What sacrifices are made on the altar of your growth? As Spring’s leafy garments wrap around Earth’s body, and fragrant blossoms bedeck her lushness, what is being moved into the arms of darkness, down into the southern hemisphere, where Autumn sings her song? Are you the one making the offerings? Or is it some circumstances in your life that are tearing you apart, world events that break your heart, intense recognition of how complex reality is, or is it an inner fire that’s burning off some precious pieces that must be transformed? Welcome to the full moon in Scorpio; a moment to fall in the midst of rising, a gentle, fierce reminder of life’s eternal partner; Death. 

The scorpio full moon rises when the sun is in Taurus. This is a moon of life and death. A moon of pleasure and pain and the tight connection between the two. A moon that invites the body to breathe and slow down and feel all the ways that life touches it, including the passage of time, and not excluding death. 

Spring is moving into its fullness, and Taurus, who is the delicious queen of earthly delights, invites rupture and bliss of the physical kinds. She wants good food, silky fabric on her skin, and beautiful ornaments, orgasms and laughter, a nap in the sun, a delicious bottle of wine, a night of dancing barefoot, and snuggles with loved ones. 

Scorpio is an archetype of sensuality and decay, of sex and decomposition, of darkness and mystery and fear, of dissolution, disillusion, and the courage to deal with the paradoxical nature of truth . An Autumn character crushing a Spring party, making an unforgettable guest appearance. 

Always on the outskirts, holding the dichotomies of life, never where the spotlight hits, unless it’s moonlight, Scorpio comes to remind us that love is never without grief, that the universe makes itself by breaking itself, that to put something together is to take something else apart, and that freedom does not unleash us from the burden of showing up, but rather asks us what is worthy of our showing up. 

This moon is UNEARTHING some things that need to be tended to and looked at. Like our hypocrisy, our ignorance, our arrogance, our inability to see the whole picture, because some pieces don’t sit well with the narrative we’ve been following and/or sharing. It asks that we show up to where things don’t show themselves easily, that we look into the shady corners of our undealt with parts, that we spend enough time in the dark so that our eyes learn to see. 

This moon is UNDENIABLE in its power, presence, and potency. It’s the full moon of Passover, a Jewish holiday that celebrates the exodus of the enslaved Israelites from Egypt. The holiday is difficult to celebrate this year. 

How do you celebrate freedom when your people are being held hostage? How do you celebrate liberty when your people are responsible for other people’s lack of freedom? How do you celebrate when so much grief flows through the veins of your family and community and your neighbors’ families and communities? How do you celebrate when the world seems to have lost its intelligence, critical thinking, and capacity to discern, when students at universities are calling for the annihilation of your people? How do you celebrate an ancient holiday when brutality is so easily celebrated by fellow humans? How do you celebrate freedom when you are no longer seen as a person, but put under the stamp of a country you belong to, disagree with, appreciate, and are critical of? 

Perhaps because celebration isn’t the focus, and difficult questioning is pulsing in the hearts of many, this moon is full with such intense power. Because it takes us into a hard place and forces us to do some serious work. Because it doesn’t want us to have a clear answer, but rather pushes us to keep asking, to keep poking at certainties, to keep piercing further into the discomfort of the places where our perspective is countered with other points of view – all of which are true. 

This moon is UNNERVING, because it shatters the reality we cling to, and it either sends us flying into space, not knowing when we will find ground again, or pushing us down into an underworld journey, not sure when and if we will ever rise again. It is through the fear, the uncertainty, and the loss that the courage of a creative heart is pulsed into existence. 

In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mizraim. The etymology of the name/word takes us into many interesting meanings. Matsor in Hebrew means; “siege.” And we cannot help but slip down the winding road from being besieged to where we are today. From being bound and enslaved, to freedom, to diaspora, to pogroms and holocaust, to freedom back on the land of our ancestors, to continuing to be messed with, to becoming strong, to becoming an occupying force, through danger, to taking away the liberty of others, to besieging and being besieged, not only by terrorists, but by a government that doesn’t represent the majority of the people, that is causing more harm to its own people, and to other people.

Sur is Hebrew for tight, or thin, and shares root with the word Tsavar, which means “neck.” Mizraim is referred to as the narrow place, or the tight place. A tough place to escape. A place that closes in on people. And again, how can we not think of what’s happening right now as we speak, just north of Egypt, on the western shore, in that tight, strip of land?

And Sur is also etymologically related to the noun Zura, which means “shape,” and to the verb Yasar, which means “fashioned,” or “created.” And this is where I lean into the archetypes in the sky right now; the creative, physical, embodied, blossoming energy of Taurus, and the sensual, seductive dissolution of Scorpio. The intense, difficult, tight, painful, binding place invites us to bring something new, something different, something else into existence. What will we create out of the difficulties of the times, the places, and the relationships that hold us captive? 

There is freedom in our capacity to dream, to keep doing the work, and to keep ourselves from getting stuck in one side of the story. Reality is multifaceted and multilayered. 

If I was the praying kind, my prayer on this holy day would be not only for the release of the hostages, not only for a ceasefire and the liberation of the Palestinian people, from Israel’s armed forces, and control, but for the freedom of Israel from Netanyahu and his right wing mafia government, and the freedom of the Palestinian people from Hamas. 

And while I’m praying, I’d ask that the women who are oppressed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, or by any forces of any kind be liberated too. 

And for anyone who is oppressed, may they be liberated! LGBTQIA everywhere in the world. And BIPOC people. And anyone, anyone, anyone who is held caprice in any way shape or form. 

And please, can we please have some peace? 

May this moon illuminate the places where our minds have gotten too narrow. May the fullness of this moon fill us with the creativity that bursts out of the tight places in our lives. May this Scorpio full moon liberate us to drop our righteousness and pick up compassion, to put down ideologies and hold the heart of humanity with tenderness, to release the agenda and the propaganda, and to receive the complexity, dichotomy, and paradox.

Full moon and Passover blessing to you.

With love, with grief, and with tenderness,

Hagar

P.S

Dive into ceremony with us for Mid-Spring, where we will explore the mythopoetic landscape of Beltane through storytelling, breathwork, meditation, and movement. The Beltane Somatic Ceremony is a fertile ground for your creativity. And it is open for registration right now. Details are here.

P.P.S 

Check out this FREE energizing yoga practice

Check out this FREE nighttime yoga practice

And connect to your power with this FREE practice.