As a month, May welcomes a time of jubilant celebrations, starting with a fiery cross-quarter sabbat, International Workers’ Day, and this year, a lunar eclipse in the transformative sign of Scorpio. In the northern hemisphere, May brings a much needed change. Wedding season begins in full force in May as temperatures warm and outside movements increase. While joy abounds, this time is truly one of transformation as we cannot reach as state of joy without exploring what lies beneath and within
One transformation is with our protection of the earth. Although Earth Day falls in the month of April, for many in far northern climes, the month of May marks the start of when gardens truly flourish. We provide safe habitats for pollinating insects with the practice of “No-Mow May” in many communities. For those on the Monarch flight path from Canada to Mexico, perhaps we planted high energy milkweed in the fall to provide rest stop nourishment for planted larvae that will emerge in the spring. We look at maps to know when and how to make our gardens safe rest stops for various bird and other species passing through. In short, May provides a necessary transformational breathing space for each of us as well as the fullest expression of spring.
Earth Day banner [Wikimedia Commons]
The saying “April showers bring May flowers” holds with the name for this month’s full moon, the “flower moon” as this is a time when we lots of blossoming plants. The transformation of plants and trees from a dormant winter state to a fully emergent state is a transformational point in time.
Eclipses in general are transformational points in time. Thankfully, they don’t happen every day or even every week as they speed up the energetic effect of either the new moon (solar eclipse) or the full moon (lunar eclipse). When I think about the everyday chaos in most of our lives, I am thankful that we normally have only four eclipses a year on average. Some years are a bit more turbulent, such as the year 2020 with six eclipses. If you recall the chaos in 2020 was all over the map with four lunar eclipses (January, June, July, and November) occurring in Cancer, Sagittarius, Capricorn and Gemini respectively. The remaining two solar eclipses in June and December occurred in Cancer and Sagittarius.
By the time society entered 2021, we were a bit frazzled. Less than a month after the December 2020 solar eclipse in Sagittarius, the events of January 6 at the United States Capitol as seen live by so many brought forth a question of the higher concept of democracy and whether the attack was the beginning of the end of the so-called “American experiment” or whether our country would stand strong.
More than two years later, our societal jury is still out deliberating on what those events meant at a the time and what they mean now.
Lunar Eclipse
During a latest lunar eclipse, when the Earth, Sun, and Moon are in exact alignment so the moon passes through the earth’s shadow, we go into the shadow. May’s lunar eclipse in Scorpio asks us face what we have not been willing to see before, going to a deep emotional depth which provides access to a deep internal transformation – a hallmark of Scorpio. Traditionally, new moons are great for beginnings; acknowledgement and endings work with full moons. Since lunar eclipses occur with a full moon, this lunar eclipse in Scorpio brings the opportunity to examine our goals, plans, while acknowledging the change that has occurred over a period of time.
In astrology, eclipses come in paired series with the opposite axis signs. The paired Taurus-Scorpio axis began with a lunar eclipse in Taurus in November 2021 and will complete its current run with one last lunar eclipse in Taurus in October 2023 just before Samhain. This is the axis of values, our own money or wealth, our own comforts (all Taurus) and the hidden things we just don’t want to talk about a lot, such as money, death, sex, and anything that personally gets under our skin (Scorpio). We keep things hidden as individuals for a reason.
As a species, we have endured and now are ending the life-changing COVID-19 pandemic that started under a previous Cancer-Capricorn series which began in July 2018 with a solar eclipse in Cancer and concluded with a June 20 solar eclipse at 00 degrees Cancer in 2020. Humans on Planet Earth experienced disruptions in how we viewed and what we did from home, including our work, our entertainment, our educational practices for our children, and our habitual patterns of engaging with other humans in our various societies.
As I consider the last 18 months, our planet has undergone a tremendous amount of turbulence of the life-death variety. What was hidden has come to the surface, for better or worse. Our values, our opinions, our prejudices, our fears, our true selves emerged from beneath the societally correct masks that we wear on a regular basis.
Splits came in the areas of work, how we addressed the COVID-19 pandemic on an individual basis including whether we even believed that it was real or not, and how we truly felt about others especially if they did not think or believe as we did.
Because this Taurus-Scorpio series addresses the hidden, prejudices long considered resolved reemerged at critical times, such as during the events at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. To this day, there are those who firmly believe that this was not a major event and those who see it as the beginning of the end of American democracy as a whole.
Before the time of COVID-19, working from home was a rarity for most and an occasional necessity for certain jobs, but it was not a mandatory or common occurrence for most workers. Since the World Health Organization declared the global emergency in January 2020, followed by a full global pandemic declaration on March 11, 2020, different countries and their inhabitants have responded with a variety of changes in how to conduct daily life patterns. Some countries required masking, vaccination, and entry restrictions for those seeking entry. Others remained fairly open with suggestions during the worst of the pandemic to use masks, to maintain social distance, and to get vaccinated.
During this time, entire family and friend groups splintered over disagreements regarding the obligation and responsibility to mask, to receive all possible COVID-19 vaccinations, and to test for COVID-19 when symptoms presented themselves. The wounds from the emergence of the pandemic provided a demand to examine ourselves in our core identity: what is home and what do we consider our basic requirements to ourselves and our family?
Our changing attitudes carried us through the next paired series, Gemini-Sagittarius, where our societal norms included our thoughts and patterns of communication regarding topics that mattered to us. Our higher levels of thinking, including use of and exploration of the legal system and an eventual freedom from the temporary heavy travel restrictions between certain countries on the planet reflect an opening that led us to the current paired series, Taurus-Scorpio.
What I find interesting is that the World Health Organization declared an end to the emergency on the same day as the lunar eclipse in Scorpio. During the last 18 months of the Taurus-Scorpio eclipses, we have ventured into the hidden and unseen areas that we have not wished to face as a species. The growing concern regarding climate change where the earth is clearly taking a stand on the treatment of the planet by human inhabitants has gained such an awareness that ideas once considered highly unlikely in the United States decades age are now palatable. For a country traumatized for decades by efforts to switch from large gas guzzling cars to smaller vehicles with higher miles per gallon ratings, a full embrace of electronic vehicles is limited only by two things: lack of affordability and lack of sufficient charging stations for long distance travel. After all, Americans live in a large country with a renowned love for road trips to explore it.
During the past three years, the United States has attempted to tackle deeper issues, such as societal stances on racism, transgender-specific existence and medical rights, LGBTQ+ discrimination, book banishment, and historical erasure of minority groups. I consider the choice to ban what can be placed in libraries and schools to be the first steps towards authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, which is the opposite of a Federal presidential constitutional republic, which technically is what the United States is supposed to be.
When the Taurus-Scorpio (water/earth) series culminates fully in October I wonder if we will have fully explored our many societal issues in this country enough to look through the shadow and begin our healing. The next cycle of the Aries-Libra cycle began in April 2023 and will not end until March 2025 with an emphasis on the individual self and beginnings (Aries) and the other, the group, harmony, and relationships (Libra). As a world and within our individual countries, we need a time of putting away the scalpel of Taurus and Scorpio and moving forward into a new era with Aries and Libra.
Maypole
In the end, we get one life. We have one planet. As humans, we have the privilege of living and being stewards to one of the greatest and best playgrounds that we see. We have the obligation to care for ourselves, our fellow species who share this planet with us and to do so with grace and consideration for all.
Life is filled with choices. As humans, executing our ability to regain consciousness each diurnal on this planet is a choice. While May is a traditional a month of jubilant celebrations, the best transformations are heralded by the eclipses that call us to consider our decisions wisely, not just as individuals, but as a part of a planetary species. This current series, even as it ends asks us to dig deep because we truly need love, joy, and understanding.
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