Scorpio Gibbous Moon
—May 14

Today’s Scorpio moon moves without aspecting, somehow influencing its Scorpionic powers that much more intensely, and indirectly…

There might be a looming eeriness in the air, or a very disregarded obviousness loitering in the shadows of the psyche… or maybe it’ll feel more like a haunted awareness toward that which is directly in front of you or within you or in regard of you—penetrating straight into the soft and unsuspecting marrow within your bones.

Also, the Scorpio eclipse is tomorrow… though its lessons and leanings will resonate through the next six months, its deepest intensities will peak tomorrow.

Despite the moon’s strength being bright and growing, today’s moon is darkened, symbolically and metaphorically, and eclipses, after all, define that which is darkened, darkened to the point of elimination… or release.

Further, it is the South Node that is currently moving through Scorpio, and the South Node represents that which is being lost, or needs to be let go… not to mention, simultaneously, representing that which we tend to cling to.

Of course, rather than losing—it is typically best to voluntarily release, surrender, or sacrifice… but always, this choice is yours.

Shamanic astrologer Raven Kaldera speaks of this moon as ‘going under the cloak’, which he explains “mystics and holy people [who] practiced a technique of deep meditation and communion called going under the cloak… in this custom, the mystics who sought to commune with the gods and divine the question to a crucially important problem—perhaps one that would determine the outcome for the future of an entire people—would roll themselves in a great cloak of dark wool to shut out the light and remain there for up to three days…”

They would fully deprive themselves, as if within their own versions of a sensory deprivation tank, and “at the end of it, they would have the answer… sometimes that answer was terrifying, but it was always true.”

Kaldera states that this moon is fully dedicated to shadow work.

This shadow work, and the darknesses being either confronted or battled—or befriended in an effort toward either release or surrender—are directed inward, within, into our own personal Underworld, into the depths of the darknesses… a moon which is, again, as Kaldera calls it, “a moon of patience and courage… a moon in which we go down into our own depths and deal with our monsters.”

Kaldera explains further, that this essence and purpose of this moon’s energies are to love the monsters, the darknesses, the fears, and the depths… that healing these isn’t the point at all, nor should this be the goal—as we are all inherently flawed as equally as we are all divinely imperfect—to love these flaws and imperfections is where the light begins to shine through.

❝What makes night within us may leave stars.❞
——Victor Hugo

🖋️ by Jamie James; 📷 unknown

Kaldera, R. “Moon Phase Astrology.” Destiny Books; ©2011.