Full Moon April 26 2021 9:31 pm MT 7º Scorpio
The full moon rises in Scorpio, sign of sex, death, and deep transformation.
It sits across from a gang of planets (stellium) on the other side of the sky in the sign of Taurus. (Right now, the sun, Venus, and Mercury hang out with Uranus—a slow-moving outer planet who has been here since 2018—in Taurus.)
Taurus is a deeply earthy sign full of the spring energy we’re inhabiting currently (in the Northern Hemisphere). Taurus is luxurious, lush, and languorous.
Like the bull, it can be plodding and stubborn, but in general, it likes to move slowly and pleasurably through the unfolding and opening earth as spring blooms and rises from the soil. It is a relaxing breath of fresh air after the hyper-activity of Aries season.
It is the seed growing into a seedling, the leaves opening, the flowers beginning to unfurl in blossom.
So what does Scorpio, the breath of death, of deep and radical change, have to say during the season of birth and generation?
The Scorpio/Taurus axis asks us to integrate and find balance between life and death—between the fecund and fertile growth of the springtime of the yearly cycle, and the time of decay and release, when everything goes underground come autumn.
Scorpio is not a light and easy sign. It is intense; it asks nothing less than the full transmutation of everything you were into who will become.
The Full Moon in Scorpio in the spring reminds us that every birth requires—contains inside of it—a death, loss, grief. The seed must be cracked and hollowed to become a plant. The caterpillar must dissolve before the butterfly will emerge.
Scorpio’s dominion is the underworld, the underground—realms of the dead and also of the taboo. It reminds us that the seed grows in darkness before it breaks the surface into the land of the living, and that it will return to the dirt in the fall. That what we bury—culturally, individually—will come back to haunt us, until and unless we unearth it and face the demons we cast aside—the parts of ourselves and our collective we have been unwilling to witness and face.
Everything we repress becomes Scorpio’s domain.
And let us not forget that Scorpio is also the sign most associated with sex.
Why sex and death under one umbrella, you may wonder. Scorpio, as mentioned, is the sign of transmutation and as such seeks, yearns for, obsesses even, over connection—deep, transformative connection. And there are few things in life that can break us open and transform us the way sex and intimacy can.
Scorpio is the passion and intensity of sexual union, while Taurus is interested in deep embodiment and all the sensual pleasures of earthly delight.
This axis also asks to integrate both the pleasure and the deep power of the sexual, the sensual, and the erotic.
And as such, this full moon felt like the perfect time to launch our new course…
SPARK—a course on empowering your creative-erotic self and accessing radical pleasure
Ansley Clark (poet, co-editor at The Thought Erotic literary journal, and general creative goddess) and I are super excited to share our new baby with the world, and open the doors to SPARK!
SPARK is an inclusive course and community focused on accessing and deepening your relationship to your innate creative energy and your erotic power and potential.
Offering wisdom from two professional writers, a certified sex therapist, a boudoir + couples photographer, and a sexual wellbeing activist, SPARK is an 8-week guided course and community.
It will feature LIVE instruction with us over zoom once a week, lessons, exercises, practices, and support to tap the vast stores of creative energy and power contained in our sexual, erotic, and pleasure-seeking drives. We will use writing, movement, and other artforms to explore and expand our erotic power and expression.
The course is offered to women, femmes, genderqueer, and nonbinary folks.
Why the creative and the erotic (together)?
Because creativity and the erotic—our intimate connection with ourselves, with others, and with the world around us—are deeply interdependent.
Our social conditioning and the social water we swim in (patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, sexism) dissects and divorces the two. Because this conditioning has a very prickly and oppressive relationship to sexuality, it labels the erotic taboo, bad, shameful, and wrong. This is an effective strategy to separate women and nonbinary folks from the power of the erotic.
We’ve also found, through our own experiences and through listening to others, that addressing the blockages and healing the stories around our sexuality has a ripple effect on our creative process and output—and vice versa.
As writers, we have found the writing process to be one of the most healing and empowering ways to understand and express our sexual identities. This course offers a safe, welcoming communal space to explore, expand, heal, and express your sexuality and erotic energies. You do NOT have to be a writer to thrive in this space though writers are very welcome.
We see sexuality and the erotic as pathways to radical pleasure and immense creativity.
Enrollment opens TODAY and closes May 10
LIVE Zoom classes begin Wednesday May 12th and run for eight weeks.
Early-bird pricing and bonuses for the first folks to sign up, so register today! Space is limited.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COURSE AND SIGN UP HERE!
Full Moon in Scorpio Writing Prompts + Ritual
Journal Writing Prompts—Full Moon in Scorpio
- What are you willing to let die, so your rebirth can occur? (Some part of yourself, an old belief or narrative or way of relating to yourself or others? Maybe a job, a relationship, some possession(s)? Perhaps, like me, it is the safety of remaining unseen, invisible, invulnerable, that must shrivel and fall away to a new, scary vulnerability cracking open from within.)
- This one is a special nod to Uranus in Taurus, being activated this month by Venus, Mercury, and the sun, and moving into its square with Saturn—the continuing battle of old vs. new, tradition vs. avant-garde: What innovative, rebellious, revolutionary creative ideas have been bubbling up inside of you recently? What wild new visions of humanity, of the earth, of our individuality and collective intertwinings have been haunting your dreams? Write them down, all of them. Impossible or insane as they may seem.
Uranus is the boundary crusher; Saturn the boundary. As they collide (three times this year), what we have always done and known and what is possible, stretch and break and (in the coming years) reform into new rules and laws—not only social norms but also the laws of nature, of physics even. Dream big.
Scorpio Full Moon—Creative Writing Prompt
- Think of a character (or invent one), who embodies Scorpionic energy. Someone intense, dark, in love with the taboo, perhaps the occult. Someone who seeks deep and transformative experiences and relationships, who wants to go all the way or nothing (on all the levels). Someone who is (and this often gets overlooked, forgotten, ignored about Scorpio) deeply emotional, empathetic, and compassionate—someone willing to sacrifice anything and everything, to hold every pain in the world, for the world, to help us all excavate, witness, and ultimately transcend our suffering, not by ignoring it, but by going right into and through it, walking through the fire, traversing the deepest darkest waters, and finding our way out—hopefully before we drown.
- Write a scene in which this character walks into a food market (Taurus). Follow where it leads…
Full Moon in Scorpio Ritual—Cutting Cords
Cord-cutting is a very powerful practice. Do it only with forethought and care. (Also, wait until after the full moon for this, when the moon is waning. So, after 9:31 pm MT.)
Gather: A black candle. Rosemary, prairie sage, or another cleansing herb of your choice to burn. (I don’t advocate using white sage, unless you’re Indigenous to the Americas.) Thread or twine (black would be preferable, though any color will do). Scissors.
1. Light your candle and incense/smudge stick. Clear your space with the smoke.
2. Set a timer for five minutes and freewrite on the first question in the journal writing prompts.
3. Choose one thing on the list you are really, truly ready to let go.
Note: It shouldn’t be something too easy; it should be a sacrifice. But it also shouldn’t be a sacrifice of something you really want or deserve. It should, rather, be a sacrifice of something it may feel scary to let go of, but you know you need to, of some safety net, or something that makes you feel safe but holds you back, or some story or belief that you may recognize as harmful, but that it feels frightening, vulnerable to exist without.
4. Wrap the thread around one or both wrists. For five minutes, visualize what the cord represents and your connection to it.
5. Now cut the cord.
6. Say aloud: I release this which binds me, I am no longer bound by this [name the belief, etc.] and free to move forward in light. (Or your adaptation.)
7. Clear your space and yourself with herb smoke again.
8. Burn the thread and bury the ashes away from your home.
9. Snuff out your candle, or let it burn (use fire safety) until it burns out.
Note: You can also do this as a visualization and see yourself cutting the cord that connects you to the thing you are releasing. This is also powerful, though I find working in the physical is most effective.
And again, if you’re interested in learning more about Spark (or ready to sign up):
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COURSE AND SIGN UP HERE!
Photo by Baran Lotfollahi on Unsplash