Full Moon in Taurus
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
5º 02'
8:07pm PDT
Total Lunar Eclipse
8:04pm PDT


Taurus is a show-me sign; a grounded, earthy, full-body experience. When the Moon in Taurus is obscured by the Sun in Scorpio, we are all being reminded that it is our actions here on earth that matter most for bringing an end to the suffering and pain humans cause to each other, to our animal and plant brothers and sisters and to our collective Mother, the Earth. How we walk through life, how we greet experiences and other life forms, makes the difference between ignorance and enlightenment. What the Moon in Taurus wants most to convey is the message that all the wisdom of the universe is already present in your body; particularly in the human brain. There is nowhere to go, nothing higher than the multileveled intricacy of the brain we have each been gifted. Enlightenment is ever-present; lying dormant, waiting for each of us to awaken, through meditation, the totality of the pre-frontal lobe's synaptic connections.

This is a powerful Full Moon to gather with others and commit to realizing your birthright: an enlightenment that is embodied, selfless and deeply committed to ending the suffering of all other sentient beings by practicing love and compassion. Let's start by reminding ourselves that Taurus, the opposite sign of Scorpio, suggests that life doesn't have to be so intense; a great reminder for this particular Full Moon. Life can be beautiful, warm, soft, loving, and sensual. It can be filled with the pleasures of family and friends, good food, beautiful surroundings, great music and art, and all things that help soothe and heal anxiety and worry.

But Taurus also rules security: personal security, homeland security, and global security. Taurus is a sign that knows how hard life can be. It has starved, been sick, lacked shelter, lacked comfort and family. That is why it craves security, possessions and comfort, and once gotten, holds them so tightly. The Full Moon in Taurus is the time to face our personal and national selfishness and greed. We are the richest nation in the world; our comforts run counter to the glaring poverty all around us. We have allowed our government to do terrible things around the globe to ensure our survival; our war making must stop now. What America wants and what it needs are two different things. Yes we need to celebrate our own self-worth and enliven self-confidence, but self-worth does not come from how much power, control and wealth we have, rather from how much we selflessly give away. The best way I know of to ensure survival is to think bigger than just your own needs.

The Full Moon in Taurus enlivens our sense of responsibility to caretake our planet and its inhabitants. Reconsider the importance of your needs and desires in light of how they impact the environment. Maybe this year, you'll take those fallen leaves and start a compost pile instead of putting them in plastic bags and sending them to your local dump. How about setting up a bird feeder for the winter? How about taking ten dollars of your income every month and sending it to your favorite environmental organization? It is our job to protect Mother Earth and her inhabitants.

Okay, on to the total lunar eclipse. For the exact phase times of the eclipse, go take a look at the NASA Eclipse page http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa...2004Oct14P This total lunar eclipse will be well placed for North Americans. The Moon's trajectory takes it deep into the northern umbral shadow resulting in a total eclipse which lasts 1 hour 21 minutes.

Astrologically, eclipses tend to exaggerate and irritate planetary aspects that commingle with the Full Moon. A total lunar eclipse energetically represents the archetypal masculine conquering the archetypal feminine, or the power of the creative to fully engulf the receptive. In this case, a manipulative, abusive and controlling Scorpionic energy covers the all-giving, all-nurturing, Taurean mother impulse. This is an eclipse that shows us who we have become: a selfish, fearful, war making, earth destroying species. It is a tragedy that a species with so much potential for love, can only manage to create more hatred and fear.

This Taurus Full Moon also conjoins the North Node in Taurus (humanity's current evolutionary lessons of sharing and providing) and opposes the South Node (the old way) in Scorpio (of control, manipulation, secrecy and lies.) This eclipse shows us the ugly truth of who we are and points the way to healing our separation through deep love. It reminds us that we are running out of time and don't really have any choice but to follow this path. The current economic, ecological, phenomenological, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical breakdown occurring right now all over the globe must be stopped. It is time to demand that governments and all other agents of destruction, in every nation, cease their terror.

We are talking total embodiment of love, here on earth, with your partner, your kids, your neighbors and their kids, your parents, your friends and their friends, your enemies, your community, your schools, your coworkers, your customers, your government, our government's friends and supposed enemies, every person in every nation, every tree, plant, animal, body of water, rock, mountain, bird, planet, star, solar system, galaxy, every one of the multiple universes, and everything that could possibly exist in all possible existences. Wrap your mind around that, let go, and open into universal love!

This is not the usual Taurus Full Moon celebration of sitting in a hot bath, making a great meal and relaxing all night. Use the day and get radical! Go to a school and volunteer to help, stop in at a homeless shelter and cook for the hungry, go into the factories and talk to the working poor, go to a hospital and sit with the sick, go to a hospice and comfort the dying, visit a military family that has a loved one serving indefinitely in Iraq, and then tell me that your life is hard. Don't wait for things to get so bad that we have nothing left. Change now, get involved, do something that serves someone other than you, and I guarantee you that at 8:04pm when the Moon is in total eclipse, enlivening all these incredible planetary configurations, your heart will open and surrender into the love that will heal every dark place in your psyche, your body, your heart, and by extension all the dark places within the global psyche, body and heart. We can all rise to this occasion, while remaining embodied and connected to all other life.

Adisa said: