Full Moon in Scorpio – May 2, 2007, 10:09 UT

AT THE MOMENT of any Full Moon, the Sun and the Moon, a pair of masculine and feminine, or yang and yin symbols in the chart, are opposite each other, face to face. On this Full Moon they are in signs which are ruled by another pair of masculine and feminine symbols, Mars and Venus, our inner polar opposites. The Sun in Taurus is ruled by Venus, and the Moon in Scorpio is ruled by Mars, the traditional ruler of Scorpio.

The Sun is conjunct two planets: Mercury, the androgynous messenger god, and centaur planet Thereus. In mythology Thereus was a centaur who used to catch bears and carry them into the home cave angry and alive. Another centaur planet, Nessus, forms a T-square with the Sun-Moon opposition. The Sun septiles Mars.

Mercury in Taurus and Venus in Gemini are in mutual reception. When two planets are occupying one another’s signs, the situation is called mutual reception and the planets in question can switch places.

Two main belt asteroids representing the same mythological figure, the same energy, Bacchus and Dionysus, are in tight conjunction with Venus and Mars, respectively. Venus and Mars are in square aspect to each other. A square is a tense aspect showing frustration and demanding action.

In Greek mythology, Dionysus was the god of wine, fertility and ecstasy, equivalent to the Roman Bacchus. He was androgynous, usually depicted as a young, attractive and feminine man, wearing a crown made of vine leaves and grapes and holding a staff. He was also known as the Liberator. He traveled from land to land, taught people the art of making wine and spread drunken ecstasy everywhere he went. He was followed by singing, noisy, unruly revellers, many of them women. Festivals held in his honor were called Bacchanalia.

Wildness, divine inspiration, excess, peak experiences, pushing things past the limits, altered states, intoxication, alcohol, drugs, escapism and victimization are all attributes that can be associated with Bacchus/Dionysus. The archetype has lot in common with Neptune.

Venus and Bacchus are opposing Jupiter and Pluto, and trining Neptune. Venus-Bacchus conjunction in Gemini, Mars-Dionysus conjunction in Pisces, and Jupiter in Sagittarius form a T-square. Mars and Uranus are in parallel conjunction. Saturn is opposite Chiron and Neptune. Retrograding Vesta at the Great Attractor squares the lunar nodes.

Centaur planet Pholus in Sagittarius and cubewano Chaos in Gemini form a long ongoing opposition between the years 2007 and 2012. A T-square formed by asteroid Psyche, Pholus and Chaos has been active already several weeks now and is still valid.

There is a connection between Pholus and Dionysus in mythology. Pholus was the son of Silenus, who was a drinker and Dionysus’s tutor. Pholus had in his possession a jar of wine, which was a gift from Dionysus and common property of all the centaurs. Hercules visited his friend Pholus and asked for wine. Pholus, who was supposed to guard the wine, opened the jar, and other centaurs in the neighborhood became intoxicated with the smell. The result was a huge riot and chaos, and many of the centaurs were wounded (including Chiron) or lost their lives.

Melanie Reinhart mentions in Saturn, Chiron and the Centaurs: To the Edge and Beyond that apparently, when centaur planet Pholus was first discovered, it was almost called “Chaos” by the International Astronomical Union. (Pholus was discovered in 1992 and Chaos in 1998.) She writes: “So the Saturn-Neptune dilemma is characteristic of the energy of Pholus: the conflict between order and chaos, between duty and release, between control and ecstasy.”

There is a lot of Neptunian haze floating around in the chart. Asteroid Achilles is in exact conjunction to the minute with Neptune himself.

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