Full Moon in Scorpio: Insights and Epiphanies

In my last post I spoke about the shift of the Moon’s Nodes into Gemini and Sagittarius. I know it was rather technical, but I hoped to give you a peek inside the astronomical workings and interactions of the Sun, Moon and our planet Earth. This is where the action is in our personal lives. We experience, learn and grow through these personal archetypes.

The Sun is our essence. Beneath the personality we develop, is the spark of divine consciousness that we truly are, the pure, innocent soul that exists in eternity and is temporarily exploring being human. The Moon is our emotional body. Through its tidal action, waxing and waning, the lunar energy penetrates our psyches where we experience sensations, emotions, thoughts and feelings all of which inform us. As we wax and wane along with her, our consciousness expands. We evolve.

Between Earth and Sun lie the “personal planets.” Closest to the Sun is Mercury, messenger of the gods who brings us thoughts and ideas to feed our minds and teach us how to communicate. Venus lends her gentle beauty and grace, aesthetic pleasure and creativity, a tender heart that can open to love, and grow through relationship. Mars brings in our drive, our will, our power to interact with and contribute to the world. Mars is considered a personal planet, but his orbit lies beyond the Earth while Mercury and Venus are more intimate, the context of our inner world – our thoughts and feelings. Mars is the gateway to the social planets Jupiter and Saturn.

Our bodies are 70% water so we are particularly attuned to the Water element. This Full Moon lies in Scorpio, the middle of the three water signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces. There is an evolution of consciousness between these three expressions of water. Cancer is the womb of our childhood experience, where we developed our emotional body, dealt with fears, anger, grief. It is the world of the Inner Child.

Scorpio brings us into another dimension, the underworld – the subconscious where urges, obsessions, desires and deep mysteries abide. Beginning with adolescence when our sexual nature is aroused, we begin to explore forbidden zones. You can see the connection between Scorpio and Pluto, co-ruler of this sign, Lord of Darkness, harboring our darkest secrets, standing guard before our inner prison of taboos.

Scorpio is opposite Taurus where the Sun is now passing. We are mid-way through this lunar cycle and the Moon is coming into fullness. This is when the seeds planted at New Moon come full bloom and we can gather the harvest. The sign of the Full Moon points to where the rewards are richest. So as the Taurean Sun shines full light upon the Scorpio Moon, it guides us into our depths. The harvest here is abundant with insight, epiphanies, surprising emotions, profound healing.  

I suggested, in my last post, that the Nodal shift is bringing us into a new focus with new energies. We moved from earth and water to air and fire. These are the elements of Mind and Spirit. At the Full Moon Mercury, ruler of Gemini, is conjunct the Sun, emphasizing the Air, or mental realm. We will be able to see further into the Great Mystery, stare a bit deeper into its light. Things are lightening up. Our minds are getting sparked and our passions aroused.

These can be difficult energies to integrate if you resist them. Particularly challenging in our isolation state. The key is to turn the energy back in upon itself. Explore the inner world and let your mind take you into new territory. Meditation can be amazing right now. Don’t be afraid. Anything you encounter is there to release you from pain, from fear, from suffering. Face your past, face yourself, and face whatever lies in the Darkness. Once you get through the cobwebs and specters, you’ll come to the inner chamber of treasures.

At the New Moon I spoke of the Treasures of Taurus. All of them are states we can cultivate to shore up our strength and courage, enhancing our feeling of safety: love and compassion, simplicity and frugality, humility and modesty. We become safer when we operate from a place of love and compassion. These emotions vibrate at a very high frequency and affect others around us. I remember an amazing movie I saw as a child – Ingrid Bergman as a humble peasant missionary. I don’t remember the name of the film, but she is called in to stop the carnage of a prison riot. Timidly she steps through the prison gates where big, raging, violent men are beating each other to death. She stands there in stillness. One of the angry brutes runs toward her raising a club. She stands her humble ground and flows her compassion toward this man. It stops him cold. He drops his club. I was so scared and then awed by that power.

That’s the perfect metaphor for the impact of compassion. Others are less likely to attack you if you are beaming love at them. As for simplicity and frugality, simplicity lies in our everyday lives – meeting our needs, taking care of our bodies, rituals through which we honor our basic necessities. This is also a time of forced frugality. Many of us have had our income curtailed. We all need to be looking toward the future when America attempts to rebuild itself. We will have some lean times ahead. Taurus is telling us not only to be frugal, but to save for the future. Simple wisdom.

Humility and modesty come from knowing who we really are. We are one spark of All That Is. That is simultaneously awesome and humbling. Modesty comes from knowing our worth. Only those who lack self-worth brag about themselves, seek the spotlight, need attention and constant reassurance that they are doing a great job.

By a winding path we have come to Pluto, who is hanging out in the USA second house demanding we pay attention, reassess our values and get to the bottom of who we truly are so we can know our self-worth, know our own value and begin to live from that knowledge. It’s time to try a new experiment: learn how to live together in peace and harmony with liberty and justice for all.

This is at the heart of the American dilemma. We are split as a society because we are split as individuals. A chasm has opened up between our professed values and our reality. We pledge allegiance to our flag, but ignore what the flag represents. Do we really believe in equality? What is patriotism? Is it blindly following the leader? Or is it love of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all? Is it standing up for those original values? Perhaps expanding them? The same holds true for our religious beliefs. We kill in the name of God. There’s a rift in our psyche.

This is an opportunity to begin healing our inner conflicts. Scorpio will help reveal the way. And Neptune will dissolve boundaries and help us connect to our deepest self. Neptune rules Pisces, the third water sign which carries our consciousness into an awareness of Oneness, of our connection to All That Is. At New Moon, Neptune is trine the Sun and Sextile the Moon, working in harmony and activating all things Scorpio. There’s a caveat, however, Neptune has a shadow side that can lead us into illusionary realms. The action of this archetype often moves through illusion into delusion. This is a dangerous state – one of crusading causes and false idols. If we’re lucky we will become disillusioned. This of course can lead to depression, but the truth is that freeing ourselves from delusion gives us another degree of freedom.

I think many are disillusioned right now. We thought our government would do its job and protect us, lead us through this tragic pandemic. Instead we find ourselves on our own. Our Federal Government is willing to let States go bankrupt, old people, health care practitioners and meat packers die off, thousands if not millions more of us to be sacrificed to the gods of wealth and power we call our economy. Our president actually asked us to be warriors and go back to work. Some of us will die on the battlefield, but that’s what warriors do. The economy must get back to feeding the corporate monster.

How economic is it to let our workers die? To let our small businesses wither? To let families lose their homes and livelihoods? Who will be there to buy all the stuff we produce? It’s insane. At the Full Moon, Mars is conjunct the USA natal Pallas Athena, awakening wisdom and a strong sense of justice. And Jupiter is conjunct the USA natal Pluto. America is coming up on its Pluto return. Whatever we don’t heal within, before then, will come at us from outside. We’re seeing it now – illness reflecting how sick we are as a society, scarcity reflecting our paradigm of competition for resources, corruption erupting from a rotten core, irresponsibility showing us the imperative to grow up and death revealing our future if we do not change our course. It’s all there to reflect upon.

Everything has its shadow side and we won’t see the whole picture until we look at it. But that doesn’t mean doom and gloom. Scorpio seeks intimacy and connection, loves a good mystery and seeks pleasure. So enjoy the next few days of enlightening insights and possible epiphanies. Next week Jupiter, Saturn and Venus turn retrograde. We’ll take a look at how retrogrades affect us.