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This week brings us not only the intense Scorpio full Moon, but also the Celtic cross-quarter holiday of Beltane, (May 1), celebrating the powers of life and growth. “It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May.” As Starhawk describes it: Beltane is the time when ‘sweet desire weds wild delight’.
What are you growing? You might already see it blossoming.
This month’s full Moon occurs on Wednesday, April 28th at 8:18am Pacific/5:18am Eastern, between the signs of Taurus and Scorpio. With Venus/Aphrodite ruling Taurus, she brings us the sweet delight while Scorpio’s ruler Mars/Eros brings on the wild desire. I might be a bit prejudiced since my birthday is early next week, but the Taurus-Scorpio full Moon is one of the most intense and beautiful full Moons of the year.
What happens when the Goddess of Love and Connection meets up with the God of Desire? At their worst, they gobble each other up – turning love into lust and desire into perversion. At their best, these divine energies infuse and inspire us to connection with our passions, our truest Self. We blaze with Love for what we value and desire. We stand up for the beauty of Life.
Perhaps if we remembered that Earth is our Pandora, we’d stop the corporations from destroying our Mother and we’d transform our society. We need to leave behind our war-mongering, economically enslaving, women-hating, materialistic, soul-less society for a more balanced, creative blend of human rights, ecological sustainability, economic sanity, peaceful cooperation, and true equality between the sexes. Most importantly, we need to return the Arts to their original purpose – to open us to a Spiritual Awareness of Life. The Muses who embody music, art, dance and writing are part of Aphrodite’s entourage. Art connects (Aphrodite/Venus) us to Spirit.
These are all Taurus concerns – protecting the Earth, equality between the sexes, the valuing of women and Feminine consciousness, the right use of resources, the values that drive us, money and its uses, and first and foremost, Peaceful co-existence. You might think, “Why does Taurus get to rule all the most important issues facing our world?” The answer is Taurus, a fixed Earth sign, is all about manifestation. Taurus wants to build something of worth and value, whether it’s the pyramids or a beautiful and simple log cabin. So of course it influences what kind of society we want to build.
Taurus represents the Garden of Delight; Life lived as if we deserved to have the Best Life. Why do we feel we don’t deserve it? Matthew Fox, the Christian theologian, asked “Why do we concentrate on ‘original sin’? Why don’t we pay attention to our ‘original blessings’? Use the energy of the Saturn-Uranus opposition (see below) to break free of the limiting belief that we are not worthy of a better life.
The Scorpio Moon is the answer to why we feel we don’t deserve to find Joy. Scorpio is the deep dark well of our obsessions and emotional pain. All those betrayals, losses, wounds, jealousies, cruelties and fears festering in a stagnant pool. But Scorpio can also release those dark feelings and transform our emotional bodies. And once we are free of our emotional bondage, we are free to listen to the voice of Aphrodite (Love), connecting us to Soul (Psyche) and our true desires (Eros).
Another intense aspect occurring on Monday April 26th and affecting our whole week is the fourth Saturn-Uranus opposition (the first occurred on November 4, 2008 and the fifth and last one will occur July 26, 2010). These two planets are extreme opposites: Uranus represents revolutionary New possibilities awaiting humanity while Saturn represents Old power structures that need to be renewed. Pluto, the energy of death and rebirth is in Saturn’s sign of Capricorn, which rules power structures. Cosmically, there’s just no way to stop the changes. The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was just before the American Revolution. Isn’t it ironic that the ‘tea-partiers’ are really backing corporate interests this time around?
As you can see from the news, there’s a lot of resistance to change. The Old is fighting back for all it’s worth, more often relying on hatred and fear-mongering to rouse the unsuspecting masses. False rumors about Obama are multiplying, Republican ads equate reforms with terrorism, the big oil spill in the Gulf is due to corporations squashing new safety regulations, and all Republican U.S. senators and one Democrat voted to block discussion of financial reforms. They won’t even allow discussion because corporations own them and our government. They don’t want to lose power.
But it is a cosmic law that the New will win out in the end every time. Our choices determine how we participate in it. Will we go gracefully into it or kicking and screaming and killing and destroying into it? And that’s just what’s happening in America. The rest of the world is in similar shape. We have to remember to keep what is still valuable to life, jettison the rest and build the New from there.
That’s why this full Moon is so important. Its energy can help us release the old emotional baggage that is what really keeps us from the peace and beauty that is Taurus’ gift. We want to build true and we want it to endure.
As with so much else in our unconscious society, we have been misdirected about the meaning of most symbols. Taurus has been given the bad rap of being all about possessions. And the more unconscious you are, the more it does turn into an attitude of whoever has the most, wins. Wrong!
As a Taurus, I’d like to report that we really aren’t completely concerned with possessions in themselves. What we do love is the unique value we place on our possessions, be they $5,000 or $5.00. Taurus says that something must affect my senses – my sense of beauty, of smell, of taste, of touch, of sound – to be of value to me. We are bowled over by beauty: the suppleness of silk, the intoxicating smell of lilacs, the subtle spices in homemade soups, the awesome expanse of the starry night sky, the babbling of a racing brook.
So to really understand Taurus you have to know what you value, and why you value it. The self-worth that Taurus engenders is about your talents and your sense of what’s worthy of attention.
A full Moon is all about awareness. So with a Taurus Sun we are asked to become aware of what we value and want to manifest and why. This is the Scorpio Full Moon initiation. What emotions determine what we value? Is it power or love that determines what we value? Or is it just lots of hurt?
Scorpio also asks you to test your values over against another’s values. You have to deal with the emotions that arise from this contest of wills. You have to discover the Shadow and integrate it instead of denying it. Then you have to try to understand the ‘Other’ through a clear lens – knowing your motives and intuiting theirs.
This process of illumination was probably part of the Buddha’s enlightenment which is celebrated most years on this Scorpio Full Moon. As the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree (of Life), demons came to tempt him, and he remembered his past lives and the karma attached to them. When he became conscious, he was free!
This Scorpio full Moon is one of those recurring times when the doors open between the worlds and energy shifts. This is why Taurus and Scorpio (as well as Leo and Aquarius) are called power signs. They hold the power gates and ground in other-worldly energies. Just as at Beltane, the veils between the worlds open and the magic of Faerie seeps through into our world for a time.
The Sun conjuncts Mercury retrograde a few hours after this full Moon, further opening the doors of perception to help us glimpse the spirits of the Earth. What is our Mother asking of us? What does your own private earth (your body) tell you about your life? What is happening to our Earth as we worry about who gets kicked off Dancing with the Stars? Where are we putting our attention?
Mercury is moving very slowly, working well with Pluto, deepening the mind, stopping air travel with ash, churning air into killer tornadoes, and exposing the flow of money. When Mercury conjuncts the Sun, it means it moves across the face of the Sun, going from being an evening star to a morning star, signaling a new way of thinking if we allow it.
Venus/Aphrodite and the asteroid Juno (relationships) pair up in Gemini, encouraging us to be open to the people we know and love. Communicate – don’t let things fester. Mars/Eros is squaring the Sun, challenging us to remember our greater Self and build something worthy of eternity.
The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 9* Taurus is: A fully decorated Christmas Tree. The Solstice/Christmas tree is a symbol of the Tree of Life, our life, which contains the many colors, layers and vibrations of the Light, as well as the hopes and wishes (the decorations we chose) we have for our Life. We are reminded of it now at Beltane because it is time to begin manifesting those wishes and that Light.
The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 9* Scorpio is: A dentist at work. Okay, nobody likes going to the dentist, but if our teeth aren’t healthy, we have no way to integrate our life’s experience. So we need to transform the scorpionic emotional pain that society imposes on us - for our own good, as well as the health and well-being of our world.
This full Moon energy asks you to be aware of what you love and value, and to clear out whatever emotional baggage is keeping you from your original blessings.
May the Goddess of Life and Love send us her blessings, and may the God of consciousness and Light help us to act accordingly.
Bright Blessings this Beltane season.
Cathy Pagano
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