We have a Full Moon in Scorpio every year about this time. It’s inevitable during the month when the Sun travels through Taurus.
In the northern hemisphere, where the astrologies we know first developed, it’s springtime. Green appears everywhere. My social media feeds currently feature bear cubs frolicking with their mothers, rolling down hillsides, or commandeering someone’s backyard trampoline.
A happy, hopeful time.
Yet each year, the shadowy Moon in Scorpio shows up, fully illuminated by a Sun who just wants to touch earth and get comfortable. What’s up with this?
Taurus and Scorpio are the two yin fixed signs. Earth and Water, receptive and yielding. Yet these two signs can also be implacable, setting hard and fast limits we may not exceed.
I have to admit, this year’s Scorpio Full Moon is especially challenging.
First, it falls in the last decans of Taurus and Scorpio. As each sign of the zodiac reaches its concluding degrees, we’re presented with endings, breakdowns, and losses.
In Taurus, we confront the limits of earth. We can sow our seeds, tend our gardens, protect new plants from bugs, and still, a rogue hailstorm can destroy the crop. We can follow every recommendation for taking care of our health, eat right, exercise, meditate, sleep well every single night, and still confront illness or disability.
You see where this is going. At the end of the fixed Earth sign, we’re required to recognize that nothing is guaranteed, everything has limits, and death is a part of life. Saturn rules this last decan of Taurus.
At the end of Scorpio, we’re brought face to face with the end of desire, not just its death or loss, but also its corruption. The last decan of Scorpio is ruled by Venus, who is not at her best in the zodiac signs belonging to Mars.
The challenges at the end of Scorpio relate to how we act when we can’t get what we want. Do we take it anyway? By force, if necessary? And if we do, are those desires satisfied? Or instead, have we ruined what we thought we wanted most?
At this Full Moon, the Sun is conjunct and the Moon opposes Uranus. This adds some wild and crazy into the mix. Uranus brings unexpected change. The sudden twist of fate. The thing happening that we never would have guessed.
Sometimes, Uranian changes are objectively good–like a lottery win. Other times, they’re objectively bad–like an unexpected job loss.
Uranian change is not only unexpected, but also fast. So, here we are, facing into the prospect of loss in fixed signs which are typically slow, but not right now. Right now, we could experience a bolt from the blue.
The changes Uranus brings can genuinely be good ones, but when they’re also quick and unexpected, we humans struggle. Lottery wins do not always change people’s lives in good ways.
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So, we’re at the end of two slow fixed signs. And now we toss sudden shock into the mix. Neither Taurus nor Scorpio likes surprises.
Last but not least, Uranus remains, as he has been for some time, conjunct the dread star Algol. This is the head of a ghoul, or a demon, or Medusa, who we’re expected to see as a monster (although her actual story is a bit more complicated than that).
Algol is said to bring disaster, a word that means ill-starred, what in medieval Latin was called astrum sinistrum.
If all this sounds bleak, honestly, you’re not wrong.
So, now we look for the silver linings.
Let’s go back to the idea of endings. The end of each sign of the zodiac is not the end of all things, but the end of one viewpoint, one way of experiencing the world. Once we complete the journey through one sign, we enter the next.
There’s a sense in which each new sign answers, or provides a remedy, or a balance, for what came before.
In Aries, we had singularity of purpose, a focused desire to satisfy the individual will, and a willingness to cut through any obstacle. Aries moves fast and breaks things.
Taurus slows way down, inviting us to consider how life actually develops, which is, slowly, with care. If Aries is fight or flight, Taurus is tend and befriend.
Yet Taurus can feel a bit stodgy and definitely get stubborn. We move to Gemini and the speed of life picks up again. New possibilities unfold. Yet where Aries is singular, Gemini is multiple. Anything and everything feels possible.
And so it goes.
At the end of Taurus and Scorpio, loss is not the end. Instead, we’re asked to recognize the possibility of disaster, because this can really happen in human lives. In small ways, we all experience loss. In large ways too.
And then what? What emerges from a bad event or experience depends in part on how we come through. How do we react? Can we find peace? Create a way forward? Reach for renewal?
At the end of Taurus, we’re reminded life has no guarantees, which means we need to have backup plans. It ’s foolish to expect everything to go well always. Saturn wants us to prepare, have extra, be flexible, and plan for the worst.
At the end of Scorpio, we’re brought back to ourselves. Venus reminds us we hold the keys to our own desires. We’re responsible for living a life that reflects and supports our Venusian values. We can’t always get what we want, but that doesn’t mean life is empty. It means something is hidden behind what we thought we wanted, and that hidden thing is calling for our attention.
It’s fair to note that the extra darkness of this year’s Scorpio Full Moon is not out of line with the extra darkness we face in so many ways in today’s world.
Even when our personal lives remain safe and comfortable, we see the world at large is not. We feel a call to participate in pushing back the shadows in some way, at some level.
This too is reflected in the Full Moon chart.
The Sun–Uranus opposition to the Moon forms trines and sextiles to the Nodes of the Moon in Virgo and Pisces. Since the Nodes of the Moon are opposite each other by definition, this pattern of oppositions linked by trines and sextiles creates an interesting aspect called the mystic rectangle.
Dane Rudhyar saw this aspect as an opening to practical mysticism. The tension of the oppositions can be explored and resolved through the connecting trines and sextiles around the outside.
This mystic rectangle linking the Full Moon to the Nodes emphasizes the idea we’re in a time when events have long term impacts. This can feel like pressure, and yet it also opens up windows for flexibility, openness, and grace.
Yes, we’re in an important time in history. Also, we are not in control of world events.
So, it’s important to be aware and take action as we can. We also acknowledge we’re one part of a much, much larger picture. We can help. We cannot control outcomes.
Taurus says, what are the backup plans? How can we best save the seeds we’ve cultivated and preserve them for a future we can’t yet see?
Scorpio says, what are our deepest desires? How do we take responsibility for those? How can we move toward what we want without seeking to control anyone else? How can we create for ourselves the world we want and need?
It’s complicated, but then, so is life. An important part of the key to this Full Moon is to accept what we cannot change. We can also, of course, seek to change what we cannot accept.
If mysterious Scorpio brings awareness of hidden forces, a hidden hand behind world events, we can influence outcomes with that hands that belong to us.
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