Sylvan E Thorncraft © August 2003

     Leo is filled with the passionate need to create from her heart.  She is filled with strength, loyalty, and dignity (I Show).  Her symbol is traditionally the lion.

     Her tarot card is Strength/Lust (11) which represents the principles of strength, passion, and luster.  Leo shows that by creating from our heart, using our own gifts and talents, we hold the strength to work with our internal demons or beasts.

     Leo brings the heat of summer.  Her time is Lamas, the sun blazes and life is full.  Now is the time to celebrate the first harvest as the grain ripens and the day’s shorten ever so slightly.

     The moon waxes from her first quarter to gibbous.  She rises late afternoon and sets in the small hours of the morning.  The growing plant is showing the first sign of buds.  We are called to perfect the structures we have been building so they will operate smoothly.

     As I worked with Leo I looked to goddesses connected to lions and found many Middle Eastern and Egyptian goddesses; the Sphinx, Ishtar, Asarte, and Cybele to mane a few.  Most of these lion goddesses emphasized Her destroyer aspect, which didn’t fit with how I was feeling about the lion as symbol for the ascending year.

     I was drawn to Bast, the benevolent aspect of the Egyptian goddess Hawthor, the lioness.  The festivals of Bast were joyful, full of music, dancing, jokes, and sexual rites.  This celebration of all life has to offer captures the spirit of Leo, her rich harvest of life’s experiences, her theatrical expression, her passion.  Leo teaches how to fully express one’s passion, what one has been building since the new moon.  This expression opens the heart, and when shared with others can lead to inspiration for all.

Bibliography included with text on Zodiac Goddess Gallery page.