Astrology of 5/10-5/16: Full Moon in Scorpio & Cultivating the Erotic

This week begins with a Full Moon in Scorpio after the nodes of the Moon have just transitioned into Aquarius and Leo. Taurus and Scorpio do much to strengthen one another’s expressions, and a Full Moon sees a peak meeting of opposites as the Sun fully illuminates the Moon in opposite sign. This opposition of Taurus and Scorpio will integrate more as the week goes on. Taurus represents cultivation, constancy, pleasure, self-esteem and simplicity, whereas Scorpio represents depth, passion, desire, sex-death-rebirth cycles and transmutation. A Full Moon in Scorpio will highlight the necessity to cultivate passion and depth into our lives, and if we should feel unmet desires bubbling up from underneath it is an auger that life force is ready to engage. How often have we been told or actually believe that calmness and stability should come at the cost of the absence of passion? It is through integrating these opposites that we can live a life of erotic charge and value. If we meet this erotic aspect within, in even just one area of our lives, it can spread its vitality to all areas of our lives if we should choose to value and disseminate its unmistakable intensity.

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Here’s our week:

May 10

Full Moon in Scorpio: 2:42 PM PST

This Full Moon in 20 degrees of Scorpio squares the nodal axis and highlights that the nodes have recently transitioned from Pisces SN/Virgo NN to Aquarius SN/Leo NN, just the day prior to the Full Moon.

“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honour and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

This internal requirement toward excellence which we learn from the erotic must not be misconstrued as demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others. Such a demand incapacitates everyone in the process. For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours bring us closest to that fullness.” – Audre Lorde in Uses of the Erotic

• This Full Moon highlights the emotional experience of coming to know the value of touching root with the erotic in our lives (explicitly sexual or not, it is the place we feel exceptional charge, that we are touching soul) and the value of cultivating a life that as Lorde says, aspires to those standards. We may take note of where in our life we feel that charge, and allow it to water the rest of our existence. If we don’t feel we are touching that space, it is important to consider our desire, and to ask ourselves if we have allowed ourselves that kind of intensity. Pluto/Scorpio as a vibration is both repulsion and attraction, and some desires create fear or repression especially when we cannot comprehend them.
• The sensation that allowing a true feeling to be expressed: whether it is ultimate grief, profound gratitude, bliss, etc – is a form of self-intimacy with is ultimately valuable and the space from which an emotion can be further transformed.
• The understanding that while extreme satisfaction or peak experience is like the top of a wave, there is a way we can cultivate (Taurus) our lives such that these peaks inform our purpose and vitality, and even occur more consistently.
• It always feels important to me to *know* that the Moon is in Scorpio because it is a time where we can be more likely to feel jealousy, possessiveness, paranoia or abandonment – some of Scorpio’s more unpleasant terrains. Yet if we do not take this emotional likelihood personally and instead aspire to some of Scorpio’s gifts, such as the wisdom of letting go, depth of perception, intimacy, and deep fascination, we may feel the more pleasurable aspects of this Moon.
• Take note of the Taurean aspects of your life that are the light for this Scorpio Moon to reflect: does your environment reflect your values? How does your environment reflect your self-esteem? Simple things and simple pleasures make a world of difference with Taurus.
• Where emotional currents are more intense in a painful way, reflect on where you have given your power away. What external symbols have you projected your own soul onto? What external symbols are permission slips for you to feel a certain emotional reality or facet of yourself you otherwise do not feel allowed to – and can you self-source such a vibration such that your projected permission slip does not become a gatekeeper?
• Self-esteem and self-work within Taurus sets the stage, and though the Universe is inside of us and we can self-source quite a lot, there is particular magic of merging energy fields. Polarities between Taurus and Scorpio will often highlight the way in which our inner realm (Taurus) is a magnet (Scorpio) and how playing with magnetism is a deep core of our existence: alluring, penetrating, and the cause both of inner-death and inner-renewal to which we alternately seek, resist, attempt to control, dissolve into or surrender. The more we know ourselves (Taurus) and our desires (Scorpio), and become increasingly self-aware at depth level, the more we can exchange energy with agency. Sometimes, desire, however mysterious, is the guide for this alchemy of self to take place.
• The inner-calling to move away or move toward something depending on how it reflects one’s self-worth.

May 11

Mars in Gemini square Neptune in Pisces: 10:53 AM PST

• This aspect started to build April 26 and will leave orb May 26 – this is a window in time in which actions may be increasingly inspired (positive Neptune) or unquestionably ineffectual (confusion aspects of Neptune). Mars interacting with Neptune is like a captain of a ship working with the sea – a deep respect for the unknown and an effort to harmonize with that is the survival of Mars/Neptune, rather than trying to go against the flow, this same flow which has the ability to swallow one up. Because it is a square aspect, there may be a natural conflict between the will and the greater will (one’s higher self included). This tension wears away at the aspects of ourselves that are out of alignment.
• The engaging of new and diverse experience, motivated by impulse and curiosity, and connected to a greater Source of compassion, understanding, and Spirit.
• See if there are instances in which trying to stick to plan gets you out of touch with the flow, whereas being opportunistic about what is actually available and desired would allow you to enter the stream of heightened, even peak, experience. Of course this will harmonize with what is ultimately relevant for you, and does not require that values or important commitments/contracts go out the window. The point is that a given trajectory may dissolve in favor of a more illuminated one. The final results of this kind of realignment may not be known for some time, but you may be certain that being in alignment more often than not sets the stage for a more resonant future.
• Finding oneself in a situation in which some kind of action or choice is required, but being extremely uncertain as to which choice to make. The seeds for this conflict were planted around December 31, 2016 (hmm… new years resolutions anyone?) when Mars and Neptune formed a conjunction. The juncture of this exact alignment forms a first quarter phase square. A purpose here is to discover how to begin to allow that original intention or design to emerge dynamically. This can be reflected by needing to make a choice in a situation that is very new; a place one has simply never been before. Trial and error may be inevitable, and Mars in Gemini happens to be a more experimentally-inclined Mars.

Mercury in Aries trine Saturn in Sagittarius: 1:15 PM PST

• A sobering of the mind that is expansive, that creates a buoyant sense of new possibility emerging: such as recognizing a part of the mind has died, and so inevitably something new will take its place – the necessity for certain mental constructs to die for new life.
• This is the third of such alignment between Mercury and Saturn this Mercury retrograde season, and this is Mercury’s last of three for the time being, the other two being March 29 and April 24. Has any concept really been pounded into your mind, as though with some kind of gravity?
• Consider any ways in which hitting your head against the wall has been because you don’t actually want the reality behind that wall and something more expansive is available for you. Saturn in Sagittarius implies expansive limitations, such that particular constraints are actually helping guide energy toward more expansive channels. And it takes time and builds character! (“Blah blah, Saturn ?”/“Whoa you really were looking out for me with all those lame dead-ends Saturn because now I am where I wanted to be all along!”  – Mercury in Aries)

May 12

Mars in Gemini trine Jupiter in Libra: 3:19 AM PST

• This is a great aspect for socializing and networking. Extraversion is in part motivated by the potential for reward, like, “I could meet someone!” (“So I’ll go to that party instead of staying home.”)
• The potential rewards of excitement, vitality, and energizing connection is amplified by truthfulness and authenticity, and putting things in the air (these are both air signs), such as speaking out loud of your desires to friends, who later hear of something perfect for you and forward the message. This can also relate to speaking your actual truth, versus just saying empty/non-risky things to keep a conversation lukewarm. Put it out there, be intellectually daring (Mars in Gemini) especially where there is harmonic relationship and charm/charisma (Jupiter in Libra).

May 15

Mercury enters Taurus: 9:07 PM PST

(Image: Dead Poet Society)

• Mercury direct re-enters Taurus (but we’re not out of shadow yet, not until May 20). Mercury shadow is like closure for Mercury retrograde season, we’re still revisiting themes that the retrograde season started with. In the cultural trope of hating Mercury’s retrogrades and its flurry of emphasizing all the potential negatives of such a transit, this strangely popular phenomenon fails to acknowledge how enlivening the enhanced synchronicity of Mercury retrograde season is. This would be a great time to take note of what messages and themes have been reoccurring, to identify them, and simply honor their passage. Be amazed by it – the Universe wrote an opera just for you! Understanding these symbols may lead you to the next step, as well as just deepen a sacred quality of presence with existence itself and how remarkably clever it tends to be.
• Considering how a limited framework of ideas can create stagnancy within perception and life itself, versus the constructive, tender value of language, ideas and concepts and attaching value to expression for that reason.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! Leave your thoughts in the comments and please share this article on social media!

~Sabrina Monarch

(Top image: Georgia O’Keeffe)

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys kundalini and ashtanga yoga, hiking and creative writing. You can subscribe to receive her weekly forecasts by email here.