Lunar calendar · Leo · fire
New Moon in Leo.
Next occurrence · 18:37 →
A new moon in Leo happens when the Sun and Moon meet in the sign of Leo, about once a year. The next one falls on August 12, 2026. Tradition reads it as a moment of sowing in the register of the sign: in the register of the heart, what is sown wants to create, to shine, and to be seen without apology.
What this lunation colors
Leo’s fire doesn’t warm in secret: it radiates, and it owns it. This high-summer new moon falls in fixed fire, the sign of the fifth house: creation, play, the loves that set the heart pounding, children (the ones you have, the one you were), and that thing so simple and so hard at once: being seen. To sow in Leo is to plant a seed of joyful visibility. A creative project asleep in a drawer, an urge for the stage, for color, for a generous gesture; a love to dare, or to rekindle; a promise to play more, in the most childlike sense of the word. The mood of the lunation is warm, theatrical, the heart a little higher than usual: you want to love hard and be applauded, and tradition sees no vanity in that. Jan Spiller links this new moon to creativity and to the heart’s dignity: giving what’s most alive in you, without calculating how it lands. Fixed fire has a quality precious to sowing: it lasts. What you light here can burn for months, as long as you feed it with joy rather than obligation. The Leonine question isn’t “is it useful?” but “is it alive?” If something makes your eyes shine just to talk about it, that’s exactly the seed to put in the ground now.
A ritual to welcome it
Make something with your hands that serves no purpose but joy: draw, sing, dance in your living room, write three lines that are silly and tender. The point is to create with no audience and no judgment, the way you did at eight. Then write your intention as a declaration, not a wish (“I create…,” “I dare to show…”), and read it aloud standing tall, one hand on your heart, ideally facing the sun or a candle. Then choose a first tiny audience: one trusted person to show something to before the full moon. Leo sows by showing.
Three questions for your journal
- What would I create this year if failure and ridicule didn’t exist?
- When did I stop playing, and what would get me started again?
- What part of me deserves to be seen that I keep in the wings out of caution?
More questions are waiting on the new moon writing page.
And the full moon in the same sign: full moon in Leo, or the whole full moon calendar.