The Moon. by laura-makabresku |
Sunday's Full Moon at 8:58PM EDT - the Moon at 9 degrees Scorpio, the Sun at 9 degrees Taurus - squares the North Node in Leo (Ceres is conjunct the North Node) and the South Node in Aquarius. The Moon sextiles a retrograde Saturn in Capricorn. It is also the day Uranus reaches the 29th degree of Aries. We have Chiron and Juno sitting together on the Aries point (0 degrees Aries).
And we have had a powerful, crazy two week period leading into this Full Moon!
The Full Moon in Scorpio is ruled by Pluto and Mars. Pluto is retrograde in Capricorn and conjunct Mars (exact just yesterday).
Full Moons (the part of the monthly cycle when Sun is opposing Moon) bring things to light and to a culmination.
Scorpio, in the northern hemisphere, rules late autumn. The wind is blowing the leaves from the trees, the landscape is becoming barren, death is expected - there is a sense of being cut off, a sense we are on our own. Scorpio energy doesn’t fear the dark. Taurus, in the northern hemisphere, rules late spring. The world is fertile. Taurus energy seeks the light.
Both signs are fixed and want what they want.
(one energy isn't "good" and the other "bad" - neither could exist without the other - they are really two sides of the same coin)
So, we have this polarity - Scorpio beckoning us "come over to the dark side" and not because there are cookies (although there might be and I freakin' hope they are my Girl Scout Thin Mints that still haven't shown up) but because there could be buried treasure.
Scorpio energy embraces complication. There is no fear of what we might find when we go digging around in the dark because Scorpio knows the negative thought or feeling is an aspect of personality we have sacificed to help us survive and "fit in".
(it is up to us to be humble enough, and astrology is helpful here, to find the context for such thoughts and feelings and give them credibility by knowing they are there for some good reason)
Taurus is equally adamant that we should "stay where we are - it's comfortable and working out just fine". Of course there could be a life that is better than "fine" if we are willing to take those steps in the dark to find it.
Taurus energy embraces peace and comfort.
With Scorpio we have the shadow of control and jealousy and taking on too much that can fuel greed. With Taurus; stubborn resistance to change and resistance to anything that is complicated - an attachment to the familiar that is also a kind of greed if you think about it - "this is MINE".
There are no right or wrong answers. Without any journeying through Scorpio though, Taurus "peace and comfort" is just pouring pink paint over our problems and calling them cotton candy.
Scorpio is always reminding us that getting caught up in the ego's preoccupation with conventional morality and what it means to be "good" can rob us of our spontaneity and trustworthiness. We can confuse "being positive" with being authentic.
In many ways, the Scorpio Full Moon is the most powerful and intense Moon of the year (it's Scorpio, so duh!) and this one is super-charged.
By Sunday, if we have been paying attention, the Mars and Saturn squares to the Sun and Mercury and the Mars/Pluto conjunction, will have bared, any spaces in our lives that we have been sleep walking through by waking them up. Our "no skin in the game" situations have probably demanded some skin in the game
and/or by activating a kind of "going to the dentist" style aversion to anything we are only halfheartedly doing/being/living.
We are awake to any situations where we are not fully participating.
With Scorpio, we are either living life now or we are getting ready to die.
And there are about a million things that can kill us these days - we had better make a commitment to being here if we really want to be here.
Fence sitters are falling over (another reason to hate plastic fences, fences used to be quite comfortable).
Our friends/partners/tribe/job/house/town/family - wherever we are feeling any lack of intimacy - are simply reflecting back to us any need on our part to embrace our own passion. Scorpio doesn't provide easy answers because it rules complicated issues. It rules the 8th house (yes, the collective space Jupiter is diving through these days - the house of other people's money, other people's resources, loans, debts, inheritances, life/death/rebirth, reproduction, sex, intimacy - the ways we merge with other people) - the 8th house is the unconscious container of the difficult material, outside of our conscious awareness, that our psyche carries until we are sufficiently mature enough to deal with it.
So, here we are - having been through all the days since the day we were born until today - with intensified emotions as the Sun and Moon oppose each other - striving for/seeking a DEEPER CONNECTION WITH LIFE.
The only way to get out of here alive is to truly BE ALIVE.
Intimacy/sex/money/power issues between people could come out of the shadows now. Our watery Moon in watery Scorpio is very empathetic. At its point of fullness we could be full of the energies of other people.
The Sun is in Taurus opposing this Moon. Taurus rules our 2nd house (money/resources/values/self-esteem) - our possessions. Taurus energy is possessive. It can make us afraid of losing what we have. Taurus might say, "MINE!" like a two year old with a death-grip on her pacifier. The 8th house is our possessions; the resources we share. So maybe we are a couple and why are we holding onto our possessions and not sharing? Stuff could play out around themes like this or one partner treating the other as a possession. Maybe one partner not wanting to share something now (time, attention, resources) they used to share willingly. Maybe a couple isn't having sex. If you have ever seen the 1989 movie with Kathleen Turner called The War of the Roses - that kind of depicts a Scorpio Full Moon style divorce - they tear their house apart with death-grips on their joint possessions. It might be hard to avoid something like this if you are breaking up some situation now (Scorpio is passionate and intense), but it doesn't have to be so dramatic.
This Moon will carry in HIGHER levels of consciousness when we are prepared to let go of what is complete for us (that dead stuff we are dragging around).
This could be an actual death, but most likely it will simply feel like a death ... and maybe this feeling is appropriate to the circumstances and maybe it is over the top. Like we are losing something not that important, or something we never actually really had, and it still feels like a death. Honor your feelings with this. There is a reason this energy packs such a punch for you.
Within hours of the Full Moon, the Moon moves into conjunction with Jupiter - this would be a big emotional release point, if we allow it to be. Tears would help.
Asteroid/dwarf planet Chiron (wounded healer) sitting with asteroid/dwarf planet Juno (partner/contract) at the Aries point is very potent. This is a BIG opportunity - remember the Full Moon is a point of fullness and in Scorpio, ruler of the 8th house, is filled with the stuff we carry for other people and the stuff that blocks our true intimacy with other people - to face the hurt/healing of old familial (and societal power structure) programming/restrictions and carries the ability for us to write off old contracts that no longer serve us.
The ways we have given our power away to family, to relationships, to "the man", in order to simply stay alive (in this lifetime and many prior lifetimes and you don't have to believe in reincarnation to believe in the idea that more than a tendency toward brown eyes is carried in our DNA) - these obligations have expired.
It's like we have a 30 year mortgage and are continuing to mail in our monthly payments in year 37 or we are still paying our parents' mortgage and they have retired and moved to sunny Fort Lauderdale.
A retrograde Saturn is sextiling (opportunity) the Full Moon from secure and stable Capricorn. This is an opportunity to burn that mortgage (ie expired soul contract)!
This can also be the time of a new contract as Juno begins her journey through Aries.
At the same time asteroid/dwarf planet Ceres (earth mother, I think the future ruler of Taurus once astrology has more time to ) is sitting with the North Node in Leo squaring (tension/frustration) the Full Moon and the Sun.
On our journey from the South Node (been there, done that) toward our North Node (collective future) right smack in the middle is this Moon - we have to GET PAST THIS FULL MOON IN SCORPIO.
Remember what the North Node in Leo, South Node in Aquarius journey has been and is about (and this ends this summer when the nodes move into Cancer/Capricorn) - moving from the space of alienation and distraction and detachment and over-thinking into our heart-space, the space we are meant to shine - where is Leo in your natal chart? We come in from the house on the edge (Aquarius) of town and a detached view of life from a distance. We step away from technology (Aquarius) and a detached view of life from behind the screen. We step out of the audience (Aquarius) onto the center stage. We step away from our over-thinking brain that is trying to protect us by giving us all the reasons something isn't going to work and toward what our heart wants. We move from traumatized (Aquarius PTSD) into our power (Leo).
Ceres connected with the North Node on December 2, 2017 and then on January 16th, 2018, so this is the third time around for her (as us). This is the final conjunction so something is reaching a culmination here now. Remember who Ceres is - she was the Goddess whose daughter was kidnapped by Pluto (ruler of this Moon!) and taken into the Underworld. Ceres' grief began the earthly cycles of death and rebirth we experience as the seasons.
Ceres sitting with the North Node (our collective way forward) and squaring the Moon in Scorpio speaks of fated cycles. It speaks of GRIEF. Maybe a life and death fear of losing something that is part of a natural cycle and must be shed or something that is growing away from us but feels like it has been stolen from us. Maybe something about smother-mothering or a pushy kind of nurturing that requires something of us when it should just love us unconditionally. Again this makes me think of that two year old's death grip (have you ever tried to take something from a toddler's hands?!) - we are either holding on for dear life or some situation/person has a hold like this on us.
Again the Moon is the release point on our journey toward that North Node. We are full up. This situation has nowhere left to go. It must unwind itself so we can breathe.
With the Full Moon squaring the Moon's Nodes we know that whatever it is that is ending now or culminating or coming to light - this is a HUGE Moon for secrets to be exposed - is fate train stuff. We are ready (even as we don't feel ready) for it to come to light or culminate or end now and so it is.
So, what do we do?
One of the great things about Full Moons is we don't have to really do anything - although our current situations will need to be attended to, of course (Mars/Pluto will see to that!). We get what we need to get just by being on planet Earth and experiencing them. We just have to allow ourselves to feel what comes up. Don't judge ourselves as weak or crazy (yes, Full Moons can make people look crazy!) and allow other people the same gift of non-judgement. Just hold the space for the emotions to come up and out. Tears, sweat, being in or near water can help release lunar emotions.
Mars (Scorpio's traditional ruler) and Pluto (Scorpio's modern ruler) are both activated now - adding strength, courage and intensity to the Full Moon. Whatever dragons we are facing now - we have the power here to slay them. Dead.
Just remember the Taurus toddler with the death-grip (MINE!). And the Roses (from the movie) with their death-grips on their stuff and their egos. This is what we want to avoid - filling ourselves up with stuff so we don't have to deal with what is happening underneath. Jupiter - the planet of good luck and expansion - is UNDERNEATH. The treasure is buried now.
Think about - what GOALS (Saturn in Capricorn) would, in order for me to complete them - require that I transform myself into someone I have heart-felt respect for (North Node in Leo)? How would that feel? What would I look like, dress like? What would my work space look like? My house? My town? My day? My bank account? How would the other people in my life make me feel?
This isn't about taking actions toward that goal (although it might be for some people - Full Moons are peak action). Just get into the energy of embracing that new person.
Transformation is offered by fully experiencing the Moon - by NOT CLOSING OURSELVES OFF from whatever life is showing us now - what life has been showing us for the last couple weeks. This is an introspective Moon. It's an emptying kind of experience. The emptying creates the space for something new.
Imagine those parts of ourselves we have exiled off to Elba being welcomed back.
What old beliefs about what is not possible for ourselves are we ready to tenderly love away now?
Just sit with yourself during this Moon. Take a long walk in it. It doesn't matter if the sky is cloudy. It's there. It doesn't matter if you think you don't know what you want. You do. You came in with a plan. It is fail-safe.
If we've emptied ourselves at the Full Moon, in the days following we will find signs and answers coming in. Nature abhors a vacuum.
xo all
As above, so below - think about physical actions to empty and dismantle - give away a bag of old clothes, delete old picture from your phone, emails from your inbox, expired food from the cupboard, toss broken items, etc. EXHALE.