This January, we are kicking off 2024 with our new Lunar Series! The Lunar Series is a down-to-earth breakdown of the lunations (New Moon, Full Moon, Eclipses, etc.) of the month ahead. By observing the moon and what she’s up to in the sky, we can harness the energy she mirrors to us and apply intentional practices for growth and personal development.  

Join us as we chart these transits, and explore the passage of time via our second most important luminary - the moon! Our first lunation of this month is a New Moon in Capricorn followed by a Full Moon in Leo.  

Listen to the full episode.

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Hello everyone and Happy New Year. I hope you're all staying warm and healthy. I myself am recovering from a cold that was pretty nasty. I lost my voice for several days, but thankfully I'm recovering. But if my voice sounds a little different that's why, but I'm on the mend. I know a lot of people also got sick towards the end of the year, so I hope, if that was you, you're feeling much healthier and stronger. And that by this point in January, almost at the middle of January, you're starting to feel more stable and excited about this new year and these many new months ahead of us.  

I'm really excited to be including a new iteration of the podcast. You know, here at Life Design, we not only focus on self empowerment and relationship dynamics and generally, living the life that you most want to lead in alignment with your values, but we also access that by tapping into and learning about our personal astrology and paying attention to what's happening in the cosmos that could be and is likely affecting our life paths. So I wanted to begin this year by launching this new version of The Designed Life Podcast, which is where I'll be talking about a bit of the astrology of every month.  

Now, I know that there are a ton of astrology of the month podcasts out there, so I wanted to focus solely on the lunations of every month, meaning the new moons, the full moons, the eclipses, whatever the moon is doing. And if there are other big events that are going to be influencing lunations then I will bring them up, but I mostly want to focus on these cyclical passings of time, passages of time, and helping you pay attention to how your energy might shift. Or evolve with the changes of the moon and how it's affecting your daily life and your general life course. So let's jump into January.  

So the first major lunation of the year and of the month is on the 11th. It's a new moon in Capricorn and I am so excited about the energy of this particular new moon because it's very productive. It's helping us channel the energy of the moment and also how to get our feet on the ground, our hands in the dirt and actually make things happen.  

So new moons happen approximately one time a month, sometimes twice. And they are when the sun and the moon come together in the sky. And so it makes it so that we can't see the moon. Every moon phase is approximately 2 to 2 1/2 days. So we aren't able to see the moon for about that amount of time, and during that time everything gets really dark. If you think about thousands of years ago in ancient times when we didn't have electricity and we were just telling time by the movement of the stars and the sun, a new moon would feel like a time to really silence oneself and to stay still and to rest. So this time of the month, is not only about the emphasis of the nature around us, but because we are of nature, we also have that emphasis.  

You might feel a little more relaxed or a little more tired or a less energized, I should say. And it's a really, really good opportunity to reflect and to set down intentions for the next lunar cycle as the Moon builds into fullness. It's a fantastic time to think about your. Intentions for the next two weeks until the next full moon, but also the next six months until the corresponding full moon of this new moon cycle. So, for example, we're experiencing a new moon in Capricorn, the full moon in Capricorn will happen six months from now, so thinking about it growing in this particular sign, your intentions growing. Your ideas growing, your goals growing, and setting down seeds, planting down intentions or thoughts or ideas or anything that you want to plant and see so that it can build over the next six months and culminate with that full moon in Capricorn.  

Now the reason why I love this new moon is because we're currently in hibernation mode and we're generally feeling that emphasis of wanting to rest and restore, but also we're looking ahead towards the rest of the year and thinking about what it is that I want to do with this year, what it is that I want to do with my time? What do I want to do that marks 2024 as a year that is mine, that I made mine, where I did the things that I said that I wanted to do and when I look back, I can feel proud of. The fantastic thing about a new moon and Capricorn, particularly this one, is that it's fantastic for setting down those types of intentions and for writing out, brainstorming, envisioning, and imagining. What is it that I want to create in the next six months and next year?

Capricorn is an energy that is very productive. That is very focused on ambition and legacy and work ethic. So even if we're energetically feeling like we need to rest and restore right now, our brains, our imaginations, our energy might also be saying, oh, but I want to create something. I want to do something. I'm having ideas about what I want to leave my mark on and what I want to do. The other reason why we might really be feeling that kind of energy is because this particular new moon will be trine Uranus and Taurus and it will also be right in between the two nodes: the north node and the south node. Now I'm not expecting you to know what that means, but I will tell you, this means that there is an innovative energy. There is an energy that is connected to, without sounding too grand, connected to your destiny, connected to your life path, connected to your journey. Uranus is the planet of innovation, disruption, going against the grain, shaking things up, and doing things in a sort of abstract or unusual way. It can help us be creative and look at what it is in front of us. And seeing new and innovative ways of restructuring it or working with it or creating something new and original from it.  

The nodes are the are points of life growth on a kind of grand, profound level and also our release and what we're letting go of. They are this pathway through the sky that are demarcated by mathematical points that teach us what it is that we're hungry for and what it is that we need to purge and let go of. So with the moon stationed right between these two points in the sky, there is something about looking at the past and seeing what it is that we're ready to let go of and looking at the future and seeing what you want more of and what you’re working towards. So with this new moon at 20° of Capricorn on January 11th, I would really recommend thinking about where you are right now, what is your position in your life? What is working, what is not working? What is it that you are really eager to build this year? And when I say build, I really mean over the course of time. Capricorn is a slower moving sign. It's focused on the legacy rather than the quick growth spurts. So what is it that you're willing to dedicate yourself to and devote yourself to over the course of the next two weeks, six months and year, and perhaps even longer. What are you willing to commit yourself to that aligns you more with what it is that you're most seeking and desirous of in this lifetime, and also for yourself, just in this moment? Additionally, if you have access to your chart and you know which house Capricorn is ruling for you, or if you have any planets at 20° of Capricorn, Virgo, Taurus, Aries, Cancer, or Libra, you might be feeling this more effectively in your life. You might feel it more concretely. I'll have more resources on the website at the end of the month for you to be able to access and if you have planets at corresponding degrees of these lunation points, and also to know what houses are being activated, how to know which parts of your life are being activated based off of these lunations.  

If you do happen to know which house Capricorn rules for you, take a moment to also think about that area of life and any particular seeds of intention that you want to plant in this particular place, and what you want to grow in this part of your life in general. It’s an excellent energy to just write down one to three to five intentions that you're really excited about. Perhaps look over your New Year's resolutions, if you already wrote them and reaffirm the ones that feel really good, and maybe plan for them as well. There's a really great resource on our website, the Clarify Your Vision Worksheet, where I help you walk through setting your intentions in a concrete way and create a map for how to build them out and manifest them over the course of time. Whatever you do with this energy, if you write down just a few ideas, trust me, it will be marked with the intention of steady, stable, strong, resilient growth. So, it's a great energy to leverage.  

Now the second lunation of the month happens on the 25th. It is a full moon in Leo. So new moons, as I discussed earlier, are the points at which the moon and the sun come together, and it's a point of rest or restoration. Full moons are the opposite, where literally the moon opposes the sun in the sky and there is this point of tension. Any time there are two planets or the sun and the moon are opposing one another, you can almost think about it as two things moving in opposite directions, and there's a line coming between them and it's being pulled in those opposite directions. So not to say that every full moon creates tension, but it can create a little bit of agitation, and that agitation can bring things to bubble to the surface.  

In ancient times, before we had electricity, which actually isn't even that ancient...but way long ago, when we were just looking at the sky for information and for being able to tell time, if you were walking through the night and there was a full moon, you would be able to see so much more than you would if there was a new moon. With a new moon, or example, you wouldn’t be able to see anything. It would be so dark. But a full moon, it would be almost like you had you had a flashlight before flashlights even existed. And so, because there's more light, there's more general activity. You're able to see what's going on around you. There's less threat of things coming at you by surprise. But because of that, because we're able to move more and because you know all the animals of the night are more active, our energy is more active. You might feel more active during this time of the month. You might feel like sleep is not possible, or you get very little sleep. You might have lots of ideas, you might be communicating more or expressing yourself more with the moon opposing the sun and being fully illuminated. There is an expression. There is a fullness. There is a culmination and an ability to say I am here. This is all of me and you can look at me and all of my glory. That's the moon. But that's also what the moon is reflecting down to us as well. That's what the moon is mirroring.  

Leo is the most dramatic of the energies. It's it can be bombastic, it can be showy, it can be very arrogant. But it's also very much about the heart and very much about courage and very much about what we want to be loyal to or who we are loyal to and how to share and express compassion, warmth, and generosity. And this full moon is squaring Jupiter. So again, you don't need to know what that means, but essentially, it means that there is something that is big. Jupiter makes everything it touches bigger and more abundant, so there is something that might be a big expression or a need to, in a very big way, share yourself or share a part of your identity or express yourself in some way.  

Full moons, because there are culmination point and because things tend to bubble to the surface around this time, are considered to be the midpoint of release of letting go of shedding of putting whatever it is that you've been working on since the corresponding new moon or the previous new moon out into the world. So you can observe the things that are happening around this time and ask yourself what is ready to be expressed, what is ready to be released, what is ready to be let go of. And again, because this full moon is in Leo, it feels more like an expression as a form of release. So it might happen in a big or dramatic way, or it might feel like it's in a big or dramatic way. It might not actually be a big event, but again, because the moon is our emotional body, it's our somatic experience. You might just be feeling some really big emotions on the 25th.  

The full moon is at 5° of Leo, so again, if you have planets at 5° of Leo or the other fire signs (Aries and Sagittarius) you might really be feeling this. Or if you have planets at any of the other fixed signs (Aquarius, Scorpio, and Taurus) you might really be feeling this lunation as well, but for the for full moons, it's less about intention setting and more about observing what is ready to be shared with the rest of the world. What you're ready to let go of and make space for as we prepare to move back into the rest cycle of the next new moon. So, the other thing I would recommend you think about is what has been building from this last new Moon in Capricorn? And also the last new Moon in Leo, which was. August 16th of 2023. So, what has been building, what has been growing, what has been developing since August of last year, and what is maybe coming to a point of closure or a point of development and is ready to move on either to the next level or to be released?  

So that's what I would recommend you observe just for this lunation. Now both of these lunations are kind of connected to one another in a way because they are about what it is that we want to grow and who it is that we are at our core. There is a lot going on this year and in the coming several decades that is very much about who we are within the collective and within the group, and it's important for us to understand who we are on an individual level so that we know how we fit into that group. How we express our own values and talents and how we contribute, so that we don't feel lost in the group or we don't feel purposeless, but we feel rooted and centered in who we are, what it is that we know we most connect to, want to grow, and build as the legacy we want to leave for our lives. And also, how that legacy contributes to the collective and the sustainability and growth of the collective as well. There is this nice symbiotic energy this month between these two lunations that I think is really productive and wonderful to leverage for reflection and thinking about where it is that we want to go and who it is that we are and what it is that we most want to create and what we most want to be known for in our lifetime, whether that be, known on a really big scale, or even just known within our families and friend groups and communities.  

I hope this information was helpful. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. Let us know if you use any of these reflection tools or what happens when you, when you sit down and work with the moons and the way that we recommend. Again, I'll be doing these episodes at the top of every month. Again, just focusing on the moon and what she's up to in the sky. There will be resources on the website by the end of January that will help you track and stay connected to these fluctuations of the moon and how it corresponds to the fluctuations, growth, and development in your own life. So again, if you enjoyed this, please let us know. Share with a friend again. Happy New Year and see you in the next one!