A Full Moon of Awakening and Radical Responsibility

Saturday’s Full Moon in Taurus, coming to exact on Halloween, October 31st, at 7:49 am Pacific Time, is humming with electric shockwaves of awakening, inviting us to peer behind the veil, as appropriate for this seasonal timing, and to look beyond the superficial, into deep currents of our joint collective wounding and our society’s evolutionary journey. This Full Moon is truly striking, most notably because of its nearly exact conjunction with Uranus, which will likely continue the widespread shake-up the world is experiencing, with many more surprising and sudden events of the fall still to come.

As the Moon waxes into her fullness, she reflects the light of the Scorpio Sun into our intuitional awareness. This invites us into the depth of the investigative Scorpionic nature, one that’s not afraid to peer into the shadows and leaves no rock unturned in pursuit of Truth. With Neptune in Pisces squaring the lunar nodes and Mercury in the depths of its retrograde, misinformation and misunderstandings could run amok. Perhaps Saturn’s conservative and discerning nature will lend us a hand in decoding and discerning all that is going on. Saturn is square to Mercury during this Full Moon, inclining us to sober-minded reality perception and radical responsibility through what could be a quite tumultuous and challenging end of the 2020 year.

Let’s talk about Uranus, known as the Great Awakener, the bringer of liberation through shock and awe, and the raw force that symbolizes our human need to break out of established paradigms and into the thrill of new territory. Uranus has been making his slow journey through Taurus where he will continue until 2026, and his presence there is shaking up the collective status quo of Taurean themes! These are: tangible resources, earth issues, food production, consumerism, our physicality, etc. Strong Uranian transits are known for their unexpected nature, and now as this Full Moon joins in co-presence with the Uranus archetype, we will likely see our already topsy-turvy world continue to be further tumbled and jolted through the next 15 days of this current lunar cycle, and beyond.

What can we look for in terms of helpful potentials with this rather dire configuration? There may be opportunities for growth in our own awareness and experience. Uranus is also known for sudden realizations, breakthroughs, and innovations in areas where we are in need of an overhaul. We oftentimes in fact require a revelation in our perception to see our way through. As Einstein famously expressed “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.”

During this Full Moon, also, Mercury is slowing into the furthest depth of its retrograde in Libra, and will station direct on Nov 3. Mercury, as mentioned above, is furthermore squaring Saturn in Capricorn and it is to the degree. This Libran Mercury invites us to reach across the divide, no matter the treacherous distance between ourselves and others, endeavoring to transcend polarity so as to find common ground. This is a very tall order, especially here in the US, where the differences that divide us seem to be getting louder, drowning out the commonalities that unite us.

In this Full Moon, as well, we find Venus in an opposition with Chiron, the Wounded Healer. This indicates that wounding in relationship, as well as healing through connectivity, are again emphasized as prominent themes. Within the tremendous complexity of our social fabric, burdened heavily now by pandemic, systemic oppression, injustice of all manner, climate crisis, echo chambers on social media, not to mention conspiracy theories, we appear to be collectively stumbling into a world where the struggle to relate is only becoming more difficult, and fraught with pain. Our relational fabric is breaking down, and we in fact are in a pivotal evolutionary turning point. This is in terms of learning how to find new ways to relate to one another through the divisiveness, fear, and confusion. The strong presence of Saturn, in square to Mercury in this current configuration, suggests an invitation for taking radical responsibility for ourselves as we encounter the world.

In one dimension I see this as one of the key ingredients for right relations – that is, to take responsibility for our own unconscious patterns that perpetuate conflict and dis-harmony. I also see this as accentuating the need for each of us to valiantly exercise our careful discernment of information, fact-checking, and examining the sources of any information we encounter. And yet another facet of these fraught times, especially here in the US, is commitment to civic duty and participation, reflected in what is looking to be the biggest voter turnout in American history! As unprecedented numbers exercise their right and privilege to vote, and as we so strongly encourage everyone to do the same, we may yet find salvation in the commonality of the patterns that are thereby reflected, and that may serve to unite us after all.

And of course we can’t talk about late 2020 astrology without talking about the presence of Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto, in their forming triple conjunction, in Capricorn. We are coming into the next unfolding of the Saturn-Pluto combination that began along with the Covid situation in January of this year, and that speaks to the massive societal breakdowns happening in our world, as well as to the powerful evolutionary turning point that we are living through. As Jupiter comes along to be with these two power-house planets in mid-November, it’s kind of like the Hubble telescope getting placed on the systems and structures of power in our world.

The abuse of power, the dynamics of systemic oppression, colonization, racism, outdated patriarchy, all of these are getting highlighted, perhaps so that we may perceive with greater clarity AND begin the process of establishing alternative systems that are sustainable and in coherence with the Earth and with natural order. This cataclysmic transformative inflection point can show us where we each have work to do around exercising our personal power in ways that are in alignment with Truth, and with the Greater Good. Thus we might dispel the “fairy tale of infinite growth,” as Greta Thunberg has put it, and honor the cyclical nature and rhythms of our planet.

It is challenging to make choices and have impact in a world where we are inextricably intertwined into systems that are rooted in such imbalance of power, yet choosing to do nothing is a more harmful choice than to do something, however imperfectly. In times like these, we will stumble; we will take three steps forward, only to take two back, yet I believe it is crucial that we allow ourselves space and forgiveness to make mistakes as we try in earnest to thread the eye of the needle and fight to save ourselves and our planet. In this, it is important to recognize that each individual holds an important part of the puzzle. May we each act with good intent, with kindness, courage, and humility, as we piece together a more sustainable and beautiful vision for what is, after all, to be our shared future.

A Full Moon of Awakening and Radical Responsibility

TimePassages Standard Edition

Chart for the Full Moon on October 31, 2020

Get Your Free Birth Chart!

November 2024