The May 2006 Full Moon Wesak Festival of Taurus-Scorpio

by Robert Wilkinson

Every year, the Wesak Festival is celebrated at the Full Moon of Taurus-Scorpio in May. This global festival celebrates the birth, enlightenment, and teachings of the Buddha, said to be the most enlightened human ever to walk this planet. He taught the doctrine of compassion and the ways to end suffering around 500 BC, and his teachings have spread through the entire world since then. This is the largest spiritual celebration in the world, and has nothing to do with religion, since the Buddha was focused on how to live, not what to believe. This "Happy Buddha Birthday" is coming this Friday and Saturday, with the energies building this whole week.

It is said that the Wesak Festival, the Full Moon of May, is when the Buddha “opens the treasure chest” and sends out a new global energy of compassion to end suffering every year. Supposedly when He left the Earth plane, his blessing for all time was a thought-form of “Buddha Nature,” which would renew the loving-compassion on the Earth whenever it was sent forth. This is the time when it renews itself for another year.

He taught the 4 Noble Truths about life on Earth, and the 8 Fold Path as a way to live to end suffering for ourselves and others. Though there are many ways his teachings have been stated, anyone who actually practices the techniques will in fact find they are lessening suffering in their lives, and finding peace in a higher way of doing their Being. And to quote HH Dalai Lama, “There is one thing we can all agree on. More suffering is bad. Less suffering is good.” This is the time of the renewal of energies that can lead all of us to less suffering in our life, and maybe be of service in lessening the suffering of others we know.

This Full Moon occurs on Friday, May 12, 2006, at 11:51 pm PDT (May 13 east of here) at 23 degrees of Taurus-Scorpio, promising blessings of real worth that confirm who we are and what we value. We find from the Sabian Symbols that the light of this “certification of worth” will lead to a transformation of the lower into the higher in a metamorphosis of a “placid rabbit” into “a dancing elf.” The Moon conjunct Jupiter promises us all a liberation or regeneration of some sort, a blessing, protection, and/or grand adventure, depending on what we need to let go of in the right way and time.

There are configurations that re-emphasize The Grand Irrationality, showing more “forks in the road of destiny” for all of us. The lunation configures in a quintile-tredecile with Saturn, offering unique gifts and specializations for those who have done their heart homework. (More on the quintile and septile series aspects at this link.) Admire the differences in values, seeing the worth in all the changing forms, and expect some conflict from increasing the pressure leading to an emergence of entirely new ways and understandings from cosmos, unrelated to any local condition or belief system.

This lunation occurs within the on-going See-Saw Jones’ pattern, but features a unique thing. There are actually two different lines of division, both occurring on the axis of the Fixed signs. One shows planets in Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Cancer and Leo opposed to Moon conjunct Jupiter in Scorpio and Pluto in Sagittarius. The other shows planets in Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and Taurus opposed to Mars in Cancer and Saturn in Leo.

This will require us to stay centered and balanced in our perspective as we move from dealing with the one set of seesawing energies to the other set of seesawing energies. The Moon conjunct Jupiter promises major successes as “our experiment nears completion,” so display inventiveness, perseverance, and caution in understanding seemingly unrelated things and facts.

Follow your feelings into new information, new vision, and new interactions, and follow these with acts or decisions that move everything forward one step at a time. Let the action follow the vision, idea or communication, and allow the feelings and sense of experience to follow the action.

Monitor your expectancies, be flexible, and show courage as you move into the unknown results of your on-going “experiments in living.” We can all find tremendous peace by allowing the “marriage of heaven and earth” in our lives, and there will be a presentation of higher, spiritual events and ideas and the departure of the lower energies of our life, however they look. It will yield a time of waiting, where we must persevere in strength and not yield to impatience or trying to push the river.

As the I Ching says, “fortify the body with food and drink and the mind with gladness and good cheer.” Get ready to act when the time is right, face the unvarnished truth that the lower is leaving and the higher is presenting itself, and expect the best to show up in the right way and time yet to come.

Comments

[luz]

Hi Robert,

This is amazing information! Without knowing any of this, I just spent the past two days reading about the Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Tibetan Buddhism!

I had heard of the Wesak Festival but did not really understand what it signifies. And, this year, the Wesak Full Moon in Taurus & Scorpio falls on my 54th birthday, May 12! How incredible is this?

Thanks, Robert - you just made my week - another affirmation that I am in the right place at the right time.

In a good way,
Luz

[Robert]

Hi Luz - What a great blessing that the Wesak falls on your birthday! It should be an amazing year for you. You may also want to find a copy of "Ponder On This" by Alice A. Bailey for a different angle on Tibetan Buddhism and some diverse profound information. Glad I could make your week.

[Diane Scholten]

Nice article, Robert. I have an acquaintance who has sought me out to basically share an incredible spiritual breakthrough with - one of those "Black Butterfly"/spiritual emergency (Emerge - ency) situations that, were she to tell the wrong people, would have her locked up. I sent her this article, highlighting several of your points as validation that she's in the right place at the right time. "this is the time, we are the people" - we just have to awaken (which is what the Buddha was about - must've had some big Uranus energy, with Neptune, that guy...)

[Robert]

"... and we look to the future, and there's not much love to go around, don't you know this is a land of confusion..." Phil Collins is one of my favorite Aquarians. Glad this article can help your friend remember that voids can be filled, if we show up and are open to the mystery. Buddha was definitely a Uranian, since he revolutionized his world for all time. What's not to like?

[luz]

Yes, Yes, Alice A. Bailey....The Great Invocation is on my fridge. I shared it with my family during the New Year and we prayed it together...and I just ordered Ponder On This. Thank you.

[abacus]

:-) i have been thinking of the buddha for days now and yes he is definitely around in some way or the other !

[Robert]

Yes, it's a new outpouring for the next year. Good stuff.

[Melissa]

Hello, my whole life I have been told that I was born under the Wesak Moon and that it was very special. I am expecting my first child this December, so it got me interested in the meaning of my own birth date. I was born May 8th, 1982. I was due on the 10th, but my mother went into labor on the 7th and when the full moon crested I was born. I am very happy to find out that I was born under such a powerful and wonderful sign. Thank you for all of the great information you have on this site :)

Melissa

[Robert]

Hi Melissa - You ARE special, if for no other reason than you're a human being with the potential for becoming enlightened and finding ways to decrease suffering in your world however you are most effective. I'm sure you could learn much from the life of the Buddha. I suggest you start with the movie "Little Buddha," move on to "Siddhartha," and then perhaps "Kundun," the movie of the life of the Dalai Lama. Also read the Dhammapada, though beware of being hustled to join something to know how you should interpret it. The Buddha left no writings, so all we have are what was handed down by those who originally copied his teachings, which obviously were not many given the illiteracy of his times. Also take a look at my articles about ending the sources of suffering in the archives. You can find them by site googling "sources of suffering" or "end suffering."

[Freewheelin']

..."Follow your feelings into new information, new vision, and new interactions, and follow these with acts or decisions that move everything forward one step at a time..."

..."there will be a presentation of higher, spiritual events and ideas and the departure of the lower energies of our life, however they look. It will yield a time of waiting, where we must persevere in strength and not yield to impatience or trying to push the river...."

Hello All,

...just wanted to share that the above has been so true for me during the last 2007 Wesak Full Moon, when I undertook a journey (consciously - in the literal sense and subconsciously - a metaphoric one) in an attempt to resolve a personal crisis that seemed to have come up from nowhere. I watched the Full Moon from my airplane window and had a strange inkling that something in my life was going to change and surely IT DID! The person I met and had an interaction with that night commented at one point "you are looking like a Little Buddha right now!"

It has put me on the path of 'a higher way of doing my Being'.

With heartfelt Gratitude,

In Peace,

~ Freewheelin'

[Robert]

Hi Freewheelin' - The Wesak each year offers hope for suffering humanity, since it takes the life force opened at the Full Moon of Spring (Aries/Libra) and gives it substance and focus. We are now at the Full Moon mirroring the Wesak, where form becomes light and the light becomes form in a perfect eternal dance of the axis of the Guardian.