Here is a chart for the full Moon on Tuesday, 28 August 2007, 10:36 AM (GMT). There will also be a total lunar eclipse.

Most of my usual references for information about the current Moon event are a little off their 'game' this time. I think it's because this lunation is on the service/sacrifice axis, and many who counsel do so because this axis is active in their charts.

In my search for relevant info, I came across a number of invitations to attend gatherings related to the full Moon. Here are links to a couple:

• Full Moon/Total Lunar Eclipse Camp-out at DreamView Dome
• EVOKE FAMILY : FULL MOON GATHERINGS

Some really good info on this eclipse and eclipses in general was found at Cafe Astrology. I recommend making an effort to read the whole article.

Lunar Eclipses are about relationships and polarities. With the Virgo-Pisces service axis involved, this Lunar Eclipse presses us to look more closely at our needs, lacks, and wants in our lives. We are pushed to find a balance between day-to-day functions and routines, physical health, and the need for order (Virgo) and vision, spiritual health, disorder, and the infinite (Pisces). Virgo rules the tools and techniques that we use to deal with day-to-day life, while Pisces rules the tools that we use to deal with our spiritual selves. This energy echoes the recent Saturn-Neptune opposition, pitting realism against idealism. Some sort of crisis (which can be a crisis of consciousness) or sudden awareness of a lack in our lives provides us with a golden opportunity to explore our emotional needs within the context of the house polarity where the eclipse occurs in our natal charts. Relationships may be challenged, broken, or strengthened dramatically at this time. Our discovery is emotionally charged and dramatic. Epiphanies are likely at this time as we become acutely aware of our lack. This understanding can propel us into positive action. With Jupiter and Uranus involved, events or epiphanies are likely to be sudden and especially enlightening.

Looking at the chart for this full Moon, I see a seesaw pattern between the Sun and Moon--each with its own company of cohorts--on the Pisces-Virgo axis of service-sacrifice mentioned earlier. In my mind lately has been how much of our personal lives we sacrifice to be able to pay the bills. There is also a grand square with Jupiter in Sagittarius opposing Mars in Gemini, both square the Sun, Moon and Uranus -- a volatile mix. Mars at 13 degrees in Gemini suggests the beginning of communication, perhaps negotiation. On page 2 you will find a second chart of the lunation with aspects.

The chart on page 3 correlates the transiting events to the US's natal chart. The houses most involved in this lunar event are the 4th and 10th. These two houses signify:

Journal entry dated 25 August 2007
Category: Whatis Aquarian, Astrology

Here is a chart for the new Moon on Sunday, 12 August 2007, 11:03PM (GMT).

Lisa Dale Miller at Astrowisdom.com tells us

Though Leo is mostly thought of as shallow-caring most about outer appearances-it actually carries an inner vision sourced in a deep desire to powerfully express personal creativity. More than any other sign, Leo rules creative actualization of the self; the ego. Ego is the self, knowing and creatively actualizing itself, in all its complexity and beauty… yes, complexity and beauty. The more we know about who we are the more complex our view of self becomes and consequently we begin to become more adept at skillfully dealing with a wider rage of experience.

This is what I call creative mindfulness: opening awareness to a deeper, yet broader experience of the ramifications of action. And in these last few weeks of Saturn in Leo, this New Moon finds Saturn in an exact conjunction with Venus (creativity and passion) and Trans-Pluto (point of fertility.) If you have had some creative project simmering on the back burner for the last couple of years, this is a powerful time to take it out, dust it off and see if it still has juice for you. If so, start to work with it again during this New Moon cycle.

Jeff Jawer at stariq.com tells us --

Let your inner lion roar on the New Moon in Leo as pride, will, creativity and heartfelt emotions are expressed dramatically. Celebrate yourself and the joys of life with play, romance and grand acts of generosity. Spiritual Neptune opposes the conjunction of the Sun, Moon and Mercury (resident scribe and gossip columnist) to add imagination and compassion to this ego-fest. While delusions of grandeur may produce fantasies that will never come true, the upside of this opposition is uncharacteristic sensitivity that tames Leo's all-consuming fire. Personal power and collective concerns can align to honor the individual while serving others.

Lisa in her description of this new Moon mentions the Perseids shower on the night of the new Moon. According to the wikipedia --

The Perseids (PURR-see-idz) are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so called because the point they appear to come from, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. However, they can be seen all across the sky. Because of the path of Swift-Tuttle's orbit, Perseids are mostly visible on the northern hemisphere.

The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the greatest activity between August 8 and 14, peaking about August 12. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour.

Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a meteor stream. The stream in this case is called the Perseid cloud and it stretches along the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun. Most of the dust in the cloud today is approximately a thousand years old.

Changing tack and looking at the U.S. chart, I see many patterns--grand trines, kites, mystic rectangles --that lack one aspect to be complete. This suggests a period of things almost making it to completion or symmetry, but not quite there. Also, I see transiting Mars in Gemini approaching (the astrological term is 'applying to') a conjunct with the U.S.'s natal Uranus in Gemini and the 8th house. Using Michael Munkasey's Midpoints: Unleashing the Power of the Planets (ACS Publications, 1991) to read this aspect:

In your personal life:

• Thesis: Your courage to persist with personal struggles against all opposition or despite the length of the struggle; your insistence on correcting what you perceive as wrong; energy for scientific or astrological activities.
• Anti: A busybody who interferes with other's lives and causes disruptions; a pushy troublemaker; a person with rebellious inpulses who does not want society to impose rules of personal conduct; annoying impulses.

In your relationships:

• Thesis: You are not one to allow any relationship to slip into routine; you seek a partner who brings an answer to your forms of excitement, both intellectual and physical; you admire people who are forthright.
• Anti: Others find your demands for independence and freedom in a relationship difficult to bear; you show unpredictable outbursts of anger destructive to self and others; you find it difficult to relate to others.

In politics of business:

• Thesis: Reforming a military organization; changes within the armed forces of the nation; modernization of basic energy or steel industries; groups formed to use or exploit energy resources; unplanned military actions.
• Anti: Malice or unrest accompanied by violence; using security forces to control strife; radical movements within the military; rebellions against modernization efforts; sudden attactks or outbreaks of hostility.

Since the conjunction is in Gemini and Mercury, the ruling planet, is conjunct the Midheaven, the Mars-Uranus conjunct may be about planning, forming policy, or just druthers. There is a spiritual tone to the Midheaven, as well.

Journal entry dated 12 August 2007
Category: Whatis Aquarian, Astrology

Here is an excerpt from Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason (Penguin Press, 2007). I first read this is the May 28, 2007, issue of TIME.

As a young lawyer giving his first significant public speech at the age of 28, Abraham Lincoln warned that a persistent period of dysfunction and unresponsiveness by government could alienate the American people and that "the strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectively be broken down and destroyed--I mean the attachment of the people." Many Americans now feel that our government is unresponsive and that no one in power listens to or cares what they think. They feel disconnected from democracy. They feel that one vote makes no difference, and that they, as individuals, have no practical means of participating in America's self-government. Unfortunately, they are not entirely wrong. Voters are often viewed mainly as targets for easy manipulation by those seeking their "consent" to exercise power. By using focus groups and elaborate polling techniques, those who design these messages are able to derive the only information they're interested in receiving from citizens--feedback useful in fine-tuning their efforts at manipulation. Over time, the lack of authenticity becomes obvious and takes its toll in the form of cynicism and alienation. And the more Americans disconnect from the democratic process, the less legitimate it becomes.

Many young Americans now seem to feel that the jury is out on whether American democracy actually works or not. We have created a wealthy society with tens of millions of talented, resourceful individuals who play virtually no role whatsoever as citizens. Bringing these people in--with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources-- is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve our problems.

Unfortunately, the legacy of the 20th century's ideologically driven bloodbaths has included a new cynicism about reason itself--because reason was so easily used by propagandists to disguise their impulse to power by cloaking it in clever and seductive intellectual formulations. When people don't have an opportunity to interact on equal terms and test the validity of what they're being "taught" in the light of their own experience and robust, shared dialogue, they naturally begin to resist the assumption that the experts know best.

So the remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the re-establishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way--a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.

Fortunately, the Internet has the potential to revitalize the role played by the people in our constitutional framework. It has extremely low entry barriers for individuals. It is the most interactive medium in history and the one with the greatest potential for connecting individuals to one another and to a universe of knowledge. It's a platform for pursuing the truth, and the decentralized creation and distribution of ideas, in the same way that markets are a decentralized mechanism for the creation and distribution of goods and services. It's a platform, in other words, for reason. But the Internet must be developed and protected, in the same way we develop and protect markets--through the establishment of fair rules of engagement and the exercise of the rule of law. The same ferocity that our Founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the Internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic. We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it, because of the threat of corporate consolidation and control over the Internet marketplace of ideas.

p>Journal entry dated 7 July 2007
Category: Eye on a world becoming

Here is the August calendar with astrological notation.

This month's new Moon is at 19° Leo 51′ on August 12th, 11:04 PM GMT; and the full Moon is at 4° Pisces 46′ on August 28th, 10:36 AM GMT. There will be a total lunar eclipse at 4 Pisces 46 on August 28th, 10:39 AM, as well.