On the last weekend of October, the grand Eclipse in Taurus will capture the final breath of the Taurus-Aries Nodal Cycle that began in January 2022.
To say the 2023 Autumn Eclipse Season has been intense is a massive understatement. The space between the Libra New Moon / Solar Eclipse and the upcoming Taurus Moon / Lunar Eclipse has been horrific for the global community, not to mention maddening as media conglomerates glorify genocide and abuse of power (which comes at no surprise). Though never rare to be blasted by either personal tragedy and/or intense political aggression, Eclipses are momentary alignments of an axis, tension and emotion boiling over as mammoth bodies of cosmic matter cross paths.
Today we enter Scorpio Season, the Sun Sign simmering in the Scorpion’s underworld of sacred sexuality and brutal honesty, always a delicate discerning for Love and Truth.
The fantasy of the flora-flushed Taurus attempting to integrate with the ultimate sorceress shadow self of the Zodiac has been on theme for the last 18 months, extending far beyond a singular eclipse event. Not for the weak of heart, the Taurus-Scorpio Node Cycle emphasized “the deep-rooted duality of Life and Death” itself. Although the Nodes transitioned to Aries-Libra in July, on October 28-29 we will be immersed in the long-persisting lessons of Taurus-Scorpio’s Material vs Spiritual abundance / scarcity… It won’t be pretty but it will be necessary.
The Taurus Full Moon as a Lunar Eclipse will have the influence to illuminate what’s in the shadows of our expectations, control, power, and resistance to change. Taurus, who prefers to be firmly grounded in the embrace of the Earth, treasures unshakable security, and in extremes yearns for an excess of luxury and glamour. Scorpio, adept at unraveling the veils of deception, pierces through the illusions of authority, revealing the sick systems that underlie them. Together, they expose the lies we weave, socially and individually, that shield ourselves from the unknown.
Though this Lunar Eclipse will be partial, the October Full Moon is also known as the Hunter Moon and when total, a Blood Moon.
The 2023 October Taurus Full Moon sits with Jupiter AND Uranus in Taurus, both currently retrograde and together creating a harsh environment, all opposite the Scorpio Sun with the newly stationed Mercury AND Mars in Scorpio. Stubbornness is on high for the Taurus-Scorpio opposition and especially this Lunar Eclipse.
Uranus Rx as an ice giant of an outer planet is already fairly disruptive, known for radicalizing cultural change. Affecting money (workers’ rights in inflation), beauty (insatiable post-ironic alteration) and relationships (challenging concepts around compassion), these familiar subjects of Venus, Taurus’ ruler, can mellow the maximalist loudness when Retrograde, giving way to inner change instead of trending discourse.
Jupiter Rx in Taurus, back-spinning from the beginning of September until December 30th, urges us to reexamine our priorities in terms of investment, attention, and energy. Jupiter in Taurus can also be too attached to what they want, to a point of detriment, though typically this is a great placement. Although all the planetary groupings of this Eclipse may incite the Ego, it's important to remain calm and patient when faced with the confrontational opposition of the raw and pointed Scorpio Sun, Mercury, and Mars trio.
While Taurus is known for warmth and allure, the enigmatic connection between the Taurean and Scorpio polarities weaves a tapestry of terrifying myths and monstrous metaphors. Our Femme Film Astro Archetype for Taurus featured Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Coppola) and the Full Moon in Scorpio of Spring 2023 conjured common threads that bind us all - how we are constantly against some form of restraint, that the disintegration of identity becomes rebirth, echoing through the eons. Desire can destroy us; we need to learn to let go of temporary fleeting feelings in order to flow into Life with love and care for ourselves, all people and the Planet.
In keeping with Halloween haunts, we’d like to call upon a frightening femme folktale that mirrors not just the Taurus-Scorpio Axis, but the dark side of both Venus and Taurus as the Lunar Eclipse grows towards us by end of week.
Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian countess during the late 1500's, said to have tortured and murdered roughly 600 individuals, primarily young women, making her the most prolific serial killer in history.
Beneath the veil of her prestige, Elizabeth Bathory, renowned for her beauty and wealth, held a devious reputation for an insatiable thirst, leading to her solitary confinement until death. Bathory - also known as Countess Erzsebet - holds legend with others of similar history. Related directly to multiple voivodes of Transylvania and married to Ferenc Nádasdy, a military leader against the Ottoman Turks who was particularly cruel to prisoners in his time, Bathory reigned over their region while her husband was at war.
Accounts of Bathory's crimes are claimed to have been exaggerated, used as fantasy for vampire folklore. Though overshadowed as an inspiration for Dracula by the war-lord Vlad the Impaler, both infamous figures lusted for unsympathetic murder in cold blood and were investigated and condemned, punished and imprisoned, for their brutal deeds. Bathory truly resembled a Dracula-like character in comparison to Vlad, whose victims were mostly killed in prison or during the Crusades a hundred or so years earlier.
It is claimed that Bathory lured young maidens into her castle, while draped in decadent finery, courting and enchanting these women of lower rank until ensuing in ritualistic slaying. Furthermore, Bathory's murders were part of her personal care: she fervently believed that bathing in the blood of her victims would restore her youth. A desire to remain young forever, centuries before the cosmetic industry sold “anti-aging” by the billions to gullible consumers, Bathory was slicing women to bits to ensure her own glow.
Bathory embodies a perverse entity many First World women reflect, adjacent to this theme. Writhing around in her 7 Deadly Sins, toting cocaine in a designer handbag, grotesquely fashionable and always getting her way, this particular brand of Femme Fatale who always wants more, resistant to the natural seasons of aging, full of greed and the capitalist trinkets of imperialism is in our everyday sphere. She is Taurean Venusian vanity at its worst mixed with a Scorpionic sadism and penchant for control and jealousy.
It’s no wonder that Bathory's story paved a path to a horror-fantasy characterization. Mix vanity, control and murder, and it is easy to imagine a modern day heiress who feeds off the young, easily overtaken by jealousy, relinquishing in her dirty rich world. Bathory’s likeness inspired troves of works, including a few Hungarian operas and the glam-horror of Neon Demon. The poetry-drenched Gothic fairy tale by Romanian-born Bathory ancestor Andrei Codrescu, The Blood Countess, is a harrowing work of historical fiction.
Of course, it is no surprise that Bathory was a cornerstone in the metal genre, starting with the hugely influential ‘80s Swedish band of her same name. Bathory's primary songwriter Quorthron, "a prince who's half-human and half-demon", incorporated synth with interests of evil, though was not the Satan-worshipping church-burner or brain-eater like the Lords of Chaos crew; Quorthron was a vegetarian who loved Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. Sunn 0))) houses a song under Elizabeth Bathory's native name, Báthory Erzsébet, that poetizes the harm of not allowing grace of living itself to move forward in a natural state:
Here. Decompose forever, aware and unholy, encased in marble and honey from the swarm, a thin coat of eternal whispering that bleaches from within, a darkness that defiles thought, stolen by the wingless harpies whose memories lay waste the valley of diamonds, where the great One sleeps, her eyes, placid pits of violent tar and bitumen regurgitated by demons chained to misery, eyes that see nothing for there is only the darkness that wells up from inside, a great viscous cloud smothering hope, a blanket woven from the dung of the old ones, their disease the tapestry of all that is futile, her gaze burning holes in the veil that protects the chosen, her breathe a plague that unleashes the frozen wolves, blind, their tongues paint your heart with scorpions, their pestilence an invitation to the only one that matters for She is the presence that is all that is un-named, for it is Her, the unbegotten Mistress of the eternal hunger, dwell forever in her great unholy stomach where the damned befoul themselves in the glory of her fecund and bloody history, worship in the torment of a million wasted lives, bathe in the horror that the blood of time carries with the plague, and befoul yourself with worship, for she hates you eternally with the ferocious lust that binds all that inhabit the wasted and forgotten, the blissful loathing of you is now all that remains, alone, forgotten and Damned.
A haunting tale of how avarice and unwavering fixation can transform into a malevolent force, a warning to all who would seek to grasp too tightly at their desires, the Taurus Full Moon wants us to consider where we need to ascend instead of becoming bogged down in our trajectories, prejudices and roles, especially where empty positions of power and false safety are concerned.
MuseMix
DIABOLIK: Blood Rave is a playlist collaboration with Three of Swords ATL designer/artist Anya Gibson, a featured poet for the 10/26 SYMPOSIUM event.
Our Blood Moon collab mix is of course a nod to the blood rave in Blade. The works of electro artists like Boy Harsher, Aurut, Eartheater, and Arca conjure the captivation of trance, blending industrial, darkwave, and experimental electronica genres into an alluring ritual. This collection of sonic sirens echoes some of the lust, loss and lament of the intensity and intentional note of what to shed within the focus of Eclipse Season with the robust pulse of a Taurean temper, delving into the depths of pain and passion.