A Full Moon for the Deep Journey

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Henry Seltzer of ASTROGRAPH.COM

The Full Moon coming up on Saturday, May 5th, is special in that it reflects back to the Taurus Sun the darker energy of its quite different and opposite sign of Scorpio, ruled by Pluto; a sign that is, in a subtle way, intimately connected with the outer orientation of Taurus, representing the beauty and pleasures of the material world. Scorpio is coming from an entirely different place of inner world activity - looking under the covers, as it were, of all our motivations and finding the way through to transformation. The sign of Taurus is ruled by light-filled Venus, while Scorpio, as indicated by its holiday, Halloween, is a symbolic representation of the darkness that is but the other side of the same coin. Each sign contains within its archetype the germ of its opposite as the Yin-Yang symbol reveals: the dark spot in the midst of the light and the light in the midst of the dark are fundamental elements in the genesis of each of these two sides of life.

The Moon in this configuration also connects by parallel aspect with Pluto in Capricorn, extremely prominent in these spring-time skies, being trined by Mars and by the Sun, just as the Uranus-Pluto square, the hallmark symbol of this crucial decade of the "turbulent teens," begins to really get into high gear with the spring and summer of a pivotal year. Pluto closely aspects Chiron, meaning that in exploring these opposite energies of light and dark our essentially wounded nature is being dragged up and exposed yet again. The time is ripe for healing the ancient trauma from our past and moving beyond it. Meanwhile, the polarities represented by Jupiter and Saturn are also potently configured. The Sun conjuncts Jupiter for the next ten days, heading toward mid-May when its ruler Venus retrogrades in trine with Saturn, as an inconjunct between Jupiter and Saturn perfects. Saturn is opposed now by Mercury and the new planet , beyond Pluto, so that Saturn is greatly emphasized as well. Jupiter is the most optimistic energy in the planetary line-up, and says to us "go, go GO!" while dour and cautionary Saturn, having perhaps the worst reputation of any traditional planet, speaks to us of prudence and of holding back, although its lessons are built to last.

As we negotiate the troubled waters of our interior world in the light of this Full Moon, we are encouraged both to continue inner exploration with all the courage that we can muster, and to make of that serious journey a long-lasting outcome of better and deeper understanding of ourselves at all levels. We grow by poling our barge toward the light and toward the darkness simultaneously, as incomprehensible as this effort might seem to our merely surface mentality and as difficult as that task might be, involving as it does the dark and weighty descent into our generative depths.