Scorpio Full Blue Moon, May 19-20, 2008
“I am inclined to fantasize the gods, the heroes, the mythic protagonists, gathered in occluded shadow around the zodiacal wheel, behind the planets. Where a particular myth can find a congenial home within resonant patterns in an individual horoscope, then that myth will enter a person's life, and cling to him throughout his life as his daimon (guiding spirit). Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate
Welcome to the Scorpio Blue Moon! Again!
Don't miss this
'once in a blue moon' chance to shift your priorities to the deep
values rooted in your soul which will release the fear, anxiety and
helplessness which hold you back from living mindfully - choosing a
life that has meaning for you. The other side of fear is hope, of
anxiety, love and of helplessness, power. It's time for you to
re-connect (and you'll have that chance when Mercury goes retrograde
this month) to your wisdom and worth. It's time to take yourself
seriously and engage the mythic imagination to discover how to live
divinely or die mythically. Sound extreme. That's Taurus and
Scorpio for you! Extreme in power, passion, stubbornness and wisdom. Venus/Aphrodite has been held in bondage too long by the patriarchy. Like her sister, Inanna, She faces the Lord and Lady of the Underworld - to die to her affectations, and to be re-born to her gifts and power.
With this second Scorpio Full Moon occurring in the 29th degrees of Taurus and Scorpio, we will be tested on the lessons of these elements – stabilize your 'Earth' by recognizing and releasing the emotions that de-stabilize you. How have you mastered the Taurus lesson of discovering your values? What are the talents you were born with and how are you using them? Are you a good steward of the Earth, responsible for creating a personal sustainable lifestyle? Do you listen to and trust your senses? Practice extending your senses 360 degrees around you – what do you hear, see, smell, taste and sense? What is life telling you? Exercising these muscles will strengthen your instincts again.
What in Life is worth living and dying for? That is the question the two Scorpio Full Moons are bouncing around between them. What have you been concerned about since the first Scorpio Full Moon on April 20th? What new life did you invoke on May 5th at the Taurus New Moon? Did you feel the 'gods and heroes' circling around you, urging you to do the very thing that you've been putting off for . . . how long? A few years? A whole lifetime? Other lifetimes? Your 'once in a blue moon' chance to change things is here!
Do you know what mythic story wants to live itself out in you? We are still living in mythic times. “...the figures of myth are the active and dynamic aspect of our fate, the daimones, and we draw the outer world into our own myths at the points where the outer world's myths touch our own. Thus we, as vessels for myth, create our fate.” (Liz Greene)
Character is fate.
Be open to discovering (especially with Mercury and Neptune going retrograde within a half hour of each other on May 26th ) exactly which mythical/archetypal energies – which stories - are at play in the cosmos right now. How you tune into these big energies is determined by your own mythic characters as shown in your birth chart – your character. If you have any planets or angles around 29 degrees of fixed signs, you are going to be very engaged in the story of this Full Moon. When you name yourself and your story, you can find a way to fit your personal story into the collective story. You create your own fate by living your character fully.
Another way to access the mythic realm is through dreams, and it is a dream I had in December as Pluto and Jupiter conjoined near the Galactic Center that I want to share you for this Blue Moon. The Sun at 29 degrees Taurus will join with the constellation of the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, during this full moon. The Pleiades bring spring rain, abundance, renewal and spiritual power. One of the stars, Alcyone, was once believed to be the galaxy's central Sun. The belief was that our solar system is pulled toward Alcyone; she attracts us just as spirit attracts and animates Matter.
The Pleiades were considered sacred in many traditions – from the religions of the Book to Native American traditions. Many mythic traditions speak of our ancestors coming from these stars. The Pleiades are located at an inter-dimensional doorway – a 'stargate' - between the galactic and super-galactic planes in the cosmos. (Stephanie Austin, MA, Ap./May 2008). Sun on the Pleiades indicates that we need to stretch ourselves and open to spiritual insights and major revelations during this time. Dig deep, stretch high.
My dream:
I am in a building high up in the sky. A woman's voice says, “Look
out the window. There's the Pleiades!” I turn to my left and look
out a window and see the Pleiades – shining brightly in a clear
blue, sunlit sky! They are awe-inspiring! After looking out at it
for a while, I turn back inside and go into a room like a kitchen.
There's a dry sink there whose drain is open and looking down it, I
see clouds. Two of my grandchildren are playing in the room and I
have to help them in some way – to play or to stop an argument?
When I finish with them I look out another window and see other
constellations, and one of them explodes like fireworks and its
sparkles drip down through the sky. I wake up.
Seeing the Pleiades is relatively easy at night, but in the daytime sky, they mark a new dispensation, a new beginning, a new consciousness of Spirit and Life. We are called to a new life and now that the sun is literally shining on the degree of the Pleiades, I believe that we must trust that it is time for us to act. Take the step. What are you going to grow this summer? What do you have to fear? What's worse than losing your soul? All great spiritual masters have urged us to let our souls be our guide. Instead of looking outside to the culture for answers, look within and listen.
So let's look at the mythic stories of this Scorpio Blue Moon. For Taurus on the Pleiades, we will look at the old Celtic myths about Lady Sovereignty. And for the psychological transformations of old emotions involved with Scorpio, let's discover what dragons are really all about.
The totem animal of Taurus is the Bull, a symbol of great earthy power. Many mythic heroes, such as Mithras and Herakles, fight the bull – this motif suggests that our bull nature or earthly desires must be conquered and sacrificed to the higher Self. In the Buddhist story of the Taming of the Ox, man and bull develop a relationship that is neither repression of the instincts nor out-of-control instincts, but a balanced harmony of spirit and instinct. In both types of stories, the need is for the instincts to be in service to a higher power.
All these stories are about male 'heroes'. And since Taurus is ruled by Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of the body and of love, I'd like to consider Lady Sovereignty as an example of Taurus on the Pleiades for this Full Moon.
Lady Sovereignty is one of the Ninefold Sisterhood of Celtic tradition regarding the triple-aspected Goddess – 3 x 3 = 9. We know the number nine has mystical properties, associated not only with the 'otherworld' but with completion, perfection, illumination and culmination. Lady Sovereignty appears as the witch or enchantress aspect of this sisterhood, both ugly and beautiful, asking us to answer the riddle of what is the appropriate form of power for our individual talents and experiences.
The Celtic kings were chosen by and married to Lady Sovereignty. She is the Goddess of the Land and the King's marriage to Her symbolized his willingness to be of service to the Land. The stories associated with Sovereignty often show her as a horrible hag who transforms into the most beautiful Lady by the true king's willingness to sleep with her in her hag form - the dark, wild aspects of the land – earthquakes, tournados, tidal waves – as well as the dark places of the soul.
One of Sovereignty's avatars is Dame Ragnell. In the Medieval story (click to read it), The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, the riddle that must be answered is “What do women desire most?” The answer to the riddle is: Women desire Sovereignty above all else! This riddle is just being answered in our day and age, and women's destiny is tied to Mother Earth's. Will we continue to rape and pillage the Earth and women, or will we honor and listen to women's voices, the Earth's natural laws and the needs of the Soul – for Soul is feminine spirit at work in this world. Letting a feminine vision of life, the Earth's needs and our soul's purpose have the sovereignty will change your perspective about your life. Your power and talents are not meant for your self-aggrandizement. You are supposed to develop them to serve our world.
If
Lady Sovereignty symbolizes the Taurus Sun on this Blue Moon, what is
the image for the Scorpio Moon? Scorpio, ruled by Pluto as the Lord
of the Great Below, is a sign of irrevocable change. One of its
totem animals is the Dragon, a winged serpent “a representation of
the daemonic forces of the unconscious experienced as Terrible
Mother.” (Greene, Fate)
The dragon fight is a universal motif in myths, and it symbolizes
our need to fight the terrifying and often destructive power of our
reptilian instinctual life. Once again, we have numerous stories
about heroes, such as Herakles' battle with the Hydra, Sieggried's
fight with the dragon Fafner, and Perseus' slaying of Medusa. Here,
the ego must fight the dark energies of the unconscious, to free
feminine spirit from the more destructive aspects of human nature –
the unconscious emotional battles we have with ourselves and others. But once we learn to live with and appreciate the unconscious, we have the chance to riddle with the Dragon and discover our wisdom.
But since this Full Moon occurs at 29 degrees of Scorpio, where we are tested to learn the lessons of the sign, I want to explore the image of Dragon as wisdom keeper and guardian of treasure.
Like The Hobbit”s Biblo Baggins and Smaug, and Earthseas' Ged and Kalessin, the hero no longer slays the dragon, but guesses the answer to the riddle that unlocks the dragon horde of knowledge and truth, love and riches. 'The Dragons of Pern' are pure consciousness and share their instinctual wisdom with their riders. This is how we need to relate to our inner dragons. They like to be riddled with, they respect being outsmarted, and they give of themselves selflessly when they love.
The 'winged serpent' combines serpent and bird as matter and spirit, and manifested as the 'life-giving waters' of the serpent and the 'breath of life' of the bird. An ancient symbol of creation. Life. In the East, dragon symbolizes supernatural powers of life and death, with the wisdom to use them, and the strength of character to stay true to yourself. The West has been more fearful of the dragon, and made it a symbol of Evil and of the Unconscious itself. We cut ourselves off from our instincts when we did that. Now we have to re-integrate them consciously back into our lives.
So, is the Dragon Evil, or is it just an alien form of life – more cold-blooded, but wise beyond measure. (Working with your dreams begins a dialog with this dragon!) Do we kill it to gain concrete treasure, or do we converse with it to discover this inner knowledge? It's hard work, learning to know yourself; it's a difficult task to look at your own inner darkness and transform it into light. But once you do, you'll find a treasure drove of bright jewels, treasured values, shining virtues to live by and with. When we 'converse with the dragon', we allow for an instinctive, spiritual knowing that is the truest way to navigate through life. (Perhaps that's why King Arthur is called Pendragon – the Great Dragon. Conscious King.)
Our mythic task this Blue Moon is to face the dragon and listen to his wisdom. We do this for Lady Sovereignty - for our world. This is the hero's journey we are being called to. To become conscious and take responsibility for creating change in the world. Each of us is a cell in the body of a new consciousness. Each of us can remember why we came here and become it. Why not start now, while the Force is with us?
The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 29 degrees Taurus: A Peacock parading on the terrace of an old castle. The personal display of inherited gifts. It is the consumation of individual efforts; and it suggests that such a consumation is hardly possible except when a line of 'ancestors' – biological or spiritual – forms its base. A person's true talents invariably were gained through past effort and learning – in this life or in others. It's time to use them.
The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 29 degrees Scorpio: A masked witch holding a wand over a grinning Jack-o-Lantern. The realization that the insistence of our desires blinds us to real possibilities or that our rejected impulses do continue a furtive underworld existence. Unmask yourself and face your fears. It's time to let them go. BE YOURSELF.
Venus joins the Sun to look within the Moon Mirror at Scorpio's secret wisdom. The Sun is conjoined Venus, giving the strength of Love and Connection to the mix, so we can look into the mirror of the Scorpio Moon to see our reflections. Challenging us to look, release and transform are the North/South Nodes in Aquarius/Leo. Strong, stationary energy, Chiron and Neptune are traveling along the same road as the North Node in Aquarius, asking us to use our spiritual imagination (Neptune) and compassion (Venus) to heal the old wound of dis-unity (Chiron). Don't be tricked by illusions (Neptune) – dig deep for the Truth (Chiron).
The South Node in Leo asks us to remember our responsibilities as kings and queens of the land, with Saturn nearby to ground us in service. This grand square wants to manifest the energies of these planets and points. How do we contribute our creative talents to our society in these times of change? What gifts, talents, and wisdom to we have to give?
Saturn in Virgo, organizing our lives along new lines, is still supporting Pluto in Capricorn's mission to demolish the old cultural values of the patriarchy (within and without), sustained by Taurus' energy during the last full moon by the Sun, and by Venus at the new moon. For this full moon, the asteroid Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess of Wisdom and patron of arts, crafts and strategy, continues sustaining the work of Saturn and Pluto. Find new ways to fill the voids being created as things crumble out there. Have a balance between self preservation and helping others.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
We also have the chance to pull the sword from the stone – is the new king finally here? - and break through old karma if we use our Jupiter-Uranus opportunities to understand what needs doing and who has the talent to do it. We have to stop craving instant gratification and thinking we're the center of the world. We have to put the World Soul,the anima mundi, at the Center.
Astrological Events:
Sunday, May 18th – Venus makes some interesting connections with Uranus and Jupiter before She participates in the Full Moon energies. Be curious about the unexpected. Get out of your expectations. Connect to people and ideas who share your values. Having a group is a blessing in these times of change.
Monday, May 19th, Blue Moon in Scorpio.
Sunday, May 25th , Chiron turns Retrograde at 22 Aquarius (catalyze social change; claim your fated path), until October 25th. Heal the wounds of the group; heal the future; heal your ideals.
Monday, May 26th, Mercury turns Retrograde at 22 Gemini (the joyful dance of life) – trining Chiron, making it easier to understand and articulate the wound and clean it up.
Monday, May 26th, Neptune turns Retrograde at 24 Aquarius (Justice enthroned within a beam of Moonlight!) - dream a new dream! Until November 2. Right before the elections.
May we all meet
in in the dreamworld
someday
in all our glory
like the flowers and colors of May.
Enjoy May while it lasts!
Blessings & Beauty,
Cathy Pagano