! To take our newfound Inner Authority and to express it outwardly as wholly integrated beings.

The Sun is the quintessential Authority in our Universe. It is the CENTER of our SOLAR system and when the Sun enters Leo, the sign it naturally rules, the doors are thrown wide open for us to express ourselves with confidence. With this transit, our opportunity and our challenge is to bring the beautiful, graceful and compassionate self-love that we nurtured while the Sun was in Cancer and to bring that to our physical and material expressions. The Sun is coaxing us out of our crab shells and into the sunlight. Indeed, the opportunity is to express our Authentic selves with compassion and truth.

The New Moon has a 28 day cycle where she waxes and wanes, expands and contracts.  Her cycle is our cycle.  As she moves about the sky from one astrological position to another, we lucky humans, (her children, really) feel her magnetism in our deepest unconscious minds.  Menstruating women are truly blessed because they have physical evidence of the Moon cycles reflected in their flow.  It’s too bad that many of us have been taught to disdain this period and we haven’t been taught to honor it, because it truly is an honor… a reminder that we are not just bone and flesh and hair and breast.  We are stardust and consciousness. And this human body reflects it ALL. The Moon and her cycles and her magnetism connects us to the depths of our Soul.  I thank her for that!

Although the last several weeks have found us in the throes of our very own deepest, darkest shadows, fun, celebration, romance, creativity, and pleasure are all indicated for the month ahead—and not just for people born under the sign of Leo!  Where we were heavily experiencing Cancer and the feminine– inward, tender-hearted, cool, mysterious and nurturing, we are now getting to explore Leo and all that is masculine… outward, brave-hearted, hot, straightforward and conquering. Leo is ruled by the Sun and sure enough you can feel the warmth radiate from these very attractive, natural leaders.

It is summer here in the northern hemisphere and the Sun is shining bright in the sky. Here in Northern California, the temperatures are in the 100’s (40+, if you’re reading Celsius.) The Sun is the quintessential authority in the cosmos. He is the very definition of masculine Authority—omnipresent, self-aware, supremely intelligent, willful and confident.

In the Zodiac, the Sun rules the sign of Leo, which is the ruler of the 5th house. So as the Sun transits Leo, we will find that all of the qualities of the 5th house will come to the forefront of our being. The 5th house is all about fun, creativity, extroverted pleasure. Pleasure is the keyword for this Sun transit. And for this Sun Report, I am going to encourage you to use Pleasure as your Spirit Guide and to form a deep and intimate relationship with it, starting now.

What is the role of pleasure in your life?

So I ask you, what gives you pleasure? Is it waking up in your bed with your love next to you? If this is so, then you can expect a bit more pull in the direction of sex and romance, for these are definitely 5th house qualities. What about your early morning run, or whatever your exercise routine is? You can expect to be more energized with the Sun in Leo because the Sun is fiery energy that burns through its fuel with enthusiasm. Yes, you can expect a boost with weight loss and fitness during this transit. How about your work, business, and artistic expressions? Yes, yes, and YES! The 5th house is truly about pleasure through expression. If you take pleasure from your work, whether as an entrepreneur or as a laborer, then you can expect high spirits and even fun times as things lighten up around the office and you connect with others in a spirit of creative co-creation. (And here I feel compelled to give you a bit of a warning. Notice that I wrote “creative co-creation,” not “creative collaboration;” or even “creative cooperation.” The Sun’s energy is singularly authoritative. It is a leader, not a follower. The planets of our Solar system orbit the Sun, and in turn, our Sun takes 230 million years to orbit the spiraling Milky Way. 230 million years is called taking your own damned sweet time.) And any artistic expression that really allows you to be the center will be emphasized during this transit.

So let’s talk a bit about Pleasure, our Spirit Guide for the next 30 days or so. Wikipedia defines pleasure in this way: “a broad class of mental states that humans and other animals experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking.” I want to make this more personal, more Spiritcentric. Pleasure is the feeling we get when our brains are in a state of non-resistance, and we are at one in body, mind and Spirit. Sometimes that moment of alignment is fleeting and sometimes is hours and hours long. The Sun in Leo is the chance to tap in and cultivate it.

We cannot help but love Leo, the Lion. Even if they rub us wrongly, there is just something about this upbeat and fun-loving sign that inspires us. Whether it be their talent, their passion, their wit and humor, their keen intelligence, or their physical prowess, we are naturally drawn to Leos. And likewise, because during this transit we are ALL more Leo-like, we will feel more attractive. It’s your time to shine, Baby!

As the Sun transits its own special house, we can all expect to have an emphasis on what is masculine in ourselves, too. In astrology, we don’t really use the term ‘masculine’ to mean ‘manly.’ We mean the characteristics of ourselves that are more left brain than right —analytical as opposed to intuitive, linear thinking as opposed to imagination, factual thinking as opposed to holistic thinking, science as opposed to art, and objective as opposed to subjective. With the Sun in Leo, we will find that in ourselves, there is a blossoming of our masculinity as we approach our problems with good old logic and common sense. Former president of the U.S., Barack Obama, was born under the sign of Leo. Intelligent, charismatic, courageous with strength of character are true Leo descriptions, and the former president was the embodiment of these while he served in office.

Beloved, your job over the next 30 days is to savor and take pleasure in your moments. The Sun always represents your will and purpose, your sense of vitality, and your evolving higher Self. In Leo it is Fixed-Fire, and rules the heart and spine. Right now, your ruling planet is the Sun itself, and you are likely to express yourself in dramatic, creative and assertive ways. You are also likely to enjoy the warmth of the physical Sun. You have great energy, courage and honesty. You are likely to be self-confident and maybe even a bit self-indulgent. You expect to be the center of attention, and often are. You can be quite determined and usually get your way when you really want to. You also possess great integrity, and are a natural leader. Leo people are very proud. Your challenge is to temper any tendency for arrogant or egotistical behavior and to instead develop humility and compassion; to learn detachment in the gift of your affections, so that you radiate your abundant energy freely and enhance the life experience of others around you.

I wish you a pleasurable Sun in Leo period, Badass Butterfly!

Sign-up to get the blog delivered to your inbox:

Share:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Here I am! Eccomi qui!

Florence, Italy

Copyright

COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY CRYSTAL LYNN BELL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Excerpts may be used, with FULL CREDIT given to my website and me as writer. Unauthorized use of Full Article copy or duplication of any material on this website without express and written permission from its author and owner is strictly prohibited. Thank you.