7:49 am PDT

2:49 pm UTC

Full Moon in Taurus at Cross-Quarter

If this Full Moon chart is a bellwether of the next two weeks, what we can expect is the unexpected. When the Moon is in Taurus it would generally indicate a time of resting, staying home, and giving ourselves to a bit of fun and pleasure, as Taurus is ruled by Venus astrologically and Taurus is an Earth sign.  But this Full Moon is almost exactly conjoined (by 3 minutes of a degree) to Uranus, the planet of change, revolution, upset, inspiration, and awakening. Uranus’s signature here makes this Full Moon one in which we are startled awake at night by a dream, or shocked by unexpected news, or simply feeling agitated and ungrounded. But it may also bring a sudden insight, a shift in awareness, a much-needed reversal of direction.  Uranus’s presence pushes us to jump higher to a more inclusive reality, one which is beyond polarities of good/bad, right/wrong, to be able to see the larger picture and proceed accordingly.

Of course, given the fact that we’re all on shaky ground right now, with everything in the world up for change, with the sad and vicious reality of greed and rapaciousness evidenced in all of our governing institutions, when asked to find a place of stability, where do we look? We know the answer, it is within ourselves. And the presence of Uranus now asks us to release old, outworn ways of living and being, shed that old outworn skin, and enact our ideals, not just hope for them.

The Scorpio Sun offers us a kind of fierceness that can weather these storms of turbulence, holding fast to what our deepest truths are. Scorpio is a fixed sign, and a water sign, and has a kind of emotional tenacity that enlivens us around the issues of what deeply matters to us. And these issues are inevitably linked to our relationships, the ones that hold us, that matter, that give us a sense of the passion and depth that life has to offer. What is it we truly desire and are passionate enough about to change our ways?  

The Sun and Juno are conjoined in Scorpio, pulling on the opposite polarity of the Moon/Uranus in Taurus. Juno (Hera) represents our being in partnership with each other, the holding of the value of kindness and honesty in relationship even when it’s at its most trying.  Scorpio is also about transformation, the kind that places us in the underworld where what has been hidden from our awareness comes to light. Its passion for life can often go too far, thirsting for vengeance for the wrongs done in the past. Forgiveness and patience are traits of the Taurus polarity to Scorpio. Forgiveness may not entail forgetting what has happened, but instead releasing our attachments, learning from what has been, and moving on.

If you’ve been feeling rather adrift lately, Mars and Mercury, which reflect to us the quality of our communications and our ability to take action, have been retrograde, an inward turning influence.  Mercury will go direct early on November 3^rd, and Mars will turn direct on the 13^th. With these  influences the way they are, we cannot expect the election results in the US to have any clarity at least until the end of November or beginning of December, as these retrograde planets have to “catch up” to where they were when they went retro and this will take some time. Also, the last time Mercury went direct on Election Day in the US was in 2000, when that election decision went to the Supreme Court and was not decided until December.

Mercury’s ongoing square to Saturn reflects challenges to our sense of clarity, which has already been in short supply this year. And it activates the triple conjunction of Jupiter/Pluto/Saturn, the signature of an old paradigm ending and a new one slowly beginning. So much hangs in the balance here in the US and energetically around the world. At such a doorway it’s possible that Uranus’s influence can become a tipping point. But being at such crossroads doesn’t bring us the security that a Moon in Taurus would normally reflect. We must choose, make choices as to our future.

All this tension and underworld stirring takes place at the cross-quarter day which we call Halloween, which has been a long and much celebrated event for literally thousands of years in cultures planet-wide. Far from being about trying to become the scariest vision we can conjure, this is the time of year we can go beyond the limits of our normal awareness, a time in which the veil between the worlds is the thinnest, in which we can get in touch with our ancestors and make peace with them, and/or receive assistance from them. That the Full Moon is occurring on this date is a rarity, the last time this happened was in 2001, a month also of turbulence since it was just after the September 11 attacks in New York City.

But this needn’t be a time of horror and turmoil. I believe that Uranus’s presence at this gateway gives us the opportunity to leap into a new relationship with the Spirit world, to establish a real connection of its presence in our lives. We can use the intensity of the Scorpio Sun and the embodied awareness of the Taurus Moon to make the journey toward that which goes beyond our rational mindset, our mental meanderings, to discard the old paradigm’s prejudice about death being tied to dreadfulness, and instead to take advantage of this yearly doorway, to light a candle and find solace, connection, and even inspiration.