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 in Gemini-Sagittarius. We will be shown a deeper, more universal wisdom and grace to incorporate into our lives wherever we have Scorpio and Taurus in our charts. This one renews our lives!
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 a compassionate form helping us all to end suffering, the next two weeks (and 5 months) can help us remember the strength of character we’ve cultivated or are cultivating. This will 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 how to express our wisdom so we can see the “world of the 5 senses and the mind as the playground of God and Soul.”
This stabilizing, regenerative, and awakening Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Full Moon occurs at 10:34 am PDT, 6:34 pm BST on May 5, and falls at the 15th degree of Taurus and Scorpio. This one renews our strength and resolve to “brave the storm” to secure what we need so we can find a depth and breadth of connection with Self, others, and Source. This eclipse can open deeper relationship connections with others in our Soul groups, with rewards for our courage coming this Autumn and early 2024.
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. Enjoy the challenges to come, since you’ll become more powerful by seeing them as stepping stones to viewing Life with the eyes of Soul.
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 Wesak Festival Full Moon in Scorpio-Taurus will open a global wisdom and greater ways of substantiating our spiritual individuality. This one offers us humor, grace, and magic in our lives, and by what we release over the next few months, we prepare for an entry into a new life in the late Summer and Autumn. While many will find their “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” in May and June, remember that a primary theme of this year is the need for new ideas and new approaches to deal with the problems of living on Earth at this time.
So what can we expect from this Lunation? Given the power of this eclipse, we’re still releasing many things in our Taurus and Scorpio sectors, and finding a deeper connection with Source. We are at the beginning of a new life adventure, a new appreciation, a new enjoyment, and a new focus. The next two weeks (and 5 months) is a time to move toward what you believe has universal worth, and anything you have to release will help you anticipate the “call to renewal” we’re already hearing from distant sources, both without and within.
This Full Moon brings the Light of the Aries New Moon Hybrid Solar eclipse involving the need to find new fields of activity where you can “play on your duck pond with other ducks” in a focused field of effective activity. With Jupiter prominent in that eclipse, continue to cultivate your sense of humor and use spiritual force to counter worldly density. That New Moon eclipse was expansive and specializing, and this Full Moon takes it to the next level by our willingness to move into the unknown. There’s a new spontaneity in the air, a new way of allowing Spirit to work through us, and we’re seeing the future in the making.
As with all Full Moons, use the light you’ve been seeing and expressing since the New Moon, and give it form and focus to see how to anchor those themes in expression. The New Moon’s themes were about new forms emerging, finding the humor in situations, understanding permanent versus transitory things, and releasing the ghosts of the past. We have begun a new life cycle, and this allows us to enjoy the ride while remembering that the old answers cannot make the new conditions real.
This Full Moon shows Mercury retrograde leading the Sun, thus becoming “the entry to the great Light.” That implies that the roundabout signs and signals from Mercury, or memories of the past where we brought happiness in dark hours, is heralding the illumination to be found. This is a “back to the future” eclipse, as Jupiter will transit Mercury’s degree as well as the Solar degree three times between June 2023 and March 2024.
Is the Sun Following the Moon, or the Moon Following the Sun?
This Lunation is the first Full Moon where the Sun is in a different sign (Taurus) as it was in the Aries New Moon two weeks ago. We are now at the beginning of “the reverse order” of the Sun/Moon relationship cycle, as the Light of the New Moons is in a different sign than the Light of the Full Moon.
There are two patterns; one is when the Full Moon Sun is the same sign as the previous New Moon Sun, and the other is when the Full Moon Sun is in the next sign from the Sun in the previous New Moon. The Sun was in the same sign in both the New Moon and Full Moon, the so-called “natural” order, between April 2019 and August 2020. At the August 2020 Full Moon we entered the “reverse pattern” of the Sun of the Full Moon occupying the sign after the New Moon Sun, since the previous New Moon Sun was at 29 Cancer and that Full Moon Sun was at 12 Leo.
August 2021 brought us the New Moon Sun at 17 Leo and Full Moon Sun is at 30 Leo, beginning the natural order which continued through the New Moon of late February 2023 at 2 Pisces which was followed by the Full Moon at 17 Pisces. This shifted in April 2023 with a New Moon at 30 Aries which is followed by this Full Moon Sun at 15 Taurus. You can find out more about the “seed forms” of the New Moon two weeks ago by going to the archives.
Past As Prologue
The 2020-22 Eclipses moved us all in new directions, reorienting wherever we have Taurus, Cancer, Gemini, Scorpio, and Sagittarius in our charts. Remember that all Eclipses are “Cosmic recyclers,” taking away what is obsolete or de-magnetized in our lives. These losses clean out psychic and physical spaces so newer life substance can come forth. We’ve cleared out many old ideas, truths, habits, and perspectives the past 2 years, and now have a wider view regarding our life and the Life around us at the beginning of a new 20 year Aquarian era for humanity.
As you know from other articles, 2020 was the last year of a 200 year Earth era, with Air power building throughout the year which primed the pump for the 200 year Air era which began on the Solstice with Jupiter conjuncting Saturn at 1 Aquarius. However, we will still be “under the beams” of the powerful conjunctions in Capricorn, since between January and March 2020 we began new Saturn/Pluto, Jupiter/Pluto, Mars/Jupiter, Mars/Pluto, and Mars/Saturn cycles. The first of these launched a new 33 year era into motion.
Due to these conjunctions in late Capricorn and both Mars/Saturn and Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions at 1 Aquarius, we are in a long term period of finding wisdom by understanding transfiguration and enlightenment as verbs rather than nouns. We’ve now officially taken the first step into the coming Aquarian era. While this is not yet “The Age of Aquarius,” this is the final intensification of those energies which will sprout seeds in the second quarter of the century which will take us across the threshold of the Great Age soon after 2050.
Planetary Distribution
At this Wesak Festival Lunar eclipse Full Moon, the span occupied by the inner planets (in this chart Mercury at 9 Taurus through Venus at 28 Gemini) is 48+ degrees, a fairly wide span. This will be the primary area stimulated in our charts. At this time Mercury and the Sun are in the outer planet span, with Venus in Gemini and Mars in Cancer. This continues the series of Bucket Jones pattern Full Moons over the coming months.
Right now all the planets except the Moon occupy early Aquarius through late Cancer. As the inner planets are in or extending the outer planet span, all the planets except the Moon are in this span. This month the Moon adds a Scorpio focus.
Because the occupied span runs 171+ degrees and the Moon is by itself in Scorpio, we now have a “Bucket” Jones pattern. In this chart we have 2 oppositions made by the Moon to Sun and Uranus. In this “tensional awareness field,” the Moon is very strong, while all the other planets defer to their ruler Venus, which is in a mutual reception with Mercury, making the mutual reception the ruler of all the other planets except Neptune.
At this time we have the 10 traditional planets occupying 7 signs. Currently, the outer planet occupied span begins with Pluto in early Aquarius, then moves through Saturn in in early Pisces, Neptune in late Pisces, Jupiter in late Aries and finishes with Uranus in mid-Taurus. Since last August, Mars has extended the span into Gemini and now Cancer.
So What is a “Bucket” Jones Pattern and how does it work?
This is a Bucket Jones pattern, since the Moon is far enough away from the nearest planet to become a nozzle for the focus of all the other planetary energies. Since the “handle” of the Bucket involves the sign Scorpio, that energy helps us focus the energies of all the other planets.
A “Bucket Pattern” is a planetary spread with all the planets in about half the signs with one outside that span wide enough to be a handle. The energies of the occupied half are focused through the “handle,” or “nozzle,” in this case the Moon, termed the “focal determinator.” The handle, or focal determinator, represents the way to greater effectiveness, the cause to be embraced, the lack to be filled, or the way to use the total energies of this time in a focused manner. The Moon is how we're going to "get a handle on things," or focus the potential of the rest of the planets. Be clear about what you do and do not want to attract, and eliminate all you do not need any more to be released from pressures you don’t need to bear.
Dr. Jones states “the Bucket type indicates a particular and rather uncompromising direction in the life effort.” This pattern gives “interest in a cause,” with executive tendencies that will adapt allegiances to maximize results of the effort. He says “the Bucket type at its best reveals the real instructor and inspirer of others, and at its worst the agitator and malcontent.” This is the larger planetary pattern within which we’re all trying to do what we do.
We are also told this pattern is more about finding an effective release for energy within social settings, but also about the individual imposing their patterns on society rather than adapting to what is there. It’s about focused intention. So all of us can expect some sort of focused attention on the house where we have 15 Scorpio.
Pluto at 1 Aquarius, where it will lead the occupied span for months to come. It is on the degree of the Grand Mutation, bringing all those social and cultural emerging energies to the forefront. This entry to the occupied part of the Bucket tells us to think about the seeds of things, as well as hidden potentials. With Mars at 22 Cancer as the closing planet to the span, we’ll close experience with “a longing to live life as a great adventure,” and should at some point in the next 5 months see “the compelling power of all sustained desire and of the dreaming of dreams.” Be caring and sharing. This leads with actional and material contribution and closes with emotional and social actions which consolidate and stabilize our lives.
Is the Grand Irrationality A Factor in this Full Moon?
Because this section is so long, I decided to create an article which explains what it is, how long it’s been in effect, and which zones of the zodiac have been most impacted and when. You can find all you need to know about this configuration associated with widespread irrationality and hard-edged “forks in the road of destiny” we’ve all confronted at various times by going to The Grand Irrationality. As we’re at the very end of the long wave configuration, I’ll update the main article to sum up all that has happened to our world these past 29 years.
Any transit making multiple 7th harmonic aspects put this “7-pointed Star of Destiny” evolutionary configuration into play, bringing choices and changes affecting our future. The generic configuration is why things seem so crazy and hard-edged at this time in history, and why humanity seems to have been at an unending “fork in the road of destiny.” In this chart Uranus is in the heart of its last septile to Neptune, but there is no other planet in a septile series aspect to either of these spiritual heavyweights.
Obviously, this evolutionary configuration is activated throughout the year when a planet moves through any of the hot zones of the configuration. This configuration will next be triggered when the Sun and Mercury transits conjunct Uranus and septile Neptune. I’ll speak more about the aspects in part 3 when I cover the special configurations.
Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend
We now have begun the long voyage of Saturn’s transit of Pisces. While in Aquarius it taught us shortcuts to illumination and instructed us in the wise use of spiritual energies for many months, as well as the spiritual power of gratitude and appreciation. This is a hello to the lessons of compassion and forgiveness shown by Pisces.
In this chart, the Sun conjuncts Uranus and both are quintile to Saturn, promising some amazing gifts and blessings to those who embrace a new dedication. With Mercury sextile Saturn for most of the coming month, there’s a productive linkage between the calm steady mental processes of Taurus with the mystical ambivalent and intuitive Pisces energies in play. We can now achieve growth and stability in our early Water and Earth sign sectors.
Saturn, ruler of our Capricorn and Aquarius sectors and any natal or progressed planets we have in those signs, is now on the threshold of its retrograde station in Pisces, promising a call to renewal in June. Though Saturn can feel heavy and bring heavy life lessons, it also in the part of us which can take charge of our lives and destiny by using Saturn’s virtues in the right way and time. Our ability to steer our “ship of personality” into its rightful “role of destiny” has brought us to the threshold of new parts to play on the stage of Life.
We’re now entering a productive period of Jupiter making favorable aspects to Saturn over the next few months. The friction between Saturn and Uranus in 2021-2022 showed us what mattered to us and what didn’t, with our transformation into the roles we’re to play determined by how we’ve trained. Uranus awakened us to new roles to play, while Saturn brought new mutations and an accelerated evolution which are part of us learning to use spiritual power effectively through deliberation rather than instinct.
I explain how Saturn and Uranus work together to awaken us to our Higher Powers to take command of our destiny in my book Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend. Saturn helps us give form and structure to our quest for Self-realization; in Capricorn, it teaches us how to accept and use personal power within a socially responsible context, while in Aquarius it teaches us how to make a greater contribution to our civilization and come together with others in a great effort “ensouled by a great vision.” Coupled with Uranus having awakened us to the fact that the old answers aren’t enough along with the need to accept spiritual power to shape our world, we are collectively “breaking on through to the other side” into an unfolding Higher awareness.
The book was written for both astrologers and non-astrologers. Even those with little or no understanding of astrology will benefit from understanding why you had to make certain choices at crucial times that shaped your life in profound ways.
Each time you read any section of this book you will find new insights about your power to throw off all the attitudes and memories which hold you back from finding and living the life and purpose. If you’ve haven’t already gotten your copy, you can go to the Saturn: Spiritual Master, Spiritual Friend page on Amazon and this should be all you need to order your copy. It’s also available on Amazon and as an ebook on Kindle, so if that’s more to your liking, go for it! If you would, whether you’ve gotten the ebook or the paperback, please write a review on the Amazon site, since the more reviews, the more of a boost they give it.
On A Final Note
See you in the near future with parts two and three on this Full Moon Penumbral eclipse which will offer us opportunities for renewal, retirement, new spontaneity and the promise of a greater life. Grace is in the air for those who will accept it. This is a dynamic “Compassionate Wisdom” Full Moon which activates growth in our Taurus and Scorpio life areas. This can help us claim our genius in grounded ways, with interactive gifts and blessings coming as we release the past.
Venus is a key player due to being the ruler of the Sun, Mercury, and Uranus and in a mutual reception ruling all the other planets except the Moon and Mars (also in a mutual reception) and Neptune, always a “standalone” ruling itself as it dominates the collective consciousness. In this eclipse, Venus shows us where we will be “liberated from pressures we no longer need to bear,” and is in an extraordinarily productive sextile with Jupiter, it promises healthy interpersonal connections in the future as we let go of those which no longer have value to us. Again, when you find the old answers aren’t working, refocus your potential in new actions which detach you from the traps of perception.
Venus was the first inner planet to conjunct Saturn this year. That began a new cycle of forward-looking relationships for us all. Saturn was in the emotional/social level of management, bringing that quality to Venus’ 2023 Aquarian lessons. She recently conjuncted Jupiter on a degree of the stirring up of a new perspective, and now prepares to enter Cancer, bringing more tenderness and concern to our relationships.
If you want to know more about your Venusian power to shape your relationships into enjoyable interactions and friendships, please consider getting a copy of my newest book The Magic of Venus: Friendships, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames. It is the most comprehensive book on Venus ever written, and explains why we attract who we do and how to create more satisfying relationships in the future. You will understand the foundations of long term healthy relationships and friendships, why Soul Mates come into our lives, and how to dance with your inner Beloved and mirror that to your world.
Since 2019, we’ve all seen greater truths and taken on new roles and responsibilities which led us to new social effectiveness in 2021-22. Where we have late Capricorn and early Aquarius in our chart is the focus of coming years. The compressions in Capricorn led us to forms of personal power and very long wave cycles showing our work for a long time to come. The March 2022 Aquarius compression created cycles of learning how to manage our responsibility to become better educated to fulfill a greater role in the long wave Aquarian energy.
We’ve entered a new chapter in our spiritual journey at a fork in the road of our collective destiny. 2020 was about forging our connection with the World Soul, our Wisdom, and our greater dedication. 2021 began the new era in our lives. We’re all wiser than we used to be, have been given ample opportunities to value our heart connections with our friends, and display the vaster spiritual awareness we share with our Brothers and Sisters.
2022 brought us training and skill, divine mutations, endings and beginnings. 2023 began with one last look back before the rapid acceleration now happening. We’re on the edge of radical change these next few weeks, so see the big picture and move into your future!
I’ll see you soon when we’ll discuss Sabian Symbols, evolutionary configurations, and other important chart factors.
This article explains past, present, and future compressions, where they fall, and who they affect. The Great Compressions of early 2020, 2021, and 2022
This one explains the January 2020 compression and the multiple conjunctions setting themes for decades! The Great Compression of January 2020 – Mercury, Sun, Saturn and Pluto all Conjunct in Capricorn
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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