by Robert Wilkinson
The Full Moon of Sun in Taurus and Moon in Scorpio is the Wesak Festival, where the “Eternal Buddha Wisdom” pours out a new form of compassionate wisdom for the world which will be spread across all nations at the next Full Moon. We will be shown a deeper, more universal wisdom to incorporate into our lives wherever we have Scorpio and Taurus in our charts. This one takes us into the unknown!
The Full Moon of Sun in Taurus and Moon in Scorpio is the second of the “Three High Moons” of the Northern Hemispheric Spring. As with all Full Moons, use the light you’ve been seeing and expressing since the New Moon, and give it form and focus through anchoring those themes in expression. This is the Light of substance and the ability to respond to substance appropriately, expressed through either elimination, attraction, or both. Because the Moon is in Scorpio, the Wesak Wisdom always involves some form of renunciation or letting go, creating space for new wisdom-forms to be substantiated.
Since the Wesak represents “Buddha Wisdom” of some compassionate form that helps us all to end suffering, it would seem the next two weeks can help us capture simple truths that can be expressed through what we let go of, what we choose to regenerate, and how we choose to fill recent voids. This one will show us something about our worth and/or what we value, and what we need to turn away from in order to reclaim something of our social existence.
This stabilizing, regenerative, and awakening Full Moon occurs at 5:58 pm PDT April 29, 1:58 am BST April 30, falls at the 10th degree of Taurus and Scorpio. Continuing the theme that proceeds at each Full Moon as they move through each polarity, this one gives us the ability to find stabilize a new life order, giving it form in a new magnetism appropriate to our evolved state.
Today’s Full Moon post will be an overview of the Lunation and some of its primary qualities. In parts 2 and 3 we’ll cover the Sabian Symbols, aspects, distributions, and patterns.
An Overview
This Full Moon in Scorpio-Taurus will show us a new dedication, where we can see ourselves playing a larger role on behalf of others. As Mercury is still in its shadow zone, moving across 13 Aries for a third times, we can now take our reflections and different views we came to during the recent Mercury retrograde and move forward with confidence, embracing our “new identity” and continuing to practice how to “defuse” various metaphoric “bombs” we’ve seen in the past.
We’ve now gone back and can move forward, with an interesting continuity indicated by Mercury’s degree in this chart. Mercury in this chart is 13 Aries, the exact same degree it was at in the last Full Moon while retrograde! That indicates the themes associated with Mercury on that degree we’ve been getting via the retrograde function these past few weeks now will be seen in the light of Mercurial understanding moving forward in the world.
As Uranus is still semisquare Neptune, anchoring the off-again, on-again friction Rhombus Diamond configuration, we’ll have to continue to deal with this “cutting, grinding, and polishing” quality each time the Moon moves through the middle of the mutable signs and the end of the cardinal and beginning of the fixed signs. The complete Diamond happened several times last year when planets transited mid-Virgo and late Libra at the same time, and will happen again this September when all four points will be occupied by 4 planets making two oppositions, two semisquares, and two sesquisquares to other planets in the diamond.
Get used to this agitation in the general atmosphere, since we have planets conjunct Uranus while semisquaring Neptune in April and May, culminating in mid-May when Mars enters Aquarius and semisquares Neptune and squares Uranus. This will generate major friction!. The difference is that the semisquares are internal friction, whereas sesquisquares are external friction.
We are now in phase two of Jupiter septile Saturn, marking a second point of decisions about which Jupiter and Saturn energies will be carried into the twilight of their long wave cycle. We had the first septile in late October 2017 with Jupiter at 3 Scorpio and Saturn at 24, both very important points. That "fork in the road of destiny" involved a more expansive connection with life. This second septile features Jupiter in the Scene of Faith on the actional level, so consider this a time of choosing how you want to express your Faith, whether in yourself, a circumstance, or Life in general.
This is the second in the sequence during a period in time when the Jupiter-Saturn cycle which began with their May 2000 conjunction at 23 Taurus is beginning to disintegrate. Consider this the next big turning point of choice and change for humanity, with the third and final “fork in the road of destiny” to come at their last septile exactly when Jupiter goes stationary direct at 14 Scorpio and Saturn’s at 5 Capricorn.
Still, the seeds of what will commence at the Great Mutation of 2020 are beginning to take shape. 2020 features Saturn conjunct Pluto at 23 Capricorn, followed by Jupiter’s two conjunctions with Pluto at 25 Capricorn that Spring and Summer, culminating in the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 1 Aquarius in December. I’ll write more about that very important period in coming months.
We’ve now moved into a time period of shifting Jones pattern. The patterns change mainly due to the position of the Moon, and at this Full Moon, we’re back in an imperfect “Bowl” pattern, with the Moon leading the occupied span. I’ll explain more later in this article.
With Saturn in Capricorn and Mars in Capricorn, we continue a stable pattern of dispositors. I’ll discuss the ruling dispositors in another article. The bigger shift is that at this time, Uranus leads the Sun, showing that awakening to our individual “field of effectiveness” and seeing who to play with there is the way to the Light. This indicates a transformational Lunation, where we move into unknown zones of awakening.
Is the Grand Irrationality A Factor in this Full Moon?
The Grand Irrationality, along with the other outer planet non-rational configurations that happen off and on throughout the year, indicate that we’ve been living in an era of very heavy decisions determining the future destiny of humanity since 1993. To refresh you, the Grand Irrationality is a long wave configuration set into motion every time a planet makes a conjunction, septile, biseptile, or triseptile to Neptune and Pluto. Septile series aspects show us points in time when our future destiny is precipitated by critical choices made in the present.
In this Full Moon, it’s again front and center, due to Mars exactly septile Neptune and just off its partile separating conjunction with Pluto. This shows two weeks of another “fork in the road of destiny” for people and nations, based in where this falls in the chart. This will set things into motion that will explode when Pluto crosses this degree beginning February 2019.
This is the next action beat in the cycle, which at this time of the year is very strong since Neptune and Pluto are still only 54+ degrees apart. Many decisions and developments these next two weeks may not make much sense, but it’s the last time Mars triggers this configuration until it septiles Pluto in early December 2018.
At this time, the current seven “hot zone” spans that trigger the Grand Irrationality are approximately 16-20 Leo, 7-11 Libra, 28 Scorpio-2 Sag, 21-25 Capricorn, 13-17 Pisces, 4-8 Taurus, and 25-29 Gemini.
We’re now slowly moving out of the configuration, and we’ve already hit a point in time when Neptune and Pluto are beginning to form a long term sextile, as they were for most of the last half of the 20th century. At this time, the Grand Irrationality gains strength as we move through Autumn and into Winter, and will again lessen in strength in the late Winter into the Spring and Summer. (Right now they’re 54d 33m apart, and by the Solstice will be 56 degrees apart, closer to a sextile than a septile.)
As I’ve explained in other articles, that means that in the Autumn and Winter (in the Northern Hemisphere) they operate as a simultaneous “pulse,” since they’re both aspected near the same time. But in the Spring and Summer we experience it as a rolling influence, with first Pluto aspected, and then Neptune at some time after that, depending on which planet is doing the aspect to these planets.
Because this configuration involves Neptune and Pluto, the outermost spiritual planets, they show a long wave evolutionary crisis for the entire human race. Since 1993, at one point or another, everyone on Earth has experienced a nonstop energy of having to choose, at the bottom of our beings, the path to evolution or devolution, progress or regress, love or fear, joy or control. It’s why things have been so weird, irrational, and hard-edged.
Planetary Distribution
In this Full Moon, the span occupied by the inner planets (in this chart Mercury at 13 Aries through the Sun at 10 Taurus spans 26+ degrees. This span will be most active in our charts. Add Neptune on the front end and Venus on the back end, and the span involves 5 planets within 80+ degrees, so the areas between mid- Pisces and early Gemini will be very active these next two weeks. We hit maximum compression in March, with all planets between Jupiter at 24 Scorpio and Uranus at 27 Aries, making a very powerful triseptile between the bookends which I’ll discuss in the section on aspects.
At this time we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 6 signs, in an uneven widespread distribution. Because of the sign occupancy, it deviates from the ideal “Bowl” pattern, which usually involves all the signs within approximately 170-190 degrees. In this chart the occupied span is about 207 degrees, not quite the hemispheric ideal, but a Bowl nonetheless. Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Jupiter in Scorpio, then moves through Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, and Uranus in Aries, with the inner planets now occupying Capricorn, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini with the Moon outside it all at 10 Scorpio.
The Bowl Pattern and how it works
This type of spread, with all the planets occupying approximately half of the signs with an empty half opposite the occupies half, creates a “special type of conscious selfhood,” which Dr. Jones says “marks the Bowl type of temperament. He goes on to state “Fundamentally it is an extreme self-containment,” which “holds things, and a Bowl individual is one who always has something to bear.”
He goes on to state that with the Bowl, “the whole dynamic of man, his total power of achievement, arises in his instinctive realization that he is set off against a definite part of the world, that there is a complete segment of experience from which he is excluded in some subtle fashion. The Bowl not only holds something, but also places whatever it holds into relationship with a larger consideration.”
Dr. Jones continues that “the occupied segment of the Bowl horoscope reveals the activity and organization of the self, since planets are significant according to their place by sign and house, and the unoccupied segment becomes a challenge to existence, or the need and emptiness to which the native must direct his attention. The outstanding characteristic of the Bowl temperament is its marked sense of what is self-contained in contrast with what the self cannot hold, and this take an everyday form in an advocacy of some cause, the furtherance of a mission, an introspective concern over the purpose of experience.”
He concludes his explanation of how the pattern works with “The Bowl native always has something to give to his fellows, whether literally or psychologically, whether constructively or vindictively, because his orientation to the world arises from division; that is, frustration and uncertainty. The leading planets, determined in exactly the same way as for the Locomotive pattern, give a point of application, and shows where and how the native seeks to carry out his mission or gain his everyday justification for existence.”
He brings up another important point of analysis, as he states “the leading planet is of secondary importance in the Bowl pattern, unless it is found in a strong opposition or cosmic cross. The fundamental attack on the problems of life by the Bowl individual is indicated more significantly by the tilt or house-position of the Bowl-segment.”
He concludes this section by stating “the Bowl character is definitely more self-expending, or self-seeking, and more practically interested in what things mean and what they are. It continually throws the emphasis from the signs into the houses. It a general way the Bowl tends to ‘scoop up’ things and initiate experience when the position of the leading planet ranges from the fourth cusp, up and over the ascendant, to the Midheaven cusp, and then inclines to “capture” things or consummate various phases of life when the leading planet is placed similarly from the tenth angle down over the descendant to the nadir.”
With The Moon conjunct Jupiter in Scorpio leading this Bowl pattern, it shows us to need to take a focused yet expansive view of how to concentrate, eliminate all that is unnecessary or obstructive, shed skins we no longer need, and be aware of the magnetism around what we want and why we want it. If you’re unhappy or discontent, ask yourself why, and if you really need to go there. Learn to detach, and flow with what attracts you and what you see could lead to a form of liberation or opportunity.
This indicates our approach to all experience involves “reunions” with those with whom we have shared or can share experiences, serving the need to bring forth some form of “group identity.” Figure out who you belong with and go hand out with them! The Moon takes us into deeper relationships, deeper feelings, and a deeper discontent with all that is stagnant in our lives, and Jupiter is showing us we must “part the veil” and move into the unknown if we want to get beyond egocentricity and fear. As the Moon is in the Scene of Communion, and Jupiter is in the Scene of Faith, it seems that we will lead off all experience with a deeper feeling connection with people, things, and Self, with our Faith having and being expanded as a constant of Jupiter transiting the second half of Scorpio.
As Jupiter will again lead the pattern within a day after this Lunation, continue to be open to a greater adventure, be precise in your thinking and thought forms, and you can see them made manifest this year through sheer force of attraction. Allow your imagination to lead you to a greater sense of connection with others and life itself, and accept any and all challenges to eliminate the obsolete detritus of your past. Let your Faith be deepened and expanded by action, and expand into a more potent life focus riding the magnetic waves of the Wesak Wisdom.
Is the Sun Following the Moon, or the Moon Following the Sun?
The late July 2017 New Moon in Leo was the final Lunation since June 2016 where the Full Moon Sun fell in the same sign as the Sun of the previous New Moon. That pattern happened between June 2016 and August 2017 and before then, between September 2013 and September 2014.
This is ninth Full Moon since the period between October 2014 and May 2016 where we again are in a “reversed pattern” of the Sun of the Full Moon occupying the sign after the New Moon Sun. So we’re now in “the other” New Moon/Full Moon sign expression.
We finished the period of the “natural” order of Lunation Suns at the August 2017 Solar Eclipse in late Leo and began the new sequence, since that New Moon Sun was in Leo, but the subsequent Full Moon Sun was in Virgo. Since the New Moon offers us seeds in the first half of the month’s lunar cycle, and fulfillment in the second half, we now are in a sequence with the “Seed Light” of Aries coming to a Full Moon illumination through the current Sun in Taurus and Moon in Scorpio.
Because the New Moon preceding the Full Moon always represents the seed forms that are brought to surface at and after the Full Moon, this begins the fulfillment of the theme of the recent New Moon at 27 Aries. You can learn more about that New Moon in Aries by going to The New Moon at 27 Aries Pt. 1 – What’s Happening in April-May 2018, and The April 2018 New Moon at 27 Aries Pt. 2 – Signs, Sabian Symbols, and What it All Means.
Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend
Because Saturn is now in its home sign of Capricorn for the first time since 1991, it is the final dispositor of all planets transiting Capricorn and Aquarius from now through 2023. It was the ruler of the last two eclipses, making it an important factor for the next few years, and it will continue to play a different and powerful part in world affairs between March and November 2018 because Mars will be transiting those signs during that time. That makes Saturn a major force to be reckoned with in 2018!
Add the fact that it’s doing a very interesting dance with Uranus all of 2018, and once they come back into trine between May and October involving Capricorn and Taurus, it will be the next chapter in us learning how to blend past and future together and craft your future destiny. After the 2017 Fire trines between these planets stabilizing Electric Fire and distributive “Fire by Friction,” this will provide practical grounding to our efforts.
This will help us organize and simplify our Saturn-Uranus “dance of individualization” in our charts. You can learn more about cooperating with Saturn and Uranus to create your future destiny by taking a look at the material in my book “Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend.” Saturn helps us give form and structure to our quest for Self-realization, and in Capricorn, will help bring an “organized personal structure” to the Uranian energies infused with concentrated doses of spiritual energy that is making our spiritual life come alive.
Our inner Saturn gives us the power to take command of our lives and destiny. Saturn shows us how to become spiritual adults and fulfill our purpose for being alive on Earth. By knowing our Saturnian strengths, we can overcome fear and any sense of victimization or powerlessness.
It was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers, and gives the reader the power to understand why some things happened when they did. Throughout the book, it offers ways for us to “make friends” with this part of our existence and take command of our destiny. As you read each chapter, you’ll become more aware of all the factors assisting Soul growth through understanding how our Saturn lessons relate to Dharma (our Highest Spiritual Function) and various types of karma, both those we cause and those which are "Sacred Wounds" leading us to a greater compassion and understanding.
The second part of the book examines how Saturn cycles mark major points of choice and change throughout life, and what we can expect when Saturn makes conjunctions, squares, and oppositions to our planets and Ascendant. There are tables assisting the reader to know when Saturn was in each sign, so even those with little or no understanding of astrology can track the timing on their major life changes. There is an entire chapter dedicated to the Saturn Return, perhaps the most important times in life when our decisions profoundly shape our future.
Part two closes with a chapter on one of the most crucial factors in our personal unfoldment: how the progressed Moon and transiting Saturn cycles track each other throughout life and relate to our emotional growth, and a chapter on a global phenomenon happening since 2003 impacting everyone on Earth. The Epilogue offers a few insights about living “the spiritual life,” and opens dimensions of higher and broader possibilities of personal evolution, regardless of which path to Truth we may be on.
This is a book you will reference many times for many reasons, and each time you pick it up you’re sure to find undiscovered gems of insight on each page. This book can help you throw off all the attitudes and memories which have held you back from finding and living the life and purpose you’ve been searching for since you were young. Welcome to the journey of self-discovery, and finding your power to live your life on your own terms, fulfilling your reason for being alive as an Eternal having human experiences!
Please order your copy today! You can go to the Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend page and order your copy of either the paperback or the ebook. It's also available as an ebook on B&N's Nook. I’ve been told that people who live overseas can get their copy much faster by going through Amazon. And if you would, please write a review on the Amazon site, since the more reviews, the bigger the boost on their site.
On A Final Note
See you in the near future with parts two and three on this “Buddha Wisdom” Full Moon where we begin another year’s adventure in learning and demonstrating detachment, dispassion, discrimination, compassion, and our ability to generate positivity and “good will” in our world. This beckons us to a greater dedication and greater consecration to humanity at large, leaving behind old personal considerations that no longer fit in our lives.
This Full Moon will stabilize many things in our lives, while giving us rewards for our courage as we’ve moved through the fires of life these last few weeks. This will be an exceptionally great Full Moon and global Wisdom teaching, mainly due to the many very favorable aspects in play! We have a septile-driven configuration involving Moon, Mercury, and Venus, we have a quintile-driven configuration driven by Mars, a Moon conjunct Jupiter, and a whole lot more I’ll explore in a future article. Be joyous, see the humor and don’t sweat the occasional annoying grind, since it all works to our benefit!
I’ll see you soon when we’ll discuss Sabian Symbols, aspects, and other important chart factors.
© Copyright 2018 Robert Wilkinson
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