What the Full Moon in Scorpio Means for You
This article originally appeared on Yoga Journal
This May brings us power and beauty with a total lunar eclipse coinciding with the full Moon in Scorpio. When the lunar eclipse meets Scorpio, magic is in the air.
Scorpio is one of the most transformative signs of the zodiac. Paired with a lunar eclipse, this full Moon becomes a potent time for revelation, change, and immense psychological breakthroughs. The energy of the eclipse will affect everyone, and its energy will be intense. There will be no hiding from the vibrations this eclipse will bring everyone. Through its intensity, this eclipse has the power to create any transformation you need in your life right now. It may not feel particularly good at the time it is occurring, but the change it creates ultimately opens the door for your highest energetic potential.
What the full Moon in Scorpio means
Ruled by water and the planet Pluto, Scorpio asks us to confront our deepest emotions. In doing so, Scorpio reminds us that we are magicians and healers. We can transform any energy, emotion, or behavior. We can turn darkness into light, and tension into relaxation. We can heal from the most painful wounds and turn them into wisdom, and we can navigate any storm with ease.
The key in working with this energy is to be willing to feel. This full Moon asks us to put our logical mind at bay. It reminds us that when we analyze our feelings, we only prolong them. We need to feel to transform, and that means slowing down, courageously looking inward, crying, and holding space for any energy to rise from our subconscious.
What makes Scorpio's energy so intense is that it brings us face-to-face with the present moment. It asks us to stop in our tracks, let go of our distractions, and confront our inner reality. In the red glow of this eclipse, our facades are stripped away. This energy cuts through any exterior and brings us to the heart of the matter. It is a time of revelation, when our shadows come out to be seen in the full light of the Moon. Our unprocessed emotions come out to heal, our suppressed memories are triggered to awaken, and it is obvious how we project our wounds onto others. We cannot lie to ourselves on this eclipse, and we cannot be lied to.
This revelation can cause many emotional reactions and may even make us feel as if we entered a downward spiral of negativity against ourselves. It's important to know that when shadows are revealed, it's best to accept them and understand them. It is through love, compassion, and acceptance that our shadows come out of the darkness and meet us in the light.
This is a potent time for shadow work and its resulting transformation. It all starts with the willingness to look beneath the surface of your conscious mind and become keenly aware of who you are. Transformation begins with confronting what is occurring right now. It may be challenging, uncomfortable, and downright nerve-wracking to take an honest look at your unconscious tendencies. Scorpio points out, though, that what is underneath the surface is still controlling you, even if you don't acknowledge it. We are puppets, and our unconscious energies are the strings that pull us. When you face your deepest fears, triggers, beliefs, and conditioned patterns, you cut the strings and free yourself. You take control of your life and your behavior.
What the full Moon in Scorpio with the Sun in Taurus means
While the Moon is in Scorpio, the Sun remains in Taurus, bringing us both of their energies to work with this full Moon. Scorpio and Taurus stand in opposition in the sky and on the zodiac wheel, though they both ask us to do the same thing: ground our energy in the present moment.
As we work with the power of Scorpio this full Moon and eclipse, we also work with the power of Taurus. Scorpio and Taurus both want us to become completely absorbed in the present moment. They ask us to set aside our anxiety about the future or pain of the past and feel the moment. Taurus encourages us to connect with nature and use our senses to find presence. In contrast, Scorpio asks us to connect with our inner world and release emotional reactions to find presence.
Both of these signs ask us to align with the rhythms of the Universe--Taurus, by connecting with the Earth, and Scorpio by connecting with ourselves. Over this eclipse, we have the opportunity to feel one with everything around us and know that we are part of the magic in the Universe. We can feel how we are made of the same energy as the trees, the oceans, the mountains, and the stars. We can feel the vastness of life and become inspired by our own power.
While Scorpio and Taurus both connect us to the infinite rhythms of the Universe, they differ in their view of resources. Scorpio focuses on energetic resources, like time to transform, space to feel, and courage to travel inward. On the other hand, Taurus focuses on tangible assets, like a physical space to feel supported, external comforts to soothe, and food for the body. Both of these signs give us tools that help us ground our energy, transform what we need to through healing, and step into unknown territory. They both want us to feel our power and our oneness with everything in the Universe. They simply have a different method for getting us to this place.
This eclipse brings us great opportunities to do shadow work, which helps us understand how we limit ourselves out of fear and insecurity. Our shadow is where we store all of our unprocessed emotions, including those from childhood. It forms the basis of our unconscious reactions. It also represents our deeper wounds that forced us to store emotions that the conscious mind could not understand when they occurred. Our shadow works behind the scenes and often undermines our conscious efforts to manifest our dreams. We can begin to understand our shadows by looking at the lower frequencies of zodiac signs on the eclipse. They can help us understand how we may act on our shadows and bring light to unconscious patterns. Scorpio's and Taurus’s low sides bring us away from our power and place it outside ourselves. The Scorpio eclipse allows us to look at our shadows around our self-worth, fear, inner reliance, and overall power.
Every astrological energy has a low side and a high side. The eclipse offers us the opportunity to look at each side of the signs involved and determine how we might align with them. We can then release and shift any patterns which embody lower frequencies and vibrate at a higher level.
When we align with the low side of Scorpio, we don’t allow ourselves to feel. We distract ourselves with external preoccupations, which leads to anxiety and obsession. We also find clever ways to avoid the internal work we need to do to transform ourselves and our lives. We blame others, project our feelings onto them, and ignore our internal cries for help. Instead of facing our deepest fear, wounds, and pain with courage, we avoid these places in ourselves. We also mistrust our intuition and instead look outside ourselves for validation of our self-worth. We may obsess over money, loved ones, and our place in the world.
In this lower frequency of Scorpio, we avoid our true feelings, forgetting that they are a place of power and allowing them to control us subconsciously. They pull our strings and sabotage our intentions to build our visions. They can make us feel helpless. Instead of owning our power, we slip into a victim consciousness, where we feel everything is being done to us and we are helpless against it. This low, or shadow, side can make us feel we don’t belong anywhere and are alone in this world. Without inner reliance on ourselves, we may feel we have no rock to stand on and that the ground will slip out from beneath us at any moment. We are then triggered when issues come up around security, revealing our shadow of feeling unsafe in the world.
We can also become stuck in a transformational loop, never accepting our perfection. We may also look for the next shift we need to make in our lives, never appreciating what we have already accomplished. This is the part of us that self-sabotages so we may build again, transform again, and do it better next time. Scorpio is the rising Phoenix, but sometimes the Phoenix does not need to rise. She just needs to fly.
Taurus holds a similar low side in regards to resources. When we align with the low side of Taurus, we also feel insecure. We may obsess over material possessions and finances, thinking they define us. We forget our ability to create abundance through inner reliance and creativity and instead seek it externally. We move away from stillness and peace only to become preoccupied with the figure in a bank account. We may even compete for resources, taking on a scarcity mindset and forgetting that abundance is everywhere. Taurus’s low side is full of anxiety and thinking about future scenarios. Instead of staying in the moment, we go to the future in fear, thinking we might lose everything. We become triggered by others who appear successful, and we experience jealousy or envy. We forget that we can never lose our most valuable resource: ourselves.
The low sides of both signs are a question of security, worth, and underlying fear. When we align with Taurus’s shadow side, we place all of our value on the goods we can collect. When we align with Scorpio’s, we lose touch with our power and rely on others to tell us our worth, often continuously altering ourselves to meet their standards. Both low sides lack understanding of their oneness with nature, and both find it impossible to stay grounded in their power moment to moment.
If you find yourself aligning with either of these low sides, know that is ok. You are seeing your shadows. It’s challenging to become aware of your shadow sides, but it is essential if you are going to shift them. The first step in confronting these lower frequencies is to sit still and allow yourself to feel. You may cry, journal, laugh, or experience a roller coaster of emotions, but feeling is the way through. You must travel through the depths of your body and the stories that you live with each day. You may not want to read them, but they are always there. It’s best to take control of them so they don’t control you any longer.
In working with this eclipse, ask yourself if you have become preoccupied with things outside yourself as a means to distract you from what’s within. Have you felt obsessed about resources and untrusting of your ability to create abundance? Have you looked to others for security instead of owning your power? Furthermore, have you forgotten your connection with the Universe? As you look at some of these lower aspects of Taurus and Scorpio in yourself, have compassion and courage. Release what you can this eclipse and know that just becoming aware of these energies is enough to be a catalyst for great transformation. It all starts, though, with your willingness to look deeply at yourself as you stay grounded in the present moment. Align with the Sun in Taurus to feel held by the Earth as you align with the Moon to feel into the deepest places of your soul. Enjoy the journey of learning about your whole self.
Honor this lunar eclipse with shadow work practices from the Scorpio Lunar Eclipse Workbook, from which the above is excerpted.
About our contributor
Jill Wintersteen is the founder of Spirit Daughter, a lifestyle brand devoted to helping you live your best life through understanding the energy of the Universe. She also writes workbooks on each full Moon as well as other astrological events. Follow her on Instagram @spiritdaughter.
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