Full Moon in Taurus: Comfort in the Dark

Monday morning brings the Full Moon in Taurus, which means the Moon will appear most full overnight on Sunday. This Moon will look full indeed: It is a Supermoon, the largest we’ve had for some time. This Moon is closer to Earth, will be bigger in our sky, and exert a stronger pull on us.

There is no sign in the zodiac more ready and able to offer comfort than Taurus. This is the sign of fixed Earth, of sensual pleasures–the things we love to see, hear, touch, smell, taste, the things we love with our bodies. Taurus is patient, loyal, hard working. Taurus is also stubborn, can be narrow minded, and does not change easily. But comfort is something Taurus offers us in abundance.

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Full Moons bring light to the darkness. In a world that could still see the night sky, the waxing of the Moon brought comfort, both the comfort of knowing natural cycles would continue as well as the practical safety of having more light. This Full Moon arrives at a time when the world feels darker, more dangerous, when time is out of joint. Or, in the words of Dr. Peter Venkman, “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria…” What kind of comfort can this Full Moon offer?

First, this Moon brings an awareness of the dark, of Shadow, and of ways in which it feels closer and larger than before.

How, you may ask, is this comforting?

I guess it depends on your definition of comfort. Unicorns and rainbows are not on offer this month. (Unless you really understand unicorn lore, in which case, yes, unicorns.) The case I would make here is, there is comfort in honesty, authenticity, and facing reality straight on. I do not counsel despair. (I never do.) But, damn, it’s been a rough year and this past week is not one I will remember fondly. Still, I feel stronger when I look at the world and say, where am I? What’s going on? How can I help? There is strength in knowing where I stand, a strength Taurus understands and values.

Next, asteroid Lilith stands with the Sun in Scorpio and opposes the Full Moon. She is one face of the fierce feminine and she is front and center, not going anywhere. If the Taurus Moon were tempted (as it might be) to crawl under the quilts and hibernate, Lilith is there to drag the blankets off and demand action. Lilith opposing the Full Moon is the comfort of standing with others in community and saying, “We shall not be moved.”

Next up are Uranus, Eris, and Ceres, together in Aries, who are inconjunct the Sun and Lilith, and semisextile the Full Moon. More push, more fierce feminine. Uranus the revolutionary hardly ever (possibly never) feels comfortable, and yet there is comfort in hard times in reaching deep inside and knowing you are doing the right thing at the right time, even if others around you think you’re crazy.

But how can we act effectively if we feel vulnerable? If we are afraid of being targeted, of losing our jobs, of being assaulted? Well, some in our world community have been standing strong in the face of oppression for generations. We can learn from them. Or maybe we hold back because we don’t know what to do. We feel inadequate. Chiron the Wounded Healer also strongly aspects this Full Moon, flowing energy to the Sun + Lilith in a trine, and to the Moon in a sextile.

Remember, Full Moons bring illumination. One illumination we are experiencing now is where we need healing. How have you been triggered this week? What fears, angesr, hatreds, or dissociations have come up for you? It may seem like cold comfort indeed to be brought face to face with our vulnerabilities. Yet I would offer that there is comfort in realizing that we, too, are human. There is comfort in seeing clearly where we need support, where we have work to do on ourselves.

Pluto the transformer has been creating really tough transits to the chart of the United Stated lately. Pluto, who has been exposing the underbelly of world systems since he entered Capricorn, is holding up a mirror to the Shadow of the U.S. We see the dark side of the idea of American exceptionalism. We face the Shadow side of the idea of unfettered capitalism. We cannot know where this shift will lead us. One first step is taking an unflinching look at what and who we are. This is likely to be profoundly uncomfortable, and yet offers the weird comfort of beginning to see what we’ve been stumbling over.

The most fascinating aspects to this Full Moon are the quintiles. A quintile is generally a rare aspect, one fifth of the circle, a marker of creativity. Mozart had seven quintiles in his birth chart. This Full Moon has four, two for the Moon, and two for the Sun + Lilith.

The Taurus Moon is in quintile to the South Node (which represents and past) + Neptune, and to the asteroid Vesta, who represents hearth and home. This points to the creative comfort we can find in our past and in our dreams. Old patterns are not all bad, not all ready for the junk heap of history. We can tend the hearth of the past where it offers stories of strength and insight. We can reinterpret what has gone before to create communities of hope for the future.

The Scorpio Sun + Lilith are in quintile to the North Node of the future, and to Mars in Aquarius. Scorpio carries the deep knowledge we wrest from Shadow, as well as our connections to other ways of knowing. The North Node is currently in practical, one-step-at-a-time Virgo. Mars in Aquarius calls us to “go high.” A creative combination here says, we can learn from all of life, even the most difficult parts. We can take one step at a time, and through those steps, we can build the world we long for.

Venus is the ruler of Taurus, and so the ruler of this Full Moon. She is in Capricorn, the sign of hard work, patience, and staying the course. Everything offered at this Full Moon is an opportunity and a choice, not a guarantee. We can use the light of this Full Moon to take stock, see what we need to go forward, and make choices about how we will do that. We can take good care of ourselves, our family and friends, and our communities. There is comfort in this.

At this Full Moon, we are invited to look through the windows of past and future and realize this is just one time, one point on a long continuum. It is our time and our responsibility, but it does not define everything. If we look, we might get a peek at the cosmos. We might experience the comfort of Taurus in knowing we live in a beautiful world filled with wonders. That is a comfort we can hold on to.