Here’s Why You’ve Been Feeling So Off This Leo Season

Typically, Leo season is a dramatic and lively whirlwind, the proverbial Sunday of summer when we’re all a little moody and wistful. The glamor and excitement of Leo season helps us find our inner confidence, which we then externally express—in the form of dramatic glow-ups, wild summer parties, and the occasional prideful rant. It’s all a lot of fun, as long as you keep your ego in check.

However, you might have noticed a distinct lack of these quintessential qualities this year. They’re calling it a cruel summer for a reason, and the TSwift song by the same name was released as a single this summer, nearly four years after its initial release. Just a coincidence, surely.

But why do things feel so off this summer? What’s going on? There are a few different reasons. Let’s get into the Sparknotes version.

Venus is retrograde. Celebrity is ruled by the sign of Leo, and you might have noticed that a not-insignificant number of public figures have been announcing their divorces and breakups this summer. Cheating scandals, shocking separations, and hard lessons in love are everywhere. This is due to the planet of love, Venus, going retrograde on July 22, 2023. If you’ve had a bad haircut recently, you can blame Venus in Leo for that, too. Venus rules all things beauty, and when it’s not direct, it can cause some messy (and costly) mistakes at the salon. How much longer do you have to wait to get into a new relationship or get a new dye job? Not much, thankfully. Venus will be direct on September 3rd, once we’re well into Virgo season.

The nodes just changed signs. The North and South Nodes of the moon are known as the most karmic celestial placements. To summarize a very complex astrological concept in a few words, the North Node tells us where we’re headed, and the South Node tells us what we need to leave behind. They change signs roughly every 18 months, and we recently started a new collective karmic cycle on the zodiacal axis, this time related to individuation and partnership. With the North Node now hovering in the leadership-oriented sign of Aries, and the South Node in its more peaceful and harmonious sister sign of Libra, we are fighting a collective battle between the self and the community. At this time, you’re likely to be feeling conflicted about whether to sacrifice your identity to meld into a larger framework or throw down the compass and carve your own path.

Mars is in Virgo. On the first of August, the red planet moved into the conscientious and analytical sign of Virgo, offering us a pleasant opportunity to rethink our priorities and gear up for a more serious epilogue to an otherwise emotionally chaotic summer. Earth energy is stronger now than it has been for a while, providing us with the ability to organize, ground ourselves, and put our material concerns, like our physical health and our finances, on a higher pedestal than other petty Leo-season drama.