Full Moon in Taurus: Astrology of 11/6 – 11/12

This week we have a Full Moon with the Sun in Scorpio and Moon in Taurus – and the Sun and Moon both harmoniously aspect Saturn in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces. Saturn and Neptune form an exact alignment this week, negotiating our concepts of control and responsibility when it comes to the unknown or the mysterious workings of reality. In a Universe of abundant creativity and possibility, surely we do have some say in what potentials we shape or give more power to through our focus and intention and involvement. I can enter a party and have vastly different experiences according to my mood, my intention, and what I’m choosing to focus on.

I practiced ashtanga yoga for several years – in ashtanga yoga studios, students are doing their own practice in the room and the teacher will walk around and make adjustments. I would often hear my teachers speak of the balance between will/effort versus surrender, or strength versus flexibility. The overly-flexible students had to develop more strength, as to not compromise their structural integrity. The students who had come in with a lot of physical strength had to learn where to surrender, let gravity work for them, and become more flexible.

Easily this is also a metaphor for life, like much of yoga can be. If we are always “going with the flow” we may not be developing our strength and will. We just go where the wind takes us, which can be spiritual, but also avoidant. Or we may be really controlling, and always attempting to fit reality into our own agenda and leveraging any muscle we have to do so, which ends up creating a lot of stress and vigilance.

Harmonizing with the Universe while also exploring our capacity and calling to be effectual tests us with lessons around control. What is in our power and what isn’t? There are likely both places where we have assumed more responsibility than is truly fair or realistic, and places we have abandoned responsibility where we actually do have some.

I invite us to be open to re-negotiating these dynamics of surrender versus focused application of will. And further…

There is still a widely operating cosmology that the Cosmos and the Earth are not exactly alive, but are inert substances that can be manipulated or exploited for personal gain, like raw material for a builder to create their own masterpiece. This impoverishes the builder, too. If instead life were a relationship with an alive, and mysterious reality, we are just learning how to be surprised and how to be receptive toward a deepening of understanding that exceeds our own personal preconceptions or assumptions. We are learning when to lead and when to follow, how to ask and make requests, and how to honor and serve the beloved.

And since we are unique beings, whose flourishing is part of cosmic creativity, what would us being empowered also mean for life? What gifts do we want to share? When we zoom back into our personal lives and personal selves, what potentials of the Universe live inside of us as our desires and deepest inclinations? In what ways does supporting the unfolding of our own path connect with a spiritual purpose?

Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the vibe may feel like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox, sign up for my mailing list here. You’ll also receive a new subscriber-only article about the current Saturn-Pluto conjunction, and be the first to know when my online astrology courses are open for enrollment.

Here’s our week, after a few announcements!

UPCOMING EVENTS

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA NOVEMBER 15-16: Pillars of Creative Mastery: The Grand Fixed Cross of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius – a lecture and workshop coming to Minnesota Stars Astrology Community!

In the natural zodiac, all the fixed signs correlate with creative mastery – whether a specific project we want to bring to fruition or our entire life we want to throw into blossom. The wisdom teachings of these signs extend past personality and are experiential forces accessible to anyone (regardless of the presence of fixed signs in one’s natal chart). 

The forces associated with the fixed signs can be intentionally cultivated for enhancing themes in our life such as: abundance, wealth, intimacy, healing trauma, self-worth, healing addiction, building community, empowerment, joy and playfulness, confidence, genius, real transformation, re-programming the subconscious, and manifestation – to name a few! 

In this lecture and workshop we will learn how these signs and their related themes work off of and amplify one another, and how you can use this knowledge to break up stagnant patterns, meet your own excellence and genius, and build a more authentic life and social network. Think astrology lesson and coaching masterclass in one: this information will change your life and support you on the path of realizing your inherent creative gifts.

Learn more about this event and register at http://mnstars.org/calendar/ 

ONLINE EVOLUTIONARY ASTROLOGY COURSE, JANUARY DATES TBA: Whether you are just beginning your astrological journey, or are a professional astrologer, or anywhere in between, this course is designed to uplevel you. You’ll deepen your communion with the cosmos, expand your confidence in understanding and speaking the language of astrology, and gain tools to apply your astrological knowledge to bring magic, healing, and flourishing into your daily life. This course contains a comprehensive vision of astrology that empowers you to gain your bearings and deepen your practice for the rest of your life onward. Learn more about this offering here, and get on the waitlist.

Here’s our week:

November 8, 2019

Sun in 15 Scorpio sextile Saturn in 15 Capricorn: 10:06 AM PDT

• This transit can speak to the opportunity for creative self-expression or progress made on personal endeavors through focus and commitment. Whether we are practiced at focus or not, there’s always an edge of where focus becomes difficult and where we seek distraction. However, with this harmonious contact between the Sun and Saturn, *being* focused may feel more accessible this week via these two. Scorpio, Saturn, and Capricorn all connect to commitment, as archetypes.
• If we are very clear about our desires or desired results, or the the pain points (“I don’t want to feel this bad anymore, so I’m willing to _________”), commitment and follow through can be easier. 
• There is something to be said about flow states and ease and living from that place. However, working with what is “hard” is a place of growth and growing past our limitations and blocks. It takes wisdom and self-knowledge to discern the difference between something being hard because its out of alignment, and something being hard because it’s helping us grow or mature.
• Investing in our self-awareness and the development of the streams of life activities that make us feel alive are a special kind of responsibility, as well.
• Focus will be easier if we are honest about where we are starting from. If we try to start somewhere lofty that is ungrounded in our personal psychology, we’re not really setting ourselves up for success. Consider what is at the root of your situation vibrationally. If one was constantly struggling with self-worth or confidence, for example, and that’s hindering their ability to commit to themselves or their passions, one could focus their mind on coming back again and again to positive or self-loving thoughts. The thought-programs we are running are based on habit and like habit, take a little effort to break or re-wire. A meditator comes back again and again to their breath, and naturally their consciousness strays but they come back to the breath. So as an invitation – consider a vibrational state or an emotion you want to more consciously wire into your experience, and keep coming back to it. Don’t be surprised if the old thought patterns exhibit some kind of grip or possessiveness (“I’m just trying to feel good about myself! Why is all my shame coming up?!”). Leveling up usually brings up, and burns off, levels of fear or ancient patterning.
• There’s also vast differences between engaging with, and being curious about, our shadow, versus living from the shadow unknowingly, versus attempting to repress the shadow. This Sun-Saturn alignment may relate to the level of responsibility we are taking for ourselves, when it comes to addressing our fears or personal blocks, but also navigating how we want to decipher them and how we may want to relate to our own power in a grounded way. What if we stopped investing in the things that are holding us back – and what’s a mature, or grounded way to do that?

Sun in 16 Scorpio trine Neptune in 16 Pisces: 10:56 AM PDT

• This can be an opportunity to feel into the spiritual richness of our most authentic and core longing – why would we desire what is not for us? Our innate desires can be very connected with our path. Sometimes the intensity of our desire or longing is also what brings us to develop a deeper relationship with Spirit. We recognize that there is something transcendent, nearly otherworldly, about the feelings we have of what it would be like to meet our desires, and this can spiritualize our lives – perhaps inspiring us to connect with Spirit in a more unconditional way (not a, “I’ll trust life only if it looks a certain way” vibe).
• What about inauthentic longing? What do we reach for to numb or comfort ourselves in the stead of something that would truly be fulfilling? What are we deluded into thinking that we need based on cultural values set forth by abusive systems? The Scorpio archetype correlates both with empowerment and abuse, part of the connection between the two routes is that Scorpio has a deep awareness and empathy to pick up on the pain of others. On the abuse end, this knowledge of pain is used as leverage to manipulate, and on the empowerment side this knowledge is leveraged to heal and reclaim greater wholeness. 
• Sometimes we do want things so badly that it hurts, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we want something that is bad for us – but sometimes it is a signal, and at the least it signals our own relationship to our longing (desire can feel good, and juicy, also). We might consider if our desire is connected to basic principles of trust in the goodness and abundance of life and our own worthiness of receiving, versus if our desire is connected to pain, manipulative agendas, or basic principles of life being something we must defend against and not being abundant or worthy intrinsically.

Saturn in 16 Capricorn sextile Neptune in 16 Pisces: 7:45 PM PDT

• We can be growing more awareness in places where we have been naive or illusioned – and this can feel painful or healing depending on our attachment to the past and what particular illusions are being let go of.
• There is the potential with Saturn-Neptune contacts to be delusionally disappointed, to make conclusions about possibility in a narrow and pessimistic way but to think that we are being realistic. Sometimes this does help us get to a place of surrender, which then opens up new doorways. If our spirit feels depressed about something, we may be undergoing a change in dreams, which can be bittersweet.
• On the other hand, Saturn-Neptune contacts are also supportive for the construction of dreams, the bringing dreams into reality. This involves resourcing imagination and visionary states as a kind of blueprint for what to do here, in the physical plane – building life from a place of inspiration. I recently recorded a solo podcast episode on Magic of the Spheres on getting into character and committing to character as an imaginal manifestation technique. You can tune in where you listen to podcasts or on your browser here.
• As much as we can apply our effort and will, Neptune brings us back to a reality where we are not in control. In Saturn’s realm, there is a much greater sense of having control but we become illusioned, basically, when we see this as all that there is. The spiritual lessons of Saturn-Neptune can be about letting go of illusions of control and deepening more into the flow of life. Of course there will be places where we can show up and apply our efforts and see results of our efforts – but there is simply a lot beyond our capacity to orchestrate. How much energy are we investing into control projects, instead of recognizing our humility in the situation?

November 9, 2019

Mercury retrograde in 20 Scorpio sextile Pluto in 20 Capricorn: 7:09 PM PDT

• Are we making assumptions without having all the information? If we are mindful and watching our thoughts, this Mercury retrograde in Scorpio plus this transit illuminates the kinds of projections we are placing onto our circumstances and onto other people. We may have the time to slow down and be with these thoughts, and/or to work them out with trusted parties, before creating unnecessary drama.
• If we are receiving projections from others, we are free to hear them out and say something to the effect of, “I’m having a different experience than that. Do you want to know about it?”
• One way that this retrograde can be working us (in a good way!) is showing us the difference between our projections and what is actually happening. This allows us to take greater ownership of ourselves and relate more intimately with the world around us. We can be surprised at the novelty certain situations and interactions take on when they are freed up of our projections.

November 11, 2019

Sun in 18 Scorpio conjunct Mercury retrograde in 18 Scorpio: 8:22 AM PDT

(Image: Caitlin Hackett)

• There may be highlighted behind-the-scenes or secret activity in our lives. There are different reasons that people keep secrets or keep lids on certain processes. It could be as innocent as developing a work of art and not talking about it to anyone besides collaborators until the work is finished. 
• In the daylight world and the world of information, sometimes we really value everything being ‘out in the open’. But Scorpio is of the night and underworld, and some of its gifts ripen in the closed spaces of fermentation or cocoons, or behind closed eyelids, where light is not coming in nor coming out. Sometimes this type of privacy can be meaningful and soul-making.
• We also know that energies like shame live in darkness, and are disempowered and can lose their grip on us when they are brought into the open, through connection, witness, ‘bringing light’ to it. So we can be discerning of course, about where our privacy is creative and supportive, versus where our privacy is keeping us small or disempowered.
• I’ve heard journal writers speak to a phenomenon of writing which I think is widely relatable, this quality of censoring our own thoughts when we journal. Perhaps we don’t want to look at something or we are trying to be positive. This Mercury-Sun conjunction might relate to an inner-reveal, a willingness to name or look at something that we normally censor even to ourselves.

November 12, 2019

Full Moon in 19 Taurus: 6:34 AM PDT

The Moon will be closely conjunct asteroid Vesta in Taurus, also at 19 degrees, while the Sun is still conjunct Mercury rx in Scorpio. The Sun and Moon form harmonious contacts with Saturn and Neptune.

If you want to learn more about the Taurus and Scorpio archetypes, check out a recent 2-part podcast on Magic of the Spheres on this “tantric axis” that I recorded with Arakai Moon. You can listen where you tune into podcasts or via your web browser here: Part One and Part Two.

• We are becoming more magnetic when we get to a place where our desires feel good in our hearts and bodies, where we can affirm our worthiness of receiving by feeling good when a desire strikes us, and we can trust in the abundance and goodness of life to meet us with blessing. This Full Moon in Taurus can bring a swell in emotion around self-esteem. Whether that is a painful swell of emotion or a blissful one, it may depend on the patterns we’ve already been running regarding our relationship with ourselves. But it’s never too late to find a focus point that empowers us to remember the intrinsic qualities within us that we value, or the abundance in our lives that we could remember to take stock of.
• While Scorpio brings us in touch with our deepest and most vulnerable needs (such as to be desired), Taurus relates to our capacities for self-sufficiency and yet our receptivity to receiving what we desire – that magical place where external circumstances are like the cherry on top of an already-thriving inner world, an already overflowing cup. When we find this place hard to access, the best we can do is become resourceful about what we already have. One of my favorite ‘resources’ in this regard is gratitude. It is well-known that focusing on gratitude increases our mood but also our likelihood to encounter more and more reasons to be grateful. Things that get us into our bodies, dance, breathwork, tantric practices, etc. also stir up the inner-resources in the Taurean realm that relate to our capacity to feel good in ourselves.
• Because it’s Scorpio Season, the focus on intimacy, connection, desire, evolution, and power dynamics are still highlighted by the Sun, but this Taurus Full Moon brings a potent opportunity for activating our inner-resources, our grounded sense of enough-ness or having all that we could need and more in this present moment. Paradoxically, it is this state that draws us closer to the experiences on the external that we desire – yet not if presence and gratitude with what already is is an agenda. Once its authentic, it’s like we enter a lush garden in which the good feelings we already have are magnetic for receiving more of the same. These are the Taurus-Scorpio mysteries, which are ultimately experiential for individual discovery. 🌬 
• None of this is to validate the dictum that “people only love us as much as we love ourselves”. The Universe is not that transactional. Sure, our love of self may inspire others how to treat us and inform our own boundaries of what we will and will not accept. Our love of self can make us more receptive to receiving love from others. But having a difficult self-relationship does not invalidate us. It just points to some self-intimacy we would benefit from developing. And ultimately this relationship that we develop to ourselves may not entirely be a self-project. A loving community, healers, mentors, friends, romantic partners, and so on, are all holding up mirrors that may empower us. Taurean self-reliance can exist in connection – it takes the form of self-possession, and being able to own our worth, and truly integrate the meaningful reflections we receive from others or from life.

Mars in 25 Libra sextile Jupiter in 25 Sagittarius: 11:21 AM PDT

• This can positively echo some of the themes from above regarding shifting our assumptions that we make for lack of all the information. Jupiter is a potential know-it-all of the planetary pantheon, and can relate to our sense of entering situations with the presumption that there is nothing left for us to know. In fact, we will inform others of the truth, since we know it already! Socially (since Mars is in relational sign Libra), this can correlate with limiting assumptions we may have about other people, which end up becoming self-fulfilling prophesies because we’re not holding space for anything else. If we alternately, enter relational dynamics with a genuine curiosity to experience new frontiers and new information, we will receive what we are seeking. While a wildly different experience will ensue, it is not a different circumstance that triggered it – just our attitude and intention.
• Jupiter and Sagittarius relate to the archer, and where we point the arrow is more or less where it tends to land – which is why our attitudes and intentions alter the trajectory of our path.
• Mars in Libra, here amplified by adventurous Jupiter, can amplify the excitement of discovering other people and of creating synergy with other people where a new energy is created via the interaction. 
• Some of us may be more sensitive, receptive and empathic in nature, and more likely to respond to the energy in the room than to create the energy in the room. But this alignment is very extraverted and if we play with it, can show us how creative we can actually be about taking leadership in creating the vibe in the room. And, for those of us who are already more likely to be extraverted, we may practice listening and inviting others to share, more.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! I really appreciate you being here with me as I know that if you connect to this writing we have likemindedness and that is so special. Please share this article with a friend who you think would resonate!

Please let me know what you think in the comments – truly I want to know so leave a note! I love you and you are soul family to me, thank you for finding your way to these words and resonating with them in whatever ways you have.

If you would like more personalized guidance, I would love to read your natal chart and transits for you! If you would like me to explore the themes in your chart, book a reading with me here. 

I meditate on charts before the reading and combine my knowledge of astrology with my clairvoyant abilities to offer you some insights about themes you are working with in this life based on prior lives, and what is the evolutionary purpose of this lifetime. I recorded an episode on my podcast recently titled Befriending your Intuition and Clairvoyance if you’d like to learn more about my relationship with clairvoyance along with tips for increasing yours!

I can work with your specific questions and shed light on ongoing issues or patterns you would like to shift, as well! Book with me here.

I’m also becoming increasingly expressive on instagram, so go find me there @sabrinamonarch and say hello! I’m posting a lot of content there that I don’t share anywhere else and I love interacting with you there,

With love,

Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts, works with clients and teaches. She is a novelist and is currently pursuing her masters in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness.