A May Month of Consolidation and Slow Steps Forward

This is an exciting and thoughtful month of May which is also in many ways a follow-up to last month’s major eclipse energy with further reflections and alignments. This was such a powerful New Moon eclipse – from April 8th – with longer lasting implications, especially since it featured an extremely highlighted presence of Chiron, the Wounded Healer, which might engender personal themes that take some getting used to, extending into the present monthly cycle. This was a life-changing event with transformational Pluto also activated, continuing into the remainder of the spring timeframe. Especially concerning wherever Aquarius lands in our personal natal charts, we continue to feel the push for meaningful personal evolution in that area of our lives. Also of course, Retrograde Mercury was featured as well in this previous New Moon, in partile conjunction with Eris, and Mercury is now in recovery mode, only escaping its retrograde shadow on May 13th, so that we are all also, ourselves, slowly recovering in that sense from what has recently transpired. The Taurus lunation cycle from last month still has a week to go as May gets underway, and that cycle additionally included another block-buster transit, the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus from April 20th, which continues to impact the present month.

As far as Chiron goes, the Taurus New Moon taking place on May 7st features Mercury in close conjunction to Chiron, which can be read as a more-or-less perfect timing to come to some interesting conclusions concerning your inner wounding and the potential for healing. Chiron usually represents stuck places deep within the psyche, the residue of early childhood trauma that applies to pretty much all of us. The best approach is, rather than feeling reluctant to go there, extending a loving and accepting presence, as coming from your better resourced adult self, to the wounded places within your that may appear as a lost, hurt, child that needs a little loving to feel better about when they long ago experienced something that stopped them in their tracks. Ram Dass told that story in the sixties and related also that these “scary monsters” from the hidden depths of our psyches “never really go away, but they can at least become these little shmoos that you can invite in for tea…” The point is that healing is never done, and yet is always available to us when we are able to bend our mind into that more peaceful direction.

Another thing that we might want to reflect upon is that, right from the very beginning of the month, Mars enters his home sign of Aries and aspects Pluto at the beginning of Aquarius, so that the possibility exists for difficult emotions or even anger to emerge, and we are forewarned to try to keep the lid on these potentially destructive emotions.

On the positive side, there is the aftermath of the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus that we will also be feeling this month, as represented in May 7th New Moon. These two in coming together represent a fountain of positivity and sudden unexpected grace along with brilliant ideas. In the Taurus New Moon they are only three degrees apart, and are also nearby the New Moon at 18° Taurus. Their midpoint matches that of Mercury/ Eris, one sign away in Aries, so that there is a thoughtful intentionality, as Mercury recovers from the retrograde period, that we can indeed find the positive side of the action, if we are willing to try.

Transformational Pluto was also featured in the recent solar eclipse, and in a way that brings inner moral compass and care for the earth into the equation. The ongoing square between Pluto and new KBO planet Haumea represents this idea, and also symbolizes the tension inherent in the attempt to ensure that our society, in spite of everything, can somehow get there.

The other major lunation configuration in the current month is the May 23rd Full Moon, featuring Jupiter (again) and Uranus (again) as well as Pluto. In this Full Moon configuration, Uranus aspects the Chiron/ Eris midpoint, while the partile conjunction of benefics Jupiter and Venus in the last degree of Taurus aspects Haumea, and lies in perfect sextile with numinous Neptune. This stresses the spiritual solution and, as well, the possibility of confusion; this as we attempt to resolve the various earthly conflicts that are raging, applying our sense of what is right. The Sabian symbol of this Taurus ending degree is “A peacock parading on an ancient lawn,” and we might be able to find in this symbol some evidence for the power of Nature, and of tradition, to make a graceful act of dignity from ordinary circumstances.

This is not, in summary, a difficult month unless we make it that way, and there are – to the contrary – opportunities to instead help make things better. As usual it is up to us to try to find the best way forward. That is the great benefit, perhaps, of astrology; “the stars incline, they do not compel.” The final outcome is never fated, but must yield to our will for getting to the positive and productive action, for ourselves, and for our world, as we can muster up the courage to do so.