Spring Equinox Full Moon, Joshua Tree National Park, Ca; photo by Chad Woodward, March 2019.
Full Moon @ 27 Scorpio 39’
May 18, 2019
2:11 PM Los Angeles
5:11 PM New York
10:11 PM London
May 19, 2019
5:11 AM Beijing
7:11 AM Sydney
May's Full Moon in tropical Scorpio is a "Blue Moon." More precisely, this Full Moon is a seasonal Blue Moon which differs from a monthly Blue Moon that most people are familiar with. A monthly Blue Moon is when two Full Moons occur in one calendar month and from an astrological perspective, they're meaningless. However, the idea behind the seasonal Blue Moon predates the monthly version and is where the concept originated.
So what is it? Without getting too technical, a seasonal Blue Moon is the third Full Moon of four within a single season, that is between an equinox and solstice or vice versa. Commonly, only three Full Moons occur per season, but because the universe is imperfect, there are always natural anomalies and variations within every cycle, and the Moon is no exception. The fourth Full Moon occurs on June 17 several days before the solstice. What's the significance behind a seasonal Blue Moon?
Considering that it's an anomaly, this Full Moon contains an element of the unexpected, of moving beyond normal boundaries and designations. But it looked at more broadly, Full Moon's are a natural culmination, and with four this spring season (or autumnal season if you're below the equator) means that there's a lot of culminations happening this particular season. From now until the solstice, we're tasked with bringing more projects or situations to completion and breakthroughs are possible.
The Moon won't look any different than it usually does, but it's interesting and unique for the reasons mentioned above. You might find that from now until the solstice, there's a bit more than usual to pack into your schedule. Sticking with the culmination theme, a Scorpio Full Moon can reveal unconscious layers into greater focus. Scorpio seeks to expose the shadow, to point consciousness to our cultural taboos and find the essential absurdity behind them.
Often, the things we're most ashamed of have nothing to do with personal failings or shortcomings but rather our inability to match up with cultural or societal expectations. Mercury's opposition to the Full Moon, approaching a conjunction with the Sun, brings insights, revelations, information, or intense, intimate, and meaningful communicative interactions. Deeply hidden revelations can emerge alongside this lunation, and we're tasked within bringing into question our assumptions, worldviews, and blind spots.
The shadow of Scorpio, as a fixed sign, is its attachment to making things more complicated then they need to be. Attachment to dogma is one way of avoiding the inherent uncertainty of the world. Finding a balance between the Taurus and Scorpio archetypes requires admitting the ambivalence inherent to the human experience and making space for both complexity and simplicity without either one dominating the other.