A Full Moon of Expansion, Limitation, and Transformation

Wednesday’s Scorpio Full Moon aligns closely with change-oriented Pluto in Capricorn, and that feature alone makes for quite a powerful lunation. Mercury is also a vital factor. Finally moving forward again, Mercury is only two degrees away from where it stationed one week ago, therefore remaining in close conjunction, still, with Uranus, half of a degree away. All this time the surprises of the Trickster planet have combined with a wobbly and a tentative Mercury, slowly recovering from its retrograde. It has been a strange time to say the least. Mercury has also moved into a near-perfect trine with Saturn, so that the restrictions and limitations, as well as the needful practicalities associated with this ultimately conservative planetary archetype are very much emphasized. Uranus and Eris are still in active conjunction in this dynamic Full Moon, separated by a mere two and a half degrees, indicating that we have also the archetype of the rebellious spiritual warrior, which translates to standing up for what you hold inside, to the exclusion of all else, including consensus opinion.

Meanwhile, in another telling aspect, Mars in forming trine with Jupiter and close square with Neptune speaks to expansive optimism bordering on fantasy. Coupled with anything-goes Uranus, there is a strong push for outrageous and free form solutions to looming personal as well as social problems, liberalism run wild, with also the potential for conservative backlash as implied by the Saturn presence. The polarization thus remains strongly present between leaping forward with new initiatives, versus holding back in perhaps overly-planned-out caution.

As referenced above, the Sun and Moon also closely aspect Pluto, by trine and sextile, so that the major structural transformation of this pivotal year and decade is also now very much in evidence. Because Uranus and Pluto are both so greatly emphasized, in the context of their ongoing square that defines the current decade, active until 2020, we are, all of us, up against it, in order to fulfill whatever we can manage of our own personal developmental arc. Like it or not, and whether you consider yourself ready or you don’t, you are heading into the next dramatic stage of your personal evolution as you can manage to rise to that occasion.

There is also Saturn-Chiron, in almost perfect square now, an aspect that has been active since the beginning of April, and is now powerfully triggered by the Mercury-Uranus positioning in the current configuration. Chiron, the Wounded Healer, in long-term dynamic aspect with Saturn, suggests a strong hit of the wound of misplaced authority. Many would be able to resonate with this as a residue from early childhood encounters, when they experienced actions by parental figures that they recognized, even as a small child, as not truly in their best interest. There are also echoes of this difficulty in the presence of governmental or law enforcement figures that seem to be acting from self-interest, rather than on behalf of the public that they supposedly serve. The core personal issue is the most immediately present, and the one that it makes the most sense focus on, because you can actually do something concretely about it. It helps to be aware of the reason behind anger or fear as it arises, and to silently witness your own process rather than launching into blame or reactivity.

The Sabian symbols for this Full Moon might prove to be illuminating. They are, for the Sun, in the 21st degree of Taurus, “A finger pointing in an open book,” meaning, we suppose, the book of human knowledge. Marc Edmund Jones references, “a sensitiveness to the enduring significance of each special complex of human affairs,” and “the fine discrimination of which man [and woman] is capable.” The symbol for the Moon seems to imply the opposite meaning: “A soldier derelict in duty.” Beyond a cautionary emblem of how not to go through life, however, lies the suggestion that there may, indeed, be a higher duty than to the affairs of social governance. Jones remarks upon, “the necessary adjustments of life on the side of decisions and consequences, and… the penalties for a lack of discrimination in any given set of circumstances.” He goes on to present the complexity of the symbol by summing it up as: “effective responsibility to the inner stirrings of self and a willingness to face the consequences of true self-assertion.” Indeed, we are enjoined by the prevailing cosmic currents to step outside our comfort zone as need be, keeping our eye firmly on the major prize, to the exclusion of everything else, namely that we place ourselves in alignment with that in which we most deeply and sincerely believe.

A Full Moon of Expansion, Limitation, and Transformation

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Chart for the Full Moon on May 10, 2017

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