Power is about knowing what we stand for, breathing it into every activity of the day, and being clear.–Phoebe Eng

There is no static Right Answer to hide under or hide behind. There is no unchanging Right Answer that will guide us through the darker nights of our soul’s twisted journey. Right Answers are relative. Right Answers are contextual. Regurgitating Right Answers is a trap and leads us only to someone else’s truth; a false truth. In order to access the Right Answer for this moment we must be able to hold space for deep contemplation. Wednesday, May 14th, brings us a hefty full moon in Scorpio conjoined Saturn. If Saturn wants us to do anything, it’s to develop the strength of character it takes to separate out from the herd long enough to learn the fine art of contemplation. Saturn has that kind of strength. When used to enhance our individuation, Saturn is the cornerstone of personal growth. Saturn creates boundaries that engender the ability to focus on our own dreams instead of being lost in the soup of societies. When we work with Saturn consciously it helps us to create distinction, definition and safety via healthy boundaries and emotional containment. When we are tricked by Saturn’s sternness we might think that there are “Right Rules” to rigidly adhere to; forgoing human needs and the kind of sensitivity that the moment may call for. When we are tricked by Saturn’s heaviness we can buy into the perceived solid reality around us and forget about the energetic current that infuses all matter, including ourselves. When we give away our Saturn and project it onto others we give away our authority instead of developing a deeper reliance on it. We end up a sheep in a herd of other sheep following a deranged shepherd to our demise.  

Scorpio brings individual parts together to pair, to mate and to experience the intensity of life’s unions. Scorpio doesn’t shy away from the gory realities of living and dying; Scorpio moves towards those experiences. The sturdiest of the water signs, Scorpio has a need or tendency to live through experiences that resemble a process of dying and being reborn. This is not easy terrain. This is about the complexities of loss, the integration of pain, the understanding of suffering and living with the knowledge that death is eminent.  Scorpio needs to understand power dynamics: who has it, how does one get it, what can be done with it? Scorpio loves secrets, mysteries and delving into the complexities of the psyche. 

In one of the most important discussions in recent weeks on identity politics, feminism and African American liberation, The New School hosted bell hooks, Janet Mock, Shola Lynch, and Marci Blackman on a panel entitled “Are You Still a Slave?” In it Shola Lynch gives her interpretation of Harriet Tubman as an action hero and central character of her next film. When describing the many facets of Tubman’s brilliance, Ms. Lynch explains that Tubman used society’s low expectation of her as a black woman and a slave as a weapon against them. Tubman utilized an invisibility cloak as a way to maneuver through white supremacy; to outsmart the very system that had claimed ownership over her and her ancestors. She used white perception of her to transgress the systemic power that they held. If there is an explanation of the kind of strategic intelligence and understanding of power dynamics that Scorpio possesses, this is it. 

Saturn can often bring despair, which is a valid response to tragedy. But Saturn can also deliver us into refusal, resistance and resilience.

Harriet Tubman is famous for her motto “Live free or die trying.” As Venus squares Pluto moments before the full moon and conjoins Uranus a day later there could be no better motto than this one. Venus is about relating. When the planet of connection snuggles up to Uranus, the Dude Lady who breaks all social norms (interrupts and disrupts stagnant patterns of conformity and invents new things, destabilizing old ones), we know we are onto something out of the ordinary. This is Queer terrain. To me the term Queer has little to do with who has sex with whom or who falls in love with whom in a sense. Queer is an orientation to sex itself. Queer connotes a positive relationship to the body as it is; in the face of a society that wants to commodify, devalue, use, abuse and toss most non-white, non – “male”and poor bodies’ aside. Queer values community above commerce, art above capitalism and freedom above conformity. Queer doesn’t fit into much modern, western society. Queer tries to see the inequality that exists and what our part in propagating it may be. Queer celebrates and acknowledges difference, resistance and refusal of what is harmful to the flourishing of all life. Queer knows that when one suffers, all suffer. Queer knows that this capitalism is a death march. Queer comes from the heart and moves forth relentlessly.

When I see Venus coming to square Pluto and conjoin Uranus I think “What does a libratory (female) sexuality look like? Is it one that isn’t pandering to the male gaze but isn’t denying its own erotic self-expression either?” What does it look like to celebrate all expressions of sexuality without exploiting it? Is it possible given this broken system that we are trying to function in (or overthrow as the case may be). Of course on a very personal level (and isn’t all of this politicking deeply personal?) this is another go round of getting real with our tendencies in relationship and a chance to reinvent how we relate to relating. With the overtly sexual energy of a full moon in Scorpio, tethered by the Guru of Guidelines, Saturn yet infused by the wild, unpredictable and transformative erotic energy of Venus entering a ménage a trios with Pluto and Uranus, this month full moon is not about to let any of us off the hook. 

There is no Right Answer, but there might be Right Action. Peering deeply and in Scorpio’s honor, intensely, into our own hearts so that we may come know ourselves intimately might be one. With the power of contemplation that only Saturn can bring we might just come into contact with our own needs, separate from what the corporations tell us they are. Heartened by a self-knowledge we have a chance to understand our own worth and in discovering that we have no choice but to value every inch of ourselves which may just be the queerest thing there is to do.   

Full Moon Blessings, 

Chani