Full Moon in Leo: Bed Bath and Beyond Stonks!
I consider the carnivalesque Full Moon in Leo as a catharsis of fixed sign tensions that have been building since The Great Conjunction. I unpack its array of aspects through the Reddit Rebllion.
“But the game is out there, and it’s either play or get played” – Omar, from The Wire
“These lacustrine cities grew out of loathing / Into something forgetful, although angry with history. / They are the product of an idea: that man is horrible, for instance, / though this is only one example. // They emerged until a tower / Controlled the sky, and with artifice dipped back / Into the past for swans and tapering branches, / Burning, until all that hate was transformed into useless love.”
— An excerpt from “These Lacustrine Cities, by John Ashbery
Any one else feeling giddy off the cyber fumes of revolution in the air? This is going to be a slightly unusual Full Moon report, as I wanted to focus most of my energy in parsing the extraordinary events that have rocked the stock market’s kasbah these past couple days, as that powderkeg Uranus-Mars reached its highest vibration. It would appear that a rag-tag band of shit posters, gamers, weary millennials and aficionados of memes have banded together, in righteous fury, to mete out death blows to several hedge funds that are now hemorrhaging billions. Nothing like the smell of schadenfreude in the morning!
I want to make one thing very clear: I do not feign to understand even an iota of the Plutonic reaches of Wall Street, or the complex, and largely abstract, world of stock trading (I mean, I watched a couple seasons of Billions?).
However, I have intuited a crescendo of patterns that seem to be climaxing under the brilliantine mirror ball of this Leo full moon, as an extremely volatile month is brought to a catharsis. Like our New Moon in Capricorn, however, this lunation is razzle-dazzled with an astonishing array of planetary tête-à-têtes, which I will attempt to isolate and unpack one-by-one.
Before I turn my attention to the planetary shenanigans, some background on what happened to bring several hedge funds to their knees yesterday, most notably Melvin Capital (and again, I will likely get things wrong, as I’ve only been crash-coursing the stock market since yesterday, lol). Or, you can just watch this video. :)
The gist of it is this: for decades, hedge fund CEOs (the fattest of the fat cats on Wall Street), have been playing the market like a casino, and have done so knowing the government will always be there to bail them out: they are literally too big, and too rich to fail. Political lobbies guarantee that they will always have a safety net. Rules for thee, but not for me.
On top of that, they also have the media in their pocket, which they can use to manipulate the intense emotional affects that drive the rising and falling of stocks in the first place. It only takes one damning article to destroy confidence in a particular company, and to send the spooked hive mind selling, whether or not the business is actually on the outs. It’s all very Plutonic: powerful machinations taking place under a veil of invisibility.
Though common sense would dictate that you only buy stocks in a company you see on the rise, one of their favorite games is the short sell: imagine vultures circling a gazelle slowly bleeding out on the savanna. These hedge funds will leverage their bets on companies that are in their death throes, even going so far as to hasten the process. They then enrich themselves on the bones and carrion of bankruptcy: again, it’s all so vampiric and Plutonic. This is why hedge funds are particularly maligned as adding nothing of value to the world of finance: they profit from the ashes of destruction in what is arguably a financial death cult.
In a couple of recent posts, I’ve speculated that the ‘real revolution’ will not be boots on the ground, but will have something to do with the collective finally snapping as they continue to wait for their stimulus cheques. Under Uranus, it will also be an etheric rebellion, led by a collective already traumatized to the point of dissociation by a year of extreme deprivation.
In the case of millennials, we are going through our second major financial crash at a time in our lives when our cohort’s power should be peaking. Our boomer parents owned real-estate and were starting families in their twenties. Meanwhile, we’re in our mid-thirties stringing together several side-hustles, while politicians lecture us about avocado toast or learning to code. No wonder so many of us have retreated into the free play of signs and symbols a la meme culture.
Furthermore, the bad seed that 2008 planted cannot be understated. This was the last time Jupiter was in its fall in Capricorn, and we watched as the government bailed out billionaire heads of corporations, banks, and indeed hedge fund CEOs. The inchoate rage of Occupy Wall Street never vanished—it just went underground. In any case, is it any wonder that an entire generation is on the verge of a psychotic break?
The Jupiter, Mars, Uranus entanglement has arguably been the planetary signature of the month, and it behooves us to consider what Mars will really fight for in Taurus, and how that Uranian rebelliousness may play out through the prism of Venus. It’s money baby, and food on the table. It’s a roof over your head. It’s dignity and harmony in our relationships. The Goddess of Love presides over relationships of all kinds, but she also has a mandate on the objects of our desires, and the resources we need to feel safe and secure.
Mars and Uranus Angry as Hell in Taurus
Basically, a Sub Reddit called Wall Street Bets, noting the vultures in their feckless flight patterns over a video game outlet called Game Stop, finally said NO. (And trust that when Taurus says no, and digs her cloven hooves into the ground, there is no shifting those tones of sheer brawn and SPITE). NO Wall Street. It’s not fucking happening. You will NOT hollow out a business steeped in the nostalgia of those halcyon days before plague, when Metric was on the radio-oh-oh, and before I understood the full extent of crony capitalism, and the fact that I will be a renter, and side-hustler for the rest of my life.
Oh, and not to mention potentially dying of stress-induced underlying conditions, all because the CDC has conveniently discovered that layering three masks makes it safe enough for me to return to my shitty minimum wage job making unicorn lattes for girl bosses.
Er-fucking-go, these Taurean things (tangible things of the world, like Bernie’s mittens!) that have brought me years of analogue joy, will not be liquidated to fill your coffers. Oh, and we’re also going to play the rotten game right back at you, because we’ve had a year of time alone in our shitty apartments to scrub up on not only coding and sour dough starter, but also the basics of the stock market—and we’ve actually created a sense of, dare I say, class consciousness, through the sheer force of memelahs.
Furthermore, this righteousness overfloweth the partisan vessels your media is determined to keep us in, because of the ol’ ‘divide and conquer’ bit, and we’re also wising up to that. And now we’ve got nothing to lose, and the stimmy that somehow took you months to get into our accounts, well, it’s going to be weaponized and billionaire hedge funders will weep over their lobster on the yachts they no longer own.
The beauty of all this is that we’ve also rather elegantly forced your hand (remember Venus?), because further governmental regulation to protect the hedges will lay bare your true alliances, while proving that the market was never truly free. Do nothing, and an Aquarian decentralized rabble may just reinvent the market in their own image, which will probably mean a stock market of memes and nostalgic revivalism of the beloved things of a simpler, and seemingly kinder time. All of this is to say: ‘Bed Bath and Beyond stonks’ is praxis baby, and now it’s time to pay the piper!
Or, in the words of John Auther, writing for Bloomberg Opinion:
“Instead of greed, this latest bout of speculation, and especially the extraordinary excitement at GameStop, has a different emotional driver: anger. The people investing today are driven by righteous anger, about generational injustice, about what they see as the corruption and unfairness of the way banks were bailed out in 2008 without having to pay legal penalties later, and about lacerating poverty and inequality. This makes it unlike any of the speculative rallies and crashes that have preceded it.”
Well, now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, I’ll attempt an unpacking of this perfect storm of planetary sound and fury by isolating the other transits peaking at this full moon in Leo.
Venus Conjunct Pluto
This conversation is a sort of secretive sidebar to the T-square of the Full Moon. However isolated from the main spectacle, it’s crucial. I remember when Mercury and Pluto met at 24 degrees of Capricorn, just a day before the Capitol Hill siege, I speculated that there was likely a great deal of back-channeling happening in the shadows; strategies for big power moves were percolating online.
The metaphor I used was the band of the rebels in Star Wars who were able to slot a laser into that specific weakness of the death star that exploded the entire behemoth in a matter of seconds. (Capitol Hill was a crude, and deeply lame iteration of this energy).
Now it’s Venus’ turn to engage in a bit of tactical cloak-and-dagger with the lord of the underworld. As the final dispositor of the Mars-Uranus powder keg, we can see the catharsis, and the Plutonic purging of that anarchic fury centering around dire material conditions. The volcanic eruption has seen a massive transfer of wealth from the Plutocrats to the memelords.
Venus in detriment in Capricorn is part goth, part depressed Wojack whose face collapses into a misery of crosshatching under his benign mask. She is also nostalgic, via Saturn, for a distant golden age of the past: this adds another dimension to the selection of stocks like Nokia, and Blackberry, which are anachronistic relics of this golden age.
You can also encounter greed, and obsessively covetous desires with Venus-Pluto. It will be interesting to see how this rebellion toes the line between a genuine cri-de-coeur against the wood rot of a system that only feigns to protect their weakest, while avoiding mere reproduction of the same greed that fuels Wall Street. We could be on the threshold of a historic redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor—perhaps augmented by cryptocurrency—but this is the decan of the miser too. Spiritual vigilance and probing self-reflection around intense desires are crucial.
The Sabian symbol of “a store filled with precious rugs” reminds me of the beautiful, inchoate chaos of memes sporing and fractaling, and how a collective moment may be able to cohere around the circulation of pure images and intricate patterns.
Sun conjunct Jupiter
I’ve been tripping over a misunderstanding, in modern astrology, of basic significations of Saturn and Jupiter. Pop astrology tends to isolate Saturn as the planet of laws and implementing regulations; on the contrary, Saturn as the planet of death, winter and decay, often undermines the coherence and stability of institutions as what was robust collapses in on itself. It’s no coincidence that 2020, with Jupiter in his fall in Capricorn, and deferring to Saturn and Pluto, saw many of our Jupiterian intuitions in their death throes.
In fact, it’s actually Jupiter that reigns over the idea of ‘law and order’ (and, indeed, institutions), according to Acyuta-Bhava Dasa, as the planet most connected to a transcendental symmetry and cohesion beyond our earthly plane. Jupiter is the music of the spheres, and the weights and counter weights of architecture. Jupiter is the conductor, raising sublime music, with a twitch of his baton, from the pure noise of the orchestra pit.
For most of today, Jupiter is in a state of combustion within the heart of Sol, this cazimi moment enacting a rebirthing of Jupiter in his synodic cycle, and burning away the dross of whatever has been corrupting our institutions. How fascinating to see the Reddit Rebellion laying bare, through the searing clarity of the Sun, the extent to which the behemoth of Wall Street (and, by proxy, the governmental structures succored to its lobbies) are deeply crooked, unethical, and driven by bad faith.
Now the Sun is in its exile in Aquarius, joining Mars and Venus as planets that are playing against character. I see planets in exile or fall as the black horse, or the underdog—the disenfranchised rabble, if you will. I was fascinated to see the Bernie fractal hint at a subterranean, pre-language, arguably bi-partisan populist rage. It staged its chaotic counter-chorus to the glitz of the inauguration ritual, which was met with one-note media simping.
I also can’t help but see this sudden uprising of Redditors as an advancing of the plot that started as soon as Mars ingressed into Taurus, and began interfacing with rebellious Uranus by whole sign. Like many astrologers, I was nervous about inauguration with Mars-Uranus peaking, but I began to notice the tendency of Jupiter, this January, to soften the edges of potentially violent revolutionary energies. I decry, in no uncertain terms, the shambolic insurrection of Capitol Hill, which aside from being fueled by delusion, and narcissism, was completely unsuccessful in effecting any true political change.
However, I also see Jupiter’s influence this month putting more of a carnivalesque, and just plain weird, twist on proceedings, while also preventing the worst possible outcome. Capitol Hill left six people dead, but it could have easily ended in much more serious bloodshed. Now, as the Jupiter-Uranus square is triggered again by the full moon, there’s a downright giddy face to this revolution.
I think most people can revel in the poetic justice of sociopathic Wall Street wolves being bamboozled by their own crooked game. Or the sheer delight of serious news articles drawing quotes from Reddit user ‘Thicc_dad’. I mean, who doesn’t love a super chat filling up with rocket ship emojis, and cries of ‘to the moon boys’?
In any case, this revitalizing and rebirthing of Jupiter, through the lens of Aquarius, feels like a sudden revelation, on part of the collective, of their own solar inner authority. Furthermore, this revealing of the true power of the collective, united under a banner of rage, memes and analogue nostalgia, to take down the most corrupt of institutions, is, well, a blissful zephyr wind. I stan endlessly.
As Glen Greenwald pointed out, however, it’s yet to be seen how much the romance of the David and Goliath narrative can be trusted, as there may be some other hedges riding the momentum of this uprising. As with Jupiter, all that glitters is not necessarily gold, and what looks too good to be true can suddenly be collapse. The bubble can indeed burst.
We also have the Saturn-Uranus square building, an aspect that will peak on February 17th. Already we’re seeing the inevitable authoritarian clamp down, as Wall Street Bets was suspiciously booted from Discord under claims of hate speech. As I write this, trading app Robin Hood appears to have restricted trading on GameStop, AMC, and other companies involved in the frenzy. Meanwhile, #eattherich is trending on Twitter and AOC has tweeted in support of the Redditors. This is truly a perfect full moon storm.
Also, we have another fascinating Sabian Symbol hosting the conjunction: “A flag is seen turning into an eagle.” If nothing else, this stock market roller coaster ride has revealed the extent to which we’re all living in a simulacrum—especially so in our new airy age—and the rapid dispersal of value across a patina of mutating signs is the game we’re all playing now for better or for worse.
The difference now is that under Aquarius partitions between the rarefied realms of the elites (once left to drift blissfully through the simulacrum), and that of the proles (doomed to bear the burden of these airy games), are thinning rapidly. When the Q-Anon shaman in bull horns—arguably a meme larping as a man—strolled through the senate’s ‘sacred halls’, while the Olympiad cowered under chairs, I knew that the script was flipping. The storming of Mount Olympus, by mortals sick of being raped by Zeus et al, is only getting started. For better or for worse.
Full Moon in Leo
The Leo element brings a note of injured pride to the righteous rebellion of Uranus-Mars, and a haughty refusal to back down until the show is truly over. The Sun is empowering the collective, but we’re also experiencing a climax of folks rediscovering their own personal solar radiance, and the light that they can offer, and imbue, in a fairer, more just world.
This decan of Leo is one connected to a cluster of stars called the beehive, while the Tarot Card ruling the decan is the hectic melee of the five of wands. This card sometimes gets a bad rap, but I see a great deal of fun in its playful, even ritualized competition. As a decan ruled by Saturn, however, there is a very serious purpose beneath the chaos, which is especially powerful when it engages the hive mind. Austin Coppok’s parsing of Leo decan 1 really chimes with the stylish derring-do of our Davids playfully poking Goliaths:
“Optics are indeed an important part of this decan’s dynamics, as what it brings into being is often quite theatrical. Spectacles and performances abound. Masks and spotlights on. The Saturnian judgment of the audience competes with the performer’s bravery.”
This description of the Five of Wands, from Truly Teach Me Tarot, further sums up the market frenzy beautifully:
“The Five of Wands tears up the rule books … and begins to write its own. Its energy explodes, the Wands splitting in several directions all at once. It is unclear what is happening and where it all will end. Drama, mayhem and chaos will rule the day. Expect the unexpected for that is the only thing that can be relied on… Fire likes to travel and expand. It does not like to be held back or restricted. It is a positive forward-flowing energy that thrives on momentum and enthusiasm.”
It’s also fascinating to see the Moon illuminating the Sabian Symbol of “glass blowers shape beautiful vases with their controlled breathing”. This gives me hope that despite the inevitable clamping down of Plutocrats, elites and their friends in government, there may be a larger propulsion to this movement yet.
Rather than one spectacular Gamestop bubble that finally shatters, and returns us to the grim status quo with a hangover, what if the carnival continues to chaotically disperse its utopic bubbles all across the board? What is possible when we all calmly breathe together, united in the Venusian desire to make beautiful domes and corbelled arches out of sheer air?
Or, to quote Juliana Spahr, from her beautiful long poem “This Connection of Everyone With Lungs,” “As everyone with lungs breathes the space between the hands and the space around the hands and the space of the room and the space of the building that surrounds the room and the space of the neighborhoods nearby and the space of the cities in and out…”
To finish, here’s the Full Moon in Leo with a tinge of Venus-Pluto, from one of my favorite Canadian films Exotica, directed by Atom Egoyan. The Leonard Cohen song feels apt. Also, if you’ve enjoyed this article, please do consider supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber, which will help me continue to weave this story in greater depth. I am so happy to have you here.