The Cosmic Story: Taurus Full Moon, All Hallows’ Eve 2020
Samhain 2020: Many Souls wait to leave Earth
as the Veils between the Worlds Open.
The Wheel of the Year: Samhain
We’ve arrived at the season of Samhain/All Hallow’s Eve/ the Day of the Dead. It is the time of year when the old king has to die, like all of nature, so he can be reborn again in time. It’s the time of year when the veils between the worlds are thin, when the dead souls (so very many this year) leave our Earth and the ancestors can be reached through the veils.
This year, the whole world has had to face death together. That’s a first for our world since we’ve never been this connected. And yet, there are still people who refuse to acknowledge it, accept it, face it. How much harder will it be when we are hit in the face with our changing landscapes due to climate change, as so many already are? When will we face the truth of death and let it transform us?
America and its military-industrial complex has been very good at dealing out death with our wars, our industries, our rape of the Earth and her children for consumption/disposal. We’re seeing that some of us are not so good at facing it.
Maybe this is our lesson (south node in Sagittarius) – we need to face the truth of who we are, what we believe and how we live those beliefs. In facing ourselves, we can let others carry the shame of hypocrisy.
Ma’at was the Egyptian goddess of Truth. She held the Scales of Truth that weighed the heart at death. The Egyptian priests of Ma’at were the chief justices, striving to achieve fairness and balance in settling all disputes, taking into account all sides of the story. Too bad we don’t have these kinds of justices now.
But if Ma’at was here now, what would her Balance/Scale hold for us?
It is the Balance of Choice. We can leave corruption and mismanagement behind in our society. We can leave inequality and sexism, racism and cronyism behind. We can choose a different way to live. We can take responsibility for our lives and our world and grow up. We get to choose whether we’re looking to the future with hope, or trying desperately to bring back a past that is gone forever.
With Ma’at’s Scales, our heart must be pure if it is going to balance with Ma’at’s feather of Truth. Death asks us, What was our truth? And weighs it against our pure heart. What does pure mean? Entirely. Completely. Clear. Unmixed. Unadorned. To Cleanse. New and Fresh. So it’s not about being good and ‘pure’; it’s about being whole-hearted, passionate and there! Focused on what is true for your soul. This is the time to dig out that truth and start living it, so that as you face death in whatever form, you will dance your story and express your truth.
That’s the issue – what is Truth? The only reason I can think that we’re awash in this ‘fake’ news time-loop of secrets and lies is to teach us to look in our own hearts and trust them. When we know our truth, we are free.
In Ma’at’s Scales, at this Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon we confront the Chaos of Taurus/Beltane’s birth and fertility and Scorpio/Samhain’s death and dissolution – creation and destruction. Scorpio helps us dig deep down and discover what Taurus really desires from life – those secret caves in our heart which hold those things we thought we couldn’t have. Go and face your dragon horde and bring something back. Now is the time to acknowledge those desires and to own them.
It is the season of Death. It will be followed by the season of Re-birth. That’s the truth of cosmic law. First, however, we must let the old die, so the new can be born.
Life’s always about that, isn’t it? What new thing is being birthed? What old structure needs to come down? Every year at this Samhain season we get to look death in the eye and let go of what is dying in us – the habits, people, work, loves we have to let go of. This year, what is dying is very big. Very important. We’re not only releasing things from our private lives. We are letting go of our whole culture, the cultural structures we’ve been living in all our lives. The structures that no longer serve us.
As much as it’s been painful for so many people, I believe Mother Earth gave us a much needed lesson. Sent to our rooms to meditate on our lives, I’ll bet there are lots of old habits, beliefs and needs that people will be letting go of this All Hallows’, as the veils between the worlds open and the ghosts and ancestors pay us a visit. Perhaps they’ll have some wisdom to impart. We certainly need it.
Let’s shed our expectations of what life is supposed to be like and open up to what life needs to be like if we’re going to help Mother Earth recover from the rape and pillage of our home planet. The truth is, modern western culture’s particular version of patriarchy, such as consumerism and corporate person hood, is not only obsolete but needs to die. And we need to send it on its way with grace and ease. It doesn’t want to go. It’s doing everything it can to stay. But there are enough of us to help it make that passage by taking back our power, our authority and our purpose.
How magical is this! A Blue Moon on Samhain / Halloween. While we can’t gather in big groups like many of us did to help open the gates, nothing is stopping us from going out into the night and just walking under the Full Moon. What magical beings or demons are waiting for us there? What friends and neighbors might be doing the same thing, so that like those old Victorians who would take their walks around the park to see and be seen, we can connect across our streets and gardens?
Don’t waste this magical time! Look those demon fears and worries in the face and see what they really are. Then you’ll know how to heal them.
So this Halloween, this All Hallows Eve, this Samhain, take time to create a ritual of release. Find a way to name what no longer serves you and throw it in the fires of destruction and creation. Build an ancestor altar with pictures of your beloved dead. Bring them offerings. Honor your ancestors and ask for their wisdom if it’s helpful to this new society we’re creating. Dance with the chaos, as Libra teaches us to do, and stay open for the new light, the new life, the new revelation that is coming to us on Winter Solstice.
Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon
This Scorpio/Taurus Full Moon was birthed by the 24* Libra New Moon – the 3-winged butterfly – the source of the serenity that has made a perpetual peace treaty with chaos. (Steven Forrest). When Mercury turns direct at 26* Libra on U.S. Election Day November 3rd, we will see what our hearts have decided.
The Sabian symbol for Mercury direct at 26* Libra is: An eagle and a large white dove change into each other.
Susan Seddon Boulet
What happens when spiritual awareness and love are one? We step into a higher love. I’ve seen and heard about some nasty selfishness this month as well as some very dedicated and loving acts. This is Ma’at’s choice we are faced with. What is our Truth? Can it help us change how we see ourselves as separate entities – separate from the goddesses and gods, separate from Nature and Mother Earth, separate from each other. And most sadly, separate from ourselves. We have it within us to stop thinking only about ourselves and see ourselves as part of a community, whose welfare is our welfare. Perhaps Mercury will bring us that insight if we ask for it. It’s always good to ask and to be grateful for the response.
So we have entered the darkest part of the year up in the northern hemisphere. (Hello and Happy Beltane all of you down under!)
As Simon and Garfunkel sang back in the 60s: Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again.
As the Sun travels through the sign of Scorpio, it shines its light on our own inner waters, our psychological emotional body. With Cancer, that emotional body is primal. In Scorpio, we’ve lived enough that we have developed some issues with life and with people, either in a past life or in this lifetime. So the Sun shines a light on these issues so we can see down in the dark. What lurks there? Those demons we imagine on Halloween? Or our own demons?
At this season of dying and death, the fairy tales suggest the best course is to face your demons. If you do, they will turn into helpers. Face what you fear, and it will no longer grip you by the throat. Face your beliefs and know that if you are a soul, this is exactly your initiation. This time. This place.
The second Full Moon in October -- a so-called Blue Moon -- occurs on October 31 at 6:49am Alaska time, 7:49 am PDT, 10:49 am EDT, 2:49 pm GMT.
The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 8*38’ Scorpio is: A dentist drilling decayed teeth.
What a perfect image for the pain we’re feeling this year! Decay comes from too many sweets, and we 1st world citizens have certainly over consumed our share. But let’s look at the symbolism of teeth to get a better idea of what having a mouth full of bad teeth means. People dream all the time of teeth falling out or decayed. Most symbol books say it’s about our fear of not being beautiful or being gossiped about.
Nope! Teeth in dreams symbolize our ability to digest something about our lives. To begin the integration process. When teeth fall out in dreams, it usually means that we aren’t processing our lives, that we’ve lost the tools to process what’s going on. While I’ve had these dreams, I also had a dream (while I was at the C.G. Jung Institute studying dreams) that all my teeth fell out. At this point, my analyst sat forward with a glint in his eye. He thought he had me! But the dream continued – they fell out because a whole third set of teeth were coming in! It seems I was developing the capacity to understand symbolic language and to integrate meaning into my life.
So let the dentist drill. We all need the capacity to integrate what’s going on in our world – politically, personally, and collectively. Our lives may depend on it! We have to digest the truth, to see and know corruption. We have to face self-indulgence and ego fears. We have to eat the Truth, rather than the sugar of Falsehoods.
The Sabian symbol for the Moon and Uranus rx at 8* 38’ Taurus is: A fully decorated Christmas tree. Oh. This most beautiful symbol of eternal life!
Christmas trees are evergreen, symbolizing eternal, continuous life. They don’t shed their needles each year but keep growing more.
Did you know that the lights on our Christmas trees symbolize the Light of the World, or the return of the Light at Winter Solstice and Christmas. It is during these dark December days that the Sun stops its journey south and then turns back North, bringing us back light and warmth as it once again crosses the equator at Spring Equinox.
While the lights symbolize the eternal sunlight as well as the spiritlight, the decorations symbolize the wishes we make for ourselves and each other, and for the world. We adorn the Tree of Life with our hopes, our soul’s light, our desires.
Even in the darkest times, the Christmas tree brings us light, hope and future visions.
So imagine your tree. This time put a lot of sparkly tinsel or fairy dust or lightning bolts all over it. Because this year’s Taurus Full Moon is a once-in-a-blue-moon thing.
Imagine those Uranian decorations! Expect the unexpected. Don’t expect anything at all and see what comes. Be surprised. Open up to wake up. Unexpected nurturing and/or generosity. Some surprising sensual stimulation. Earthshakers.
It’s so hard to let go, right? Especially for Taurus Moon, which is the contented cow of the zodiac. Taurus can become complacent (self-satisfied) which can turn into stubborn. Why change something that seems to be working?
Since Taurus is the archetype of embodiment, you can see why once you’ve embodied a habit or security, its hard to think of changing things. But change is in the air, and it’s especially hitting Taurus as Uranus makes his way through the most earthy and fixed of signs. That’s why Scorpio, the essence of psycho-emotional change, is such a good compliment to Taurus. With both these fixed signs, it’s all about control and giving it up. Unfortunately, change cannot be controlled, only worked with.
As Uranus, the Change Agent, the Awakener, moves through Taurus, our world will be shaken and changed. That’s the one thing you can count on. (See The Tower card in Tarot)
Shift is happening. Especially with Mr. Surprise around. To break through a complacency or barrier, here’s what I learned how to do in a dream.
Sometimes I would dream of coming up against a strong force-field. Something that was invisible but impossible to get through. At some point I figured out that if I walked into it backwards, it gave way. I got through the barrier every time after that by simply walking in backwards.
The point was, I had to stop forcing something to happen. The only way to meet the challenge was to trust and turn around and walk backwards. And it’s not only about trust. If we let our back lead, our back chakras – the receiving doors of our energy centers – receive energy impressions and communicate with us on a deep, instinctual level. It shuts the ego down and lets the unconscious knowing lead the way. And we instinctively know what to do.
What an interesting juxtaposition. Rotten teeth getting fixed and a Christmas tree. Decay and the promise of eternal Life. When we get rid of the rot, we leave space for new life to fill in.
Perhaps we need a new vision?
Since Taurus and its ruler, Venus, are associated with money, real estate and finance, let’s be inventive about our economy, which has a whole mouthful of rotten teeth. If we do something new, the economy isn’t going to die. We have to trust that we can create new systems to shape the economy to fit the needs of workers and owners, consumers and creators. It’s just a different structure with different goals. Let’s dump the goal of seeing who gets the most money and change the goal to seeing how we can mix our work with our play, our creativity with our responsibility, our use of our resources with sustainability and respect for Mother Earth. Even the changes we’ve made since the pandemic are part of that change. We’ve been talking about working more from home since computers became indispensable. It’s finally happening. Uranus in Taurus.
The powerful cardinal T-square is providing the background energy again, this time with Mercuryrx opposing Marsrx , with both squaring the Capricorn Amigos – Jupiter, Pluto and Saturn. It’s the tension of having to decide (Mercury) what course of action (Mars) to take regarding our society and our world. For Americans, that choice comes on Tuesday, when Mercury turns direct. Walk the talk!
While the rulers of Scorpio, Mars and Pluto, are in the background deciding, Venus, the ruler of Taurus, is facing her own demons.
Venus in Libra is strong, and she’s also strong in Taurus. And she’s facing off across from Chironrx in Aries, the wound to our self-identity, to our original purpose. My sense is that Venus wants to gather all of us in her arms and sooth our fears, and then tell us to buck up and find our courage.
With this Full Moon on Halloween, be open to the unexpected. Recognize that things might get touchy with misunderstandings in relationships and communication. Things aren’t as stable as we’d like them to be with Uranus in Taurus conjunct this Full Moon. So find your inner center.
Astrological News
November 3, 2020 – Mercuryrx stops and turns direct in Libra.
November 12, 2020 – Jupiter conjuncts Pluto in Capricorn to initiate a new cycle of power and possibility. With the asteroid Pallus, there is a strategic aspect to this cycle. How can you creatively use power? What are new and more inclusive ways of owning power.
Friday, November 13th – Mars goes direct in Aries.
November 19th – Mercury returns to the degree where it turned retrograde.
November 28, 2020 – Neptune turns direct at 18*10’ Pisces.
November 30, 2020 – Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Gemini/Sagittarius
Happy Halloween! May the Spirits of Our Ancestors open us to Wisdom.
Cathy
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