Happy Lion Season, y’all!
Everybody happy to be leaving that Mercury Retrograde in Cancer behind and getting this summer started for real? (I know I am, that was a dooozy!)
Off we go now to pride rock, where the Sun joins Jupiter in the lion’s den, opposes Pluto and the moon in Aquarius, and later in the season meets the moon for the first solar eclipse in Leo. From a Plutonic-cazimi full moon to a south node eclipse, there are no normal moons this Leo season, and the heat is on to both expand and release some feline energies this month.
Click the player above to listen to the full Leo Season episode, or read on below for some transcript highlights.
Leo season horoscopes will be coming out soon too, so subscribe to get them in your inbox if you haven’t already!
A few exciting announcements:
I put together a 30 page guidebook about the archetypes, holy days, elements, and human design gates of Leo season - you can download one on my website for yourself or as a gift for your favorite Leo! (I also have Aries > Cancer guidebooks available there too). These books are packed with ritual ideas, somatic exercises, and info about the energies of the lion’s season.
ELA Map is going live to the public next week! ELA is the astrocartography and human-design-cartography workspace that my fiancee Jackson and I built after our travels in Central America last year. It’s been in private beta, and it’s going live on the Jupiter Cazimi/Full Moon in Aquarius on July 29th…
3. You heard it here first: I’m going to be offering a course in Ecosomatic Astrology and Human Design starting on the fall equinox! Come learn the basics of astrology and human design in a grounded, experiential way, with emphasis on connecting the planets, signs, and gates with your body and the earth’s changing seasons. Sign up for updates here:
Exciting times ahead for this Leo rising, Venus, and Mars…!
Now, onto the news…
A quick look back at Cancer
Cancer season opened with Chiron crossing into Taurus, a new era of embodied healing after seven years of the wounded healer in Aries. We moved through six Human Design gates: Extremes, Stillness, Provocation, Beginnings, Details, and Stimulation, following the crab from the solstice to this threshold of the lion’s den. Mercury went retrograde in Cancer the same day as a full moon in Capricorn, asking us to revisit home, safety, and belonging. Jupiter crossed into Leo right in the middle of the season, so a lot of us have spent the last month incubating something in our crab shells that’s about to want a much bigger stage. And on July 4th, Mars met Uranus in the gate of Provocation, which stirred things up (though not as much as some were predicting).
Tomorrow, July 23, the Mercury rewind releases its soupy grip, and today, June 22, the sun moves into Leo. Crab season hands off to the lion while a watery retrograde clears its fog at the same time- this feels fitting for a fire sign season that’s all about stepping fully into the light.
The lion throughout time
Leo has always been the sun’s own house. In the Thema Mundi, the mythical birth chart of the world that Hellenistic astrologers used to explain the whole system, the sun sits in Leo next to the moon in Cancer. Cancer is the womb, and Leo is the first cry, the first light hitting skin.
In Babylon, this stretch of sky was called the Great Lion, and it stood guard through the dog days of summer, the hottest stretch of the year. In Egypt, the lion was Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of war and healing, who nearly destroyed humanity in a fit of bloodlust until the other gods tricked her into drinking red-dyed beer. Once she woke up from that, she became Hathor, goddess of joy and love. In Greece, conquering the Nemean Lion was Hercules’ first labor, and afterward he wore its hide as armor for the rest of his life. He didn’t kill the lion and move on with it, he became the lion, carrying its invulnerability on his own back from then on.
“The lion isn’t just about showing off or standing on center stage. It’s about being a guardian, standing at a threshold and holding heat that could either destroy or heal.”
Right in the middle of all this mythology sits August 8th, the Lion’s Gate, which is a modern spiritual tradition rather than an ancient astronomical one, tied to the bright star Sirius and its heliacal rising in ancient Egypt that coincided with the flooding of the nile. I believe the Lion’s Gate doesn’t need old backing to be worth honoring. It asks the same thing the whole season does: what are you going to do with the heat in your heart this time of year? Let it fizzle or lean into it’s radiant self-expression?
The archetype
Leo is the fixed fire sign of the Zodiac, ruled by the sun. Fixed means sustaining, the center of a season rather than its cardinal start or its mutable close. And the sun as ruler means Leo doesn’t orbit anyone, it just radiates because that’s its tue nature.
In the body, Leo rules the heart and the upper spine, which is also where courage lives. In the life cycle, Leo is the emergence into fruit after the incubation and fertilization of solstice time- it’s the bees coming out of the hive after Cancer season’s honey-making inside. I think of Leo also as the early to mid twenties in the human life span, stepping out of the Cancerian parents’ house and onto the world stage for the first time.
“There is a real difference between Leo the stereotype and the mature expression of Leo. The shadow stereotype is often a diva who needs constant applause. The mature Leo expression has stopped performing for approval and has started radiating their authentic expression.”
Cross Quarter Day Celebrations: Lughnasadh or Lammas
Right smack in the middle of Leo season, the Celtic wheel of the year celebrates Lughnasadh, or Lammas, the first of three harvest festivals. Lughnassadh is named for the skilled solar god Lugh, one of the most important gods in Irish mythology, part of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the divine race said to have ruled Ireland before the Milesians (the ancestors of the Irish people) arrived. Historically in the british isles this was the holy day that communities baked the first loaves from the newly milled wheat and brought them to be blessed. It’s not the big final harvest of Virgo and Libra season, but it’s the first cutting, a chance to harvest the first fruits of your labors and recognize how much they’ve grown since spring, even if it’s only a small first loaf out of the oven. Celebrate and harvest what has grown since Aries season on this day.
(I”ll be hosting a ritual for Lammas/Lughnassa for paid subscribers on Zoom- details on that coming soon!)
The Human Design of Leo season
Leo season opens still inside Gate 56, the last gate of Cancer, the Gate of the Storyteller. Cancer isn’t a language-based sign, it’s feeling-based, so Gate 56 is the bridge where that feeling finally starts turning into something spoken out loud.
From there:
Gate 31, Influence is the first full gate of the season, leadership through resonance instead of force. This is the gate Jupiter sits in as the Barbault Basket completes its formation in late July.
Gate 33, Retreat follows right after, the lion ducking back into the den before it’s depleted, metabolizing its own experience in private before sharing it.
Gate 7, the Role of the Self, sometimes called the Army, is quiet, logistical leadership, the coach or the general who guides without needing to be the loudest voice in the room.
Gate 4, Formulization, also called Youthful Folly, is the mind reaching for answers before it has enough information to actually be sure of them.
Gate 29, Perseverance, the Gate of saying yes, closes out the season. This gate is the willingness to commit to something from your gut level without seeing all the way through it.
The season ends crossing into Virgo Gate 59, sexuality and intimacy, breaking down the barriers between people so something real can pass through.
By center, the season opens with three Throat gates in a row (56, 31, 33), all about what gets said or held back, moves into the G Center with Gate 7, identity and direction, then Ajna with Gate 4, the reaching mind, and closes with the Sacral yes of Gate 29.
The transits of Leo season 2026
The nodes shift into Leo and Aquarius on July 26, with the South Node settling into Leo after eighteen months in Virgo.
On July 29, the Full Moon in Aquarius opposes a Sun-Jupiter cazimi in Leo, both sitting in Gate 31, while the moon and Pluto sit together in Aquarius in Gate 41, the very first gate of the whole Human Design wheel. This is the Barbault Basket in motion, and it’s a preview of the eclipse axis rather than an eclipse itself.
“I like to think of oppositions not as a ping pong match between two sides of the sky, but actually as an infinity sign, a figure eight that goes from one side to the next.”
August 6, Venus moves into Libra, a sign it loves, softening things. August 9, Mercury moves into Leo, joining Jupiter there, giving our voices more warmth and color right as the eclipse approaches. August 11, Mars enters Cancer, bringing a more protective, circling energy right before the big reveal.
August 12 is the total solar eclipse in Leo, both sun and moon together in Gate 4, at 20 degrees Leo, with totality sweeping across Greenland, Iceland, and northern Spain. It’s a South Node eclipse, oriented toward release, conjunct Mercury and Jupiter, with Mercury opposite Pluto, Mercury sextile Uranus, and Venus opposite Neptune completing a six-pointed star formation with Ishtar entering Sagittarius that same day.
“This eclipse is releasing the ego that comes with Leo the sign, releasing the need to be right, releasing the need to be on the stage and be the center of attention. This is an eclipse that’s asking us to sit in not knowing for a while.”
August 28 brings a partial lunar eclipse in Pisces, the tail end of the older Virgo-Pisces cycle closing out even as the new Leo-Aquarius story opens. The next eclipse fully within this new series lands in Aquarius in February 2027, followed by another total solar eclipse in Leo on August 2, 2027, this one crossing Egypt and lasting close to six minutes.
The season closes on a gentler note. August 17, Venus sextiles Jupiter, the two benefics landing in an easy, generous aspect, a good day to lean into reconciliation or generosity after whatever the eclipse stirred up.
The seasonal whole
Mercury clears its Cancer retrograde right as the season opens. The nodes shift into place on July 26, setting up a Full Moon and cazimi three days later. The season moves through influence, retreat, quiet leadership, and reaching for understanding without needing all the answers yet, with Lughnasadh asking us to bring in the first harvest along the way. Mars slips into a more protective Cancer just before the total solar eclipse in Leo on August 12, and the season closes with an easier note between Venus and Jupiter on the 17th.
“The next big thing is a whole bunch of small things.”
So rather than waiting on some single big reveal, this feels like a season for being a leader within your own direct community, for tending your own hearth honestly. Don’t let the South Node and Jupiter cancel each other out in your mind, they’re different energies. We get to choose which parts of Leo to keep and which parts to release with this eclipse.
May your Leo season be filled with warmth, with hearth energy, and with honesty about what you actually want to bring to the table as a leader within this new era.
All my love, Alison
About Me
I’m Alison Dale. You can find me at hearthandspiral.com where I offer astrology and Human Design readings, including Soulshine Readings that look at your astrology and Human Design together, your timing, and what’s asking to move in your world right now. I also have the Mandala 64 Walk on Substack at livingthespiral.com, where I walk the 64 Human Design gates in real time with written posts and somatic prompts delivered to your inbox.
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If you want a deeper look at how this season will show up in your personal chart, her books are open at hearthandspiral.com.
PS» Sign up for the ELA Map astrocartography app waitlist at elamap.com, and for updates to my Eco-Somatic Astrology and Human Design 101 course here.
