TRANSCRIPT Ep. 277 (2.10.25)
Leo Full Moon: Crossing the Desert!
Hello, invisible friend, April here, and the date today is February 10th, 2025. Welcome to Episode 277 of the Big Sky Astrology Podcast.
This week, you have relatively quiet skies for your Valentine’s Day celebration. But both the Sun and Mercury are clashing with unpredictable Uranus. Mercury enters gentle, imaginative Pisces. The Full Moon in Leo is both exciting and disruptive. And I answer a listener question about the transiting lunar nodes in opposition to the natal lunar nodes.
Mercury square Uranus (Feb. 10, 2025, 11:28 am PST)
Sun square Uranus (Feb. 11, 11:30 am PST)
Well, as I mentioned at the introduction, it is a pretty quiet week in the skies, but it does bring squares to Uranus from Mercury, on February 10th at 11:28 am Pacific Time, and the Sun, on February 11th at 11:30 am Pacific Time. Both are on the Sabian symbol 24 Aquarius, Man turning his back on his passions teaches from his experience.
Squares to Uranus from other planets trigger disruption. Mercury’s square to Uranus is about telling a new story, learning new things, and specifically teaching new things. As we see in this Sabian symbol, A man teaching from his experience, there is absolutely a time to indulge in talking about what you’re passionate about, but this particular aspect is about teaching from what you’ve actually experienced. And those two aren’t always the same thing. Not to mention the fact that the way you have experienced things is often at odds with the way they are normally expected to be. And people don’t necessarily always love to hear about your experiences if they don’t match up with the accepted wisdom of how things are “supposed to be”.
The Sun’s major hard aspects to Uranus come four times each year: When the Sun makes a conjunction to Uranus when it makes an opposition six months later, and when it makes its two squares, which lie in between those two points at either side. This is the first of the squares for this year. It’s finishing a cycle that began in May 2024. The conjunction this year will be on May 17th, then another square on August 24th, and an opposition on November 21st. So those are moments of the year when we have these aspects that tell a story of individual freedom, our individual genius, and how they are developed through standing up for ourselves and challenging existing wisdom and rules.
The Sun in Aquarius is kind of custom-designed for doing these things anyway, so this should be a very dynamic transit that will also color the Leo Full Moon as we’ll see in a few minutes. This is an aspect that calls us not only to stand up to external forces that we disagree with – our boss, our parents – but also to confront the inner resistance that keeps us from being our true selves, being and doing what feels truly right to us.
We can find ourselves in confining circumstances, but it’s what’s inside us that always dictates whether or not we will feel free. The Sun in aspect to Uranus also talks about how we want to recreate ourselves. We might decide that we don’t want to live out the particular persona that we have always lived out, that others associate with us. If we’re a person who thinks, oh, I am not very good at getting up and speaking in public, just for example, this is an opportunity to change that pattern if you would like to, or you feel like it would be helpful for you to get up and do some speaking, like the man in the Sabian symbol, teaching from his experience. This is the opportunity to say, well, who says I can’t do that? Who says that’s not part of who I am? And then we can shift our approach and do some of the most remarkable things that we never thought we could do.
Leo Full Moon (Feb. 12, 2025, 5:53 am PST)
And now for the Moon Report, and it begins with the Full Moon in Leo on February 12th at 5:53 am Pacific Time at 24º06’ Leo and Aquarius. The Full Moon is the phase that shines a bright light on whatever is missing in our lives. What do we need more of? What were our intentions at the Aquarius New Moon on January 29th that now seem unlikely to bring us what we really need or want?
The Leo Full Moon each year awakens us to creative urges that we might have been ignoring or to the fact that we just need more fun or play or romance in our lives. This Full Moon is the response to the call of the Leo New Moon on August 4th, 2024. What was your dream then? Because you’re now halfway through the year that began with that Leo New Moon and you have a little clearer picture, maybe, of what you need to do going forward.
At this Full Moon, the Sun, Moon, and Mercury are square Uranus. I spoke before about the Sun and Mercury part of this equation. Uranus says you can have all the things that you long for, but first, you must change. But the lunar part of us doesn’t necessarily feel that comfortable with change. The Moon is a symbol that by its nature is always changing, changes signs every two and a half days, changes phase about every three and a half to four days, and so it tends to welcome a little bit of constancy. As we see ourselves and our lives through the mirror of this Full Moon, it could be unsettling. Full Moons often are. And, we may feel as if things around us are so disruptive that we may never feel safe and feel as though we have what we need.
But I very much like the Full Moon Sabian symbol 25 Leo, A large camel crossing the desert. This is a symbol of self-sufficiency and maybe this Full Moon is a reminder that in order to create, to play, to enjoy ourselves we may need more time to ourselves. The Aquarius season often has us being a little bit hyper-social, and this is a Full Moon that really needs some time on its own. Nothing and nobody from outside us is going to be able to completely sustain us. We have to have a strong center within ourselves to keep us going.
Lunar Phase Family Cycle
This is the Full Moon in a lunar phase family cycle that began with the New Moon on August 16th, 2023, at 23º 17’ Leo. At each New Moon, we begin a three-year cycle of a particular Moon sign. Every nine months after the New Moon, there is a major lunation near that same degree and sign. The First Quarter, or initial action phase in this cycle, was on May 15th, 2024, at 25º 8’ Leo.
Now we’re at the Full Moon in that cycle, and it gives us an opportunity to look back at the New Moon in Leo, what we might have been hatching at that time, and then at the First Quarter taking some kind of bold action. And then we will have the Last Quarter in this Lunar Phase Family Cycle on November 11th, 2025, at 20º 04’ Leo.
I love the Lunar Phase Family Cycle because rather than just having the 29 and a half days of a typical monthly New Moon cycle to get something done, in this case, we have three years to accomplish something that we set out at a New Moon that seemed especially important to us, but that will take a little time to realize.
Void-of-Course Moon periods
Let’s look at the Void-of-Course Moon periods for this week. On February 10th, the Moon in Cancer trines Neptune at 5:49 AM Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for 3 hours and 12 minutes before it enters Leo at 9:01 am. Void-of-Course Moon periods always give us an opportunity to change the way we’re doing things, our day-to-day habits, and Void-of-Course Moon periods that begin with the Moon trine another planet tell us that there is a gift available to us. Intuition and sensitivity to other people’s feelings are strongly indicated by this Void-of-Course Moon. So use it to get into the habit of separating your feelings from other people’s feelings. It’s nice to be empathetic, but sometimes we can take it a little too far. Just because somebody else is in a funk doesn’t mean that you need to be as well. Practice empathy, but don’t forget about boundaries.
On February 12th, the Moon in Leo opposes Mercury at 11:12 am Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for 5 hours and 55 minutes and then enters Virgo at 5:07 pm. A Void-of-Course Moon that begins with the Moon opposed to another planet brings awareness. Here is a Void-of-Course period to get in the habit of using your mind alongside your heart to make decisions or to communicate. Strike a balance here between logic and emotion.
And on February 15th, the Moon opposes Neptune at 12:35 AM Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for 3 hours and 10 minutes, then enters Libra at 3:45 am. This is another Void-of-Course period marked by awareness. And oppositions, in particular, tend to be associated with relationships. If you happen to be awake during this time- many of us won’t be on the West Coast of the United States, but many of you will be – use this Void-of-Course period to cultivate relationships with the people you know who are artistic or spiritual or who in some way inspire you. Make that a habit when you come across those people in your life to really cultivate that relationship.
And, you know, gaining inspiration from others doesn’t necessarily have to be something we do in person. This could be via a YouTube creator whose channel we very much admire, a spiritual center, or even a meetup group. Surrounding yourself with people whose work or philosophy you appreciate could help you improve your craft or get insights into your own spiritual practice.
Mercury enters Pisces (Feb. 14, 2025, 4:06 am PST)
And on February 14th at 4:06 am Pacific Time, Mercury enters Pisces. After traveling through the Saturn-ruled signs of Capricorn and Aquarius since January 8th, the planet of what we think and what we have to say about it melts into the sign of the ineffable. Forget about rules, about should or should not, must or must not, and let yourself downshift to gentle, if sometimes slightly confused, realm of Pisces.
This is a time to take a deep breath and just relax and melt into heart-to-heart communications. Catch up on sleep. Dig into some artistic projects, into music and into poetry. Mercury is said to be disadvantaged in Pisces because it is very strong in the opposite sign, Virgo. Mercury is a planet that prefers logic. But Pisces prefers intuition, dreams, visions, and illusions. So, you can see that Mercury has to shift gears a little bit in able to work well in Pisces.
But it is a lovely time for letting yourself spend a little time in those imaginative realms. If you have been wanting to start a meditation practice, definitely do it while Mercury is in Pisces. Mercury will be in this sign through March 3, and then after it turns retrograde on March 14, it revisits Pisces from March 29–April 15.
An old friend is moving to town, and we are going to begin to look for choruses that we can sing in. We sang in a chorus together in high school. So, it feels like Mercury going into Pisces is a wonderful time to do that. And for anything that’s kind of group-oriented, because we still have planets and Aquarius that love doing things in groups. So, looking for organizations that help you develop these Piscean qualities, music, poetry, art, meditation, yoga, any of these things are really well suited to the Mercury in Pisces season.
Listener Question: Transiting Nodal Opposition
In this week’s listener question, listener Judy writes, “I appreciate how you work with the lunar nodes in your practice. They’re like a guiding light in the north, steering us toward new, enriching waters. The South, like a buoy out at sea, reminding us where we have been and the treasures we carry from voyages long ago.
How does the reverse nodal return affect working with the nodes? I am so confused. If the South Node is a point of release, and the transiting North Node, where we should go, is on it – what’s a person to do? They seem like contradictory influences. If the natal node is the beacon where we’re headed, then the transiting South Node is on it. What do we do with the ship? Jettison cargo? Make a U-turn? As someone whose reverse nodal return is approaching, I could go for greater clarity. That’s especially so given the node’s change of signs into the Virgo-Pisces axis, home of my natal north, second house, and south (8th) nodes.”
Judy, thank you for that question. I talked briefly about the nodal opposition, as we call it, on Episode 188, but the real focus of that particular question was about the nodal return. So let’s take a closer look at the nodal opposition, which is when the transiting North Node is in a conjunction with your natal South Node, and of course that means the transiting South Node is in a conjunction with your natal North Node.
It does sound pretty contradictory. Here is the analogy I use to understand this important nodal opposition, which is the midpoint in the 18-year transiting nodal cycle.
Let’s begin by picturing the Moon’s South Node as being like a storage unit, where you keep all the best qualities and accomplishments that belong to your natal South Node. I don’t think of the South Node as a toxic symbol, though a lot of astrologers tend to see it as a pretty unhelpful place in the chart. I feel, as you phrased it, that it contains the treasures we carry from long-ago voyages. The problem with the South Node comes when we try to move into the storage unit and live on past laurels, instead of using these skills and gifts and treasures to help us move forward.
When the transiting North Node comes into a conjunction with the natal South Node, the North Node journey forward is an opportunity to use some of those South Node treasures. Imagine the transiting North Node then as a truck backing up to your storage unit to pick up some of the more helpful stuff that you have stored in there. The qualities that you’ve stored away are now very helpful to move you along the transiting North Node path.
If your natal South Node is in Pisces, for example, you have a good handle on Pisces qualities like being nonjudgmental, empathetic, taking a more flexible approach to things. These are qualities that will be helpful during the next 18 months or so that the transiting North Node is in Pisces.
Meanwhile, the transiting South Node is in a conjunction with the natal North Node. I would read this as meaning that even along a North Node journey which is designed to move us forward, there are traits, behaviors, and past patterns that need to be let go of along the way. For example, the transiting South Node is now in Virgo. If your natal North Node is in Virgo, your natal path forward is based in cultivating practical skills and reality, the ability to organize, to improve. But as you move along that natal path, you’ll probably develop some of the less desirable qualities of Virgo along the way from time to time. A little too much perfectionism here, a bit too much criticism there.
And as the transiting South Node makes a conjunction to this point, it’s a little like a trash truck that comes along, and you can just throw in all of the negative qualities and debris that you’ve picked up along the way.
I guess I see the nodal opposition as a time to tidy up your natal North Node path, and to reclaim some helpful qualities from your natal South Node that can help you along the current path.
Judy, I hope that that makes sense to you. I’m not presenting this as The Truth, by the way. It’s just a little analogy that helps me understand what this important stage of the transiting nodal cycle might be about. I hope it helps you as well.
If you have a burning astrological question that you’d like me to answer on a future episode, leave a voicemail of one minute or less at speakpipe.com / bigskyastrologypodcast, or send me an email at April (at) Big Sky Astrology (dot) com and be sure to put “Podcast Question” in the subject line.
Donor Thanks
Well, that is everything I have on my show sheet, so I’m going to wrap this one up. As I said, it is a very quiet week astrologically, so we have a little bit of a shorter episode today!
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That’s it for this episode. Join me again bright and early next Monday. And until then, keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars!
Writing and images © 2017-25 by April Elliott Kent
For more on this week’s planetary news, read my column!
