The Taurus Full Moon – November 17, 2013
Full Beaver Moon, Frosty Moon
The Sun is in uncompromising Scorpio, master of the mysterious realms of the unconscious; ruled by Pluto, this edgy sign hungers for what is hidden secret, and taboo. Opposite is the Moon in down-to-earth Taurus ruled by provocative Venus; the sensual bull deals with the physical world and craves what is cozy, safe and secure. Scorpio thrives on chaos; Taurus loves calm yet we cannot have harmony unless we are willing to face what is difficult and dark.
“Transformation isn’t pretty.” –Caroline Myss
The myth of Pluto and Persephone is a great metaphor for this Full Moon. In mythology Pluto, lord of the underworld, was a menacing figure who rarely ventured above ground; one of the only times was when he kidnapped Persephone, brought her to the underworld and made her his queen. Her mother Demeter (the Roman Ceres) was bereft, and since she was the goddess of the harvest, she refused to allow anything to grow; the land remained frozen and barren. The other gods demanded Pluto bring Persephone back, and eventually a deal was struck and she was allowed to return to the “day” world. Because of the pomegranate seeds she consumed in the underworld she was only allowed to stay above the ground for half the year; the rest of the time she had to return in the underworld with Pluto.
“I would rather be whole than good.” –Carl Jung
Yet there is a deeper story. Living with her mother Persephone was asleep, unaware, and inexperienced; she needed Pluto to free her. A very important part of the myth is that it was in the underworld that she found her true power and become a whole person. Pluto, with all his wealth and authority, was a lonely figure; he needed Persephone to make him complete. This myth teaches us that buried within each crisis is an opportunity, and every death brings new life. Persephone’s abduction is often referred to as a rescue and not a rape.
Astrologer Eric Francis points out that Nessus (a centaur planet) is at 25 degrees of Aquarius, making a challenging square to the Full Moon. He writes: “Nessus is bringing up some form of shadow, baggage or ancestral patterning for us to recognize and heal, related to the Taurus-Scorpio axis. Nessus speaks of patterns of sexual abuse (or its potential), and indicates we have the power to stop the proverbial buck.”
Melanie Reinhart writes about Nessus in her ground-breaking book, Saturn, Chiron, and the Centaurs. “This is a realm beyond psychoanalytical perspective, but includes it. Hence the world we see into is a border region – a Centauric region. Here we see the past of our psychological inheritance replaying itself, and interpret the present according to these patterns, but we also see the dynamic energetic reality which is occurring now, in the present, between people, places and objects. To see this means the scales fall forever from the eyes of the innocent.”
Both Venus and Ceres are prominent in the chart of the Full Moon turning up the heat on the ongoing Uranus/Pluto square and the need for deep change brought about through the feminine. And let’s not forget that Saturn, Mercury and the karmic North Node are still in Scorpio making a forgiving trine to Chiron (in Pisces) which turns direct on November 19. There’s a message here about timing and being able to finally see something that we’ve been struggling with; something that was previously hidden.
“The dead are invisible, they are not absent.” –St. Augustine
In her brilliant book, The Ancestor Syndrome, Anna Ancelin Schutzenberger demonstrates how “as mere links in a chain of generations, we may have no choice in having the events and traumas experienced by our ancestors visited upon us.” In a sense they are handed down just like other family legacies. Perhaps these ghosts of the past come to us humbly with hands held out asking for our help. There seems to me be an opportunity to heal some ancient wound, one which has come to us through our ancestors at this time to be placed, stirred and transmuted in the great cauldron of the Taurus Full Moon. What a rich, juicy, and powerful season we are in.
