Scorpio Full Moon Eclipse: Shedding Our Skins

Scorpio can be scary. It’s the shadows that lurk beneath the surface, the ferocity of feelings we dare not express, the stark reality of death. Yet it’s also the resilience and quiet power of the serpent, a creature which sheds its skin to allow for further growth and to remove parasites attached to their old skin.

We’re all in a process similar to this as we approach Friday’s Scorpio Full Moon eclipse (May 5, 10:33 a.m. PDT). This eclipse will be particularly profound for those with significant Scorpio placements. For example, it’s exactly conjunct my sixth house Saturn at 14 Scorpio, and I’ve been turning my house, yard and car inside out, deep cleaning, painting and throwing stuff out, purging like one possessed. I’m also about to do a detox cleanse to get a handle on some physical issues. Whether or not you have Scorpio planets, you may be feeling extra emotional, swinging from depression to furious weeping to full-blown ecstasy.

So what is happening at a Full Moon in which the Sun in what-you-see-is-what-you-get Taurus opposes the Moon in fifty-shades-of-grey Scorpio? It’s a super-powered polarity, with fixed earth opposing fixed water; a grand opportunity to transform something old and decayed to make way for something new and improved. When the lunation is also an eclipse, with the Earth partially blotting out the Scorpio Moon, things get a bit more complicated.

To help make sense of this phenomenon, I turned to eclipse expert April Elliott Kent at Big Sky Astrology. In her latest newsletter, she states: “Eclipses symbolize what needs to change in order for us to leave the nest of familiarity (the Moon’s South Node) and fly toward broadening adventures (the North Node). Since Nov. 2021, these changes have taken place in the signs of Taurus and Scorpio, the fertile polarity that celebrates the physical world and its natural cycle of growth and decay. This week brings the final Scorpio eclipse until 2031 – a lunar eclipse at 14º58′ Scorpio on Friday, May 5. The final eclipse in a sign is like graduation day; have we made the changes required in the Scorpio realm of our charts? Scorpio is a fine sign, but like all of them it has its shadow qualities: suspicion, jealousy, vengeance, to name a few. Have we made real progress in letting go of these tendencies? Have we turned over the soil in the Scorpio house of our birth chart so we can plant new things there?”

Uranus is a big player at this eclipse, as well. It’s conjunct the Sun and opposed the Moon, catalyzing a sense of imminent change, a knowing that things can’t continue as they have been if we are to grow. Uranus is helping us blast away at old detritus, both inner and outer. How might you harness its energies to help yourself break free? It starts by addressing and honoring your feelings.

Scorpio eclipses are notorious for unearthing buried feelings that desperately need to be processed and released. You may find yourself feeling ultra-sensitive and in need of downtime around this eclipse. Keep your schedule as light as possible to allow for your emotional and physical needs. Schedule a massage or relax in the tub. We’re shedding our old skins right now, which can make us feel a bit raw or weepy. With Mercury still retrograde in Taurus, look to the past to better understand what you’re feeling now. Get your feelings down on paper, or review old journals for deeper insights. Grieve any losses of the last few years, and really feel them. If something is taken away near this eclipse, consider how that might be opening up space for something better.

As April Elliott Kent so beautifully concludes, “In the Sun’s season of life-affirming Taurus, with Venus entering nourishing Cancer later this week, our bodies and spirits hunger for warmth, ease, flowers, color, family. But this eclipse is a reminder to spend just a little more time contemplating what’s ending before planting something new. As in nature, it’s the decay of old matter that enriches the soil for spectacular growth to come.”