By Amanda Painter

This week’s astrology is building to a Full Moon in Scorpio on Sunday evening. We’re approaching that event while riding on the energetic coattails of an aspect that has to do with the constructive and destructive uses of power. So if you feel like your week has been marked by things like interpersonal conflict, or situations where you’re having to work hard to figure out the best ways to express yourself and take decisive action, this could be why.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Today’s aspect, which has been coloring the week thus far, is the conjunction in Capricorn between Mars and Pluto. You can read a little more about that in this week’s Monday Astrology Diary. One hallmark of this aspect is the need to be aware that you’re thinking primarily about your own best interests — in terms of changes that you want to make — while figuring out how your interests and those of others are interdependent. Then you can do some heavy lifting to accomplish a lot.

Similarly, the chart for the Scorpio Full Moon on Sunday shows a need to take action. At 8:58 pm EDT (00:58 UTC Monday), the Moon in early Scorpio makes its exact opposition to the Sun in Taurus (the Full Moon). The Sun and Moon are also square the lunar nodes. Put most simply, the lunar nodes are two hypothetical points related to the Moon’s orbit.

Having the Scorpio Moon and the Taurus Sun making right angles to the North Node in Leo and the South Node in Aquarius this Sunday means that we’re approximately halfway between eclipse seasons. You might take some time to think about what decisions you made and what actions you took between late January and mid-February, when the last pair of eclipses occurred.

Did you get any special projects underway? Did you set your sights on a particular vision for the direction of your life? Could you feel yourself begin to shed or release something (such as an idea about yourself, or a habit or pattern of behavior) around that time?

If so, you might be able to see ways that you can move that process forward now. Notice whether the activities and goals you’re currently investing the bulk of your energy in currently relate to choices you made in early February.

This Full Moon looks like an especially effective time to turn a corner in those realms of your life and the processes involved. With the Moon, Sun and lunar nodes arranged as they are, they’re in a pattern called a grand cross in the fixed signs. (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius are the fixed signs.) All grand crosses are considered aspect patterns of strength, because they indicate obstacles that demand action. According to Isabel Hickey, a grand cross in fixed signs specifically needs an emotional outlet in some self-expressive way.

To get some insight into what that self-expressive emotional outlet might look like, there are a few details we can look at. The Sabian symbols for 10 Taurus and 10 Scorpio (the locations of the Sun and Moon) offer clues. In Dane Rudhyar’s version of this set of zodiac symbols, both of these degrees emphasize a connection to humanity, compassion and comradeship.

Heaven knows that we could use more of that in our highly polarized, digitally hypnotized, uber-political and hyper-reactive world. With the Sun in physical, emotional, sensual Taurus, and the Moon in deeply sensitive, incisive, transformative Scorpio, we have an image of what’s required to be emotionally self-expressive in a way that is humane, compassionate, and connected to others: first, we need to feel connected within ourselves. You have to be fully present in your body: attuned to its physical sensations and its presence in space, and aware of how it interacts with others. You also must be willing to feel your emotions rather than repress them, and let them inform your choices in healthy ways that allow you to process them, release them and then move on — having been changed for the better.

Increasingly, this seems to be getting harder for people. I’m not sure it’s ever been ‘easy’, but the more we live our lives on digital media — rather than with face-to-face or even voice-to-voice contact — the more intimidating it can seem to be.

I think we find a symbol of assistance with this in the form of a newly named object called Lempo, which is closely conjunct the Sun in Taurus during the Full Moon. Lempo was named after a Finnish fertility and fire goddess whose importance and meaning got dragged through the mud by early Christianity. In this chart, Lempo seems to herald the approach of the Pagan cross-quarter day of Beltane in early May — a celebration of the juiciest, most embodied thing associated with both Taurus and Scorpio: sex.

Yet Lempo also appears to have a Vesta-like quality to it, particularly in this chart. That is, both Lempo and the shape of the square made by the fixed grand cross speak to the idea of holding space for important — even sacred — action to take place. And that action needs to be centered on keeping your inner flame (of creativity, of sexuality, of your humanity itself) burning brightly. As the French might put it, expressing your joie de vivre (or ‘joy of life’).

Lempo is very new to our awareness in astrology, however. Which means that with it so closely involved with an event like a Full Moon (Lempo is only a fraction of a degree from the Sun), it’s wise to watch for events that may bear its signature to fine-tune its interpretation. If it fires up your determination to live with embodied passion, compassion and connection to others, all the better.