AUGUST LOOKS like being a strongly Saturnian month, with some very useful support from the fire energies and with some places of significant uncomfortability as some very different reality systems collide.

This is not so much a problem for Leo in general and the Lion in each of us, as all of life is a great drama from his perspective. That this great cosmic drama of intense T-squares and the like should be happening on his watch is only fitting. The confrontation with great challenges can bring out the best in people and, as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. The Sun in Leo is in good form in this respect as part of a grand trine with Jupiter in Sagittarius and the healing asteroid Hygeia in Aries. Whatever happens, there will be great healing and great learning. This combination of courage, expansiveness and depth ensures that we can draw much of value from this time in ways that can healthily expand our sense of self to be more incorporative of many diverse aspects of our whole selves.

In terms of discomfort, we can't go past a T-square between the Moon in Aquarius, not far from Neptune, with Mars in Taurus and Saturn in Leo conjunct Venus in Virgo. Phew! That Saturn is in its last weeks of being in Leo and is a major player (conjunct the Sun) in a total lunar eclipse on the 28th ensures that in many ways, this is its month.

Saturn's journey through Leo is a tough, yet empowering, assignment and a very terse one as the extroverted Lion meets discipline, containment and various timely ego defeats to enforce some serious considerations of how he uses his energies. On one level, Leo is a big kid trying to find its real self among all the traps of arrogance and self aggrandisement. Saturn, on the other hand, is trying to show him that the world is more than just a big show for one's own entertainment and is actually a much bigger stage to shine as a leader and as an agent of solar benevolence. In order to achieve this goal, he has to trip up some of the lesser expressions of a truly noble energy.

Wherever Leo is in our individual charts is a place where Saturn has been applying this blowtorch for the last two years, to get us to be more focused and empowered in how we express ourselves in whatever house(s) he lives in.
As a part of the T-square, Saturn puts some breaks on our relationships (Moon and Venus), our ability to act and achieve (Mars), and on how much we can escape into our heads or into spiritual lalaland because the emotional energies have become too tough (Moon and Neptune). In this rather vice-like situation, hence the discomfort, Saturn is attempting to show us how we trip ourselves up with unresolved anger and father issues, escapist behaviours, unclear motives, emotional delusions and inadequate beliefs about ourselves and life.

This is a hell of a list and begs the question of why, for what point? Ultimately, it's about getting real and taking deeper responsibility for repairing our weak spots and our sense of inadequacy. With Saturn it's always about going deeper, of finding greater wisdom and authority in creating our lives. In alchemical texts, Saturn was also known as the "Ring Passeth Not"; that is, the furthest extent in which you can go - spiritually, emotionally, on any level - with normal ego-consciousness. In this way it can appear to keep us separate from wholeness, from unity, from God. But this is not true, as the ring is an initiation point that can be passed if you go deep enough to where Saturn is actually a great unifier. This is the great secret of whenever he appears to be giving us a hard time.

From a unified perspective, the T-square is then an opportunity to learn more about how to integrate our highest visions and awareness, with the ability to act and manifest in the world with both great sensitivity and healthy realism. In relationships it represents the ability to see our love and our loved ones with greater clarity, truth and humility, and to be sensitive to the feelings of others without losing a healthy separateness. One of the greatest changes possible at this time is to see the negative image of the critical and suppressing father within progressively turn into the wise, benevolent father. At least, this is one of the ultimate goals of this time and that of the last of the Saturn/Neptune oppositions of this last year.

To reinforce this theme, Saturn is trining Pluto exactly this month, linking the earthing and stabilising energies of Saturn with a place of great transformative power within each of us. It means that we have the empowerment, at least potentially, to shift some of the deepest energies in our psyches while learning more about our essential potency to make significant change in our lives that take us closer to manifesting what we are truly here to do. This combination adds considerable support for making the most of whatever challenges get thrown at us this month. All power to you.

Daniel Sowelu (BSc DipEd) is a therapeutic astrologer, primal therapist and group leader in his 21st year of private practice.