Life vs Death on the Taurus-Scorpio Axis
May's Beginning with a Scorpio Full Moon Lunar Eclipse + Pluto in Retrograde
Beltane Blessings! The Spring pagan holiday is also our wedding anniversary - we’re posting a bit early to celebrate computer-free away from the city. Please consider supporting our Patreon and newly released disco-themed *Mercury Retrograde Survival Guide*, available to all tiers.
TW: mentions of addiction, self-destructive behaviors ahead
5/1 PLUTO RETROGRADE
Mused during March’s Spring Equinox, Pluto stepped into Air Sign Aquarius, marking a major 19-year social shift. Furthest from the Sun, Pluto’s underworld-esqe undercurrents ripple into bombshell “butterfly effects” and within Aquarius will scathingly scrutinize stale structures. Pop astrology errs to “past position”, linking Pluto in Aquarius to its previous time during the French Revolution. And while Aquarius is quite revolutionary, the fanciful Rococo imagery in recent Pluto memes ache with Astro Apophenia. A forward-thinking prediction would likely look at Futuristic tech-fraught battlegrounds with surveillance capitalism’s monstrous motives exposed as it plots to tear away digital rights and personal privacy.
However, we absolutely love a frilly overindulgent icon and can cliche the Marie Antoinette imagery to Taurus Season. The Taurus Sun squared Pluto in Aquarius on April 21 (same day as Mercury Retrograde), engineering an echo of Pluto’s signature ego-death in Eclipse Season. Economic concerns flared in this Taurus square, conjuring collective conflict re: humanity’s relationship to resources and creature comforts while still feeling the pangs of the pandemic, inflation, lack of housing rights and universal healthcare here in the States. Questioning how we can continue to operate in the Material World is an appropriate examination naturally brought on by Earth Day agendas, but Pluto’s presence emphasizes that both the progress and plan to reduce waste and avoid climate change is not fast enough. Pluto is quite terrifying in this way and, in Aquarius especially, warns what the World will become without action and reconciliation.
Pluto Retrograde begins May 1st, a transit that happens annually for 5-6 months, and induces inward reflection compared to usual “social issue” shenanigans. Personal persistence around Power and Desire may quicken, notably on May 17th while squaring Jupiter with fame-hungry cravings, just a day after Jupiter moves into Taurus. NOTE: Pluto falls back into Capricorn on June 11 and stays there until returning to Aqua in January 2024. Pluto in Aqua is mostly brief this year, but themes of social evolution and technology will permeate the collective consciousness for the next 2 decades.
5/5 SCORPIO FULL MOON + LUNAR ECLIPSE
The May 5th Full Moon in Scorpio will be magnified by a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse and it is a massive understatement to warn that what we’ve adapted to cope with trauma will be in the spotlight at this time. Scorpio’s shadowy realm of secrets will overfloweth from its darkest hiding places, shining on parts which still need to heal. Lunar Scorpio energy is ALWAYS a deep dive, yet there is power in understanding our pain. When we try to ignore it, we're prone to pigeonhole ourselves into patterns, unhealthy attachment, etc. Themes of addiction, in whatever shape or form, seem to claw their way to the surface during Eclipses. Energetically exhausting some and amping recklessness in others, we’ve witnessed regressive returns and torrential tragedies a-plenty in our social spheres during eclipses. Awareness that eclipses can get our guard down is helpful for decision making; unpreparedness can lead to danger and destruction.
The lunar myths and cosmic chaos surrounding the Taurus North and Scorpio South Nodes are not, in any shape or form, idyllic. Since January 2022, we’ve experienced Taurus-Scorpio Eclipses with the deep-rooted duality of Life and Death. Taurus’s Material World vs. Scorpio’s Sacred Sensitivity both yearn for stability and can support one another when united. Shadow work avoidant individuals often struggle with Eclipses and the Taurus-Scorpio cycle has a heavy focus on the resources we lack both physically and emotionally. Taurus Season met with its shadow side in this Lunar Eclipse moment has fertile potential of harnessing hope, yet also diving into delusions. Eclipse bring scrambled signals as the Sun and Moon, two mammoth bodies, cross paths.
ASTRO ARCHETYPE: TAURUS
Murda Hill’s Femme Film Astro Archetype for Taurus features Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. We wanted to emphasize Eclipse Season and Scorpionic energy alongside the frivoli and fantasy of Mina and Lucy’s feminine paradise of fancy, which gush of Taurus’ Venus-laced enjoyment and sensuality. Alongside their budding love and tenderness, lust and playfulness, gardens and song and food and drink, lurked the vampiric leagues from beyond, in alchemical ache of transformation, feeding on blood sacrifice of sustenance. Not only is it one of our favorite fantasy-horror films of all time, it eloquently and poetically displays the cyclical longing and endless thirst that can be associated with both Taurus and Scorpio in their unique yet differing ways. (Fun fact: Bram Stoker’s Sun AND Moon were in Scorpio; lead actress Winona Ryder’s Sun, Mercury and Venus are all in Scorpio).
YOUR FULL MOON REPORT
We have partnered with Astrology.Com for their wonderful insightful Full Moon Report ahead of this intense Scorpio Full Moon on Friday 5/5. Use the code “FEMMEMOON20” for 20% off all Full Moon Reports, each tailored to your Moon and Sun sign along with the specific Full Moon of the Month.