Astrologer Laura Craig

Full Moon in Scorpio: Stayin’ Alive

Adam Elsheimer “The Flight into Egypt”

April 26, 2021 // 7° Scorpio

According to the numerology of the tarot, this is the year of the Hierophant, the 5 card in the deck (2+0+2+1). Fives are said to represent turning points and breaking free, which feels strange juxtaposed with the card’s symbolism of received wisdom, entrenched hierarchy and the old ways. So it would seem the card—and by extension, these times—hold within them a curious paradox between tradition and change, between old and new.

So what does that mean for all of us? As the high priest card has an esoteric association with Taurus, I think we should, a quarter of the way through the year, and fully into the season of the bull, be beginning to see. We have already been feeling the cow-prodding, provoking effects of Uranus in Taurus, whose square to Saturn in Aquarius underpins all of 2021, and is awakening the dormant, recalcitrant energy of the four fixed signs. And now, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and the Black Moon Lilith also find themselves in Taurus, each receiving an injection of Uranian stimulant, each confronting the stern stare of the Saturnian pope in their own ways. And for the next few days, while the Moon travels through psychological Scorpio, it is bringing these themes further down to earth, and doing what it does best: making it all personal.

When I think of the fixed signs, of the Taurus-Scorpio dance, of a Taurus stellium, of the Moon, and of a lunation ruled by Mars in Cancer and Pluto in Capricorn, two things that immediately come to mind are sustenance and survival. With space weather such as this, I would expect to see stories and memories of safety, security and resources (or the lack thereof) become activated in our lives and psyches. Stories of our own evolution as well: the ways we have survived as individuals, as families, as societies, and as a species.

So many of these scripts run in the unconscious, but the Moon can help us shine a light on them. This is a Moon that may bring up our earliest experiences with caregivers and the ways our attachment styles developed within our adult relationships; the ways we do or don’t feel safe in our bodies, in our homes, or in the world. This Moon has a tendency to touch nerves—when, if ever, did you experience a formative disruption to the nervous system, or a disturbance in the fabric of your earliest containers of family, matriarch, or mother? What ancestral trauma might have been passed down and born into your natal chart as a karmic lesson, or an opportunity for healing and cycle-breaking? And by the same token, when and by whom have you felt protected and nurtured, defended and loved?

The Moon in Scorpio happens to be in mutual and harmonious relationship with Mars in Cancer. Together, they remind us that anger is often a mask for fear and that power is not a zero-sum game. They encourage us to ask questions of ourselves, and to be honest in our answers; to learn to discern when we’re truly unsafe versus reacting from old, unconscious wounds; and to notice and take responsibility for our triggers. 

Taurus season, meanwhile, asks us what keeps us grounded and in full possession of ourselves. It asks us to identify our desires and needs, and to move from surviving toward thriving. And zooming back out to this Hierophant year: for some, this turning point will feel like crisis, for others it will feel like liberation. But we can all be asking ourselves: how are the spiritual and the practical both necessary for getting through life? Where can I be a teacher or mentor, and transmit the knowledge that has served me thus far, thereby bolstering others’ resiliency? And which inherited traditions or ways of thinking will I choose to sustain and which will I allow to be left in the past?

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