We are in the season of Beltane, whether you count this holiday as May 1, May 5 (the day the Sun passes over the midpoint between equinox and solstice), or the entire first week-plus of May. This year, we have a full pasture of planets in Taurus for Beltane, which celebrates the fecundity of the Earth and of ourselves. Plus, we have a pair of eclipses straddling the holiday — which means that today we’re at the quarter Moon phase: a tipping point in the lunar cycle.
The last quarter Moon occurs one week after a Full Moon: a square between the Sun (currently in mid-Taurus) and the waning Moon (currently in mid-Aquarius). This last quarter Moon is exact at 7:14 am EDT today.
Notably, the Aquarius Moon is conjunct the asteroid Juno, offering a reflection of our more crystallized ideas about marriage, partnership and jealousy. These may be some of the same ideas that the current eclipses — last week’s Scorpio lunar eclipse, and next week’s Taurus solar eclipse — are asking us to release (or at least examine and revalue).
Have you noticed some beliefs or feelings in that realm beginning to loosen up over the past week? Are you feeling yourself at a tipping point? Can you sense that momentum toward something new could really build if you say ‘yes’ to whatever previously seemed out of the question, but is beginning to feel strangely right?
Squares ask us to take action. In the case of a quarter Moon, that might mean embracing a new emotional posture that fits better than an old one.
All of this is happening with a backdrop of many planets in Taurus, emphasizing what we value — about ourselves, about our environment. Whatever we consider to be ‘ours’ in any tangible way is emphasized right now. Current inhabitants of Taurus include (in order of degree in the sign): Mercury, Mars, the Sun, asteroid Pallas Athene, the lunar South Node (a calculated point) and Venus.
It’s the lunar nodes that indicate roughly where eclipses occur (the North Node is exactly opposite, in Scorpio). Often the South Node is interpreted as being old, comfortable and karmic (in a past-life sense); things we need to release. But Philip Sedgwick, in his newsletter this past weekend, reminded his readers that this sense of karma also represents skills and experiences that are so easy for us, so much a part of us, that we can forget to appreciate having them at our disposal.
Sedgwick makes the point that with both the South Node and all these transiting planets in Taurus, there’s considerable emphasis on “internal resources” we’d do well to pay attention to: