October’s Taurus Blue Moon is rare and unusual for a number of reasons. Not only is it a Blue Moon, but it also falls on Samhain/Halloween this year, a day when traditionally the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. This makes it potentially significant for those looking for signs/omens/messages from spirit, or who may be wanting to strengthen their connection to their guides, masters or higher self. (In which case, you won’t be disappointed: see the section below on the Fixed Star Hamal and its connection to both the concept of sovereignty and the Tree of Life).
As if that weren’t enough, the Moon will also make a close aspect to the planet of shocks and surprises, Uranus. No wonder then that some astrologers have dubbed this particular soli-lunar event as the ‘October Surprise’. The result? Plot twists, unexpected news, developments and breakthroughs of all kinds, including internal shifts that help you to see personal circumstances or situations in a new light. There may be a connection to the Rose Moon lunar eclipse in July, so look back for connections.
There could also be awakenings or wake-up calls within significant relationships, if the Hunters Moon love tarot reading I did on YouTube is anything to go by, so if that resonates with you, then you may want to have a watch. Links are below in the video section, as well as in the newsletter.
An exalted Moon (Taurus is where the Moon is most dignified) also paves the way for positive developments and opportunities for greater abundance and wellbeing. Here the Sabian symbol for this particular degree is asking us to look back to the plans and intentions we seeded at the Taurus New Moon in April, whilst also connecting us forward in time to the 2020 winter solstice, thus bringing together past, present and future via a single metaphor – that of the world tree/tree of life, something I discuss in more detail below.
Overall, then, the next two weeks are likely to be a thrilling but changeable time, when the air crackles with energy and a nervous excitement ripples through the collective consciousness. The key to navigating this rather volatile period is to adopt an open-minded attitude, stay open to the opportunities and fresh possibilities that change can bring and keep your eye on the bigger picture. Change is inevitable and can be scary, but can also bring about some much-needed, positive shifts – one of the key messages to emerge from the Full Moon geoscope.
Given what an eventful time this is, I have decided to do a more general forecast and geoscope in my November 2020 videocast, so check that out if you are interested – I have embedded it at the bottom of this page for those who prefer to stay on the site. For those keen to know how this particular lunar phase is likely to be expressed for them personally, be sure to consult my breakdown graphic below.
MAJOR THEMES
An exalted Moon (Taurus is where the Moon is most dignified) paves the way for positive developments and opportunities for greater abundance and wellbeing. With Uranus in the mix, these may appear, almost out of nowhere, possibly catching you off-guard. However, the truth is that these are actually the result of the seeds you planted around the time of the 444 Gateway – the harvest being reaped from all your hard work and efforts since the April 2020 Taurus New Moon. Here, there is a strong link to the image of the world tree/tree of life, along with all the metaphors surrounding the cycles of nature – something that is highlighted by the Sabian Symbol for this particular degree – more on which below.
During this particular two-week cycle, brother and sister planets, Mercury and Venus will also travelling quite closely together: both ingress into Libra on October 28. Mercury will also turn direct on November 3, the day of the US Presidential Election, which together with the Sun-Uranus opposition activated by this Full Moon, could lead to a few unexpected developments on the world stage. I do intend to write more about this on my AstroInsights Blog, so if you are interested in mundane astrology, then look out for that.
On a personal level, the next few weeks of the waning moon cycle may also be a time to reassess with whom – and how – you connect and communicate. If anything feels off-centre or out of balance, then now may be a good time to make some changes to ensure greater equality, fairness or reciprocity between you and others. In many ways, this is a continuation of the themes from the last two lunar phases in Aries and Libra, but may also have links to the Pink Supermoon in Libra in early April.
Uranus, with its focus on technology, may also be asking you to reassess your daily diet of online media, as well as habitual use of communication tools like smartphones or technology platforms such as social media. Again, this harks back to the equinox when Saturn ingressed into Aquarius – themes that we will return to again in December when both Jupiter and Saturn will move into the sign of humane technology, liberty, equality and fraternity.
Mars is also due to end its retrograde spell in mid-November, after which we all get the green light to start moving forward, so it’s a good idea to use this time to plan, strategise and recalibrate in preparation for the New Moon in Scorpio on November 15 – and the start of 2020’s third and final eclipse season!
Sign
Sabian Symbol
The Sabian symbol for the Taurus Blue Moon centres around the themes of vertical or spiritual growth, our inter-connectedness with both the natural world and the cosmos, as well as hope in times of darkness. I think it worth pointing out that the Christmas tree is usually evergreen (it never sheds its leaves) and when illuminated by decorative lights or candles, it shines into the gloom of cold, dark winters’ evenings. I also can’t help pointing out that most Christmas trees have an angel or star on the top, which reminds me of the star trinket that came out as one of the take home messages of the geoscope I did as part of the Hunter’s Moon videocast (see below).
Tree symbolism has been constellating strongly for me since the April New Moon in Taurus, when the image of the Great Tree made its appearance in my video forecast in the Splendor Solis tarot trump of the Hierophant (see right). It then reappeared at the Lion’s Gate Portal in connection with both the I Ching reading that I did and the I AM project initiated by Matias De Stefano on 4 August – his birthday and right in the centre of window for the opening of that portal (see the image, taken from his IG feed, below). I find the overlaps between his information and my own work fascinating: Does the below image not look like the four angles in an astrological chart with the Tree of Life, providing the vertical link between macrocosm and microcosm, at its centre? (anyone who knows me will attest to my obsession with four-fold motifs in astrology) I certainly took it as a big confirmation and sign to pay attention to this symbolism.
The sacred tree is one of the oldest themes in ancient Near Eastern art. Some scholars have suggested that the sacred tree symbolized life; others interpret it as a symbolic representation of the king. The earliest depictions of the sacred tree were naturalistic. Later artists, including those working for Assyrian kings, favored forms that seem more ornamental than real. The palmette at the crown of the tree has been interpreted to represent the frond of a date palm, and the tree itself is associated with the goddess Ishtar, a fertility deity and goddess of the date harvest.
Brooklyn Museum
This theme now continues via the current Sabian symbol in the form of a Christmas tree. For me, this provides an archetypal and energetic link between the April equinox and the 2020 winter solstice in December – two of the four annual stations of the Sun, which are represented on a macrocosmic level in the crop circle (right). Now, as I have said in several of my videocasts, I do see December as being a very significant time for the planet, thanks to the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction that occurs on the 21st – the day of the solstice – and exactly a week after the last eclipse for 2020 – a total solar eclipse in Sagittarius.
More on this as we get closer to the next set of eclipses, but needless to say, I think we can take this as a sign that although everything seems very chaotic right now – a feeling being added to by Uranus at this particular Full Moon – everything is unfolding exactly as it should. I would therefore not be surprised if we get further confirmation from spirit along these lines, either around the time of the Hunter’s Moon, which as I said, could coincide with some big reveals, or during eclipse season. So watch this space.
As I wrote about in my Taurus New Moon forecast. the Tree of Life also features in the tarot image of the Hanged Man, who is hanging upside from a t-shaped tree, which I saw as being connected to Plato’s concept of inversion as a way of describing our back to front way of viewing reality through the lens of materialism.
Interestingly, there is also a connection between trees and kingship/sovereignty and the fixed stars aspected by the Moon and Uranus at the Blue Moon. See the Fixed Stars section below for details.
Fixed Stars
At the Hunter’s Blue Moon, the Moon and Uranus will form a conjunction to two fixed stars – Hamal, which is associated with independence and the desire to march to the beat of one’s own drum; as well as Schedir/Schedar, which many astrologers interpret as the Queen and therefore link to female power. I have been working on an article related to this topic since around April, so won’t dwell on it here, but look out for it in the near future on the Astro-Insights blog.
Hamal: Kings, Djed Pillars & the Tree of Life
What I find so fascinating, given the tree symbolism that seems to be constellating via the Sabian symbolism (see above), is that in some cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia, the cradle of astrology, Hamal appears to have links, not just to the mythical kings from the mysterious Sumerian king list – described as demigods with heavenly connections who were said to have reigned collectively prior to the great flood describe in Noah, for over 240,000 years – but also to the image of a tree, or wooden post made from oak.
According to Richard Hinckley Allen (Star Names, 1889. p.80), Hamal is connected to the first of these kings, whose historical existence has been verified by archaelogical evidence which links him to a ruler known as Enmebaragesi of Kish, who reigned around 2600 BC – more or less when this star formed part of the constellation (sidereal Aries) that rose heliacally at the spring equinox (from approx. 2000 – 100 BCE).
According to one source, the star Hamal is associated with:
Aloros [Alulim], the first of the ten mythical kings of Akkad anterior to the Deluge, the duration of whose reigns proportionately coincided with the distances apart of the ten chief ecliptic stars beginning with Hamal, and he deduces from this kingly title the Assyrian Ailuv, and the Hebrew Ayil (ayil — mighty (man), lintel, oak, post, ram, tree).
Notice that there seems to be a connection between the king and the tree of life or axis mundi. This reminds me of the connection between Osiris, the Egyptian king and fertility god, and the Djed pillar, a mysterious symbol consisting of a wide column with three or four horizontal crossbars that some have compared to a tree. It is possible that this is a metaphor rooted in the idea of the king as being the spiritual pillar that connects heaven and earth and is therefore the middle or central conduit that ensures life force energy can flow between the celestial and material realms – a concept that survived well into medieval times via the ‘chain of being’ and the divine right of kings.
What I find ultra fascinating is that Vivian Robson claims that certain kabbalah practitioners linked this star to both ‘the Hebrew letter He and the 5th Tarot Trump “The Pope,”‘ which brings us full circle back to the image of the Great Tree (above), from the Splendor Solis tarot.
Kings, Crowns, Stars and Sovereignty
in his analysis of the motif shown below, one of a series of carved panels originally situated in the throne room of the Assyrian King, Ashurnasipal II, Sima Parpola seems to think so too:
…the Tree here represents the divine world order maintained by the king as the representative of the god Assur, embodied in the winged disk hovering above the Tree.
Sima Parpola
However, he goes on to add that in some of the accompanying scenes from the same series, the king appears to take the place of the tree, leading him to add:
Whatever the precise implications of this fact, it is evident that in such scenes the king is portrayed as the human personification of the Tree. Thus if the Tree symbolized the divine world order, then the king himself represented the realization of that order in man, in other words, a true image of God, the Perfect Man.
Sima Parpola
In other words, the microcosmic mirror image of the cosmos – a whole being that is aligned vertically and connected, via the channel of his crown chakra, to his Higher Self, as symbolised alchemically, by the marriage of Sun and Moon.
As I have written in previous forecasts, we see a similar metaphor being employed in relation to Christ/Dionysos. Given that in some depictions, the tree has six nodes on either side that culminate in a seventh central one on the top, it may also be a figurative depiction of the body of light with its six front and rear chakras that converge into a single node in the crown area. Here the crown, of course, is the link connecting all these concepts – kingship, sovereignty and the star at the top of the Christmas tree, which in turn, converges into my feature on the fixed star Alphecca (corona borealis) which was so prominent at the Taurus New Moon in April.
Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, all this symmetry of connecting symbolism and lunar cycles certainly seems to suggest that all is well and unfolding exactly as it should. A great big confirmation or sign, if ever I saw one!
Key Aspects
Moon-Uranus conjunction
it also makes a close aspect to the planet of shocks and surprises, Uranus. No wonder then that some astrologers have dubbed this particular soli-lunar event as the ‘October Surprise’. The result? Plot twists, unexpected developments and breakthroughs of all kinds.
As we saw in my Hunter’s Moon love reading, it is also likely to be a time of emotional awakenings and psychological aha moments, when we either realise how we feel about someone, or know intuitively that a romantic or personal situation needs to end.
Uranus is also a great catalyst to help us break out of emotional ruts, kick unhealthy habits or get going again in areas where we may have become stuck. This process is being aided by Mercury and Mars retrograde, along with the Sun’s position in penetrating Scorpio. it’s the perfect time to take a breathe and reassess your priorities, identifying areas of your life where you may need to press the reset button such as connections, cash, creativity or lifestyle matters.
This particular lunar phase also occurs very close to the US Presidential Elections on November 3, so it’s also possible that a sudden and unexpected development may affect the outcome. It may be significant that the Moon, symbol of the people, is conjunct Uranus, which was discovered during the period of the French Revolution and is therefore a symbol of democracy, – and that both will be opposite the Sun, symbol of the current leader or ruler…I will be posting an astrological commentary on the election on my AstroInsights Blog, so look out for it if you enjoy political astrology.
Videos
HUNTER’S MOON RELATIONSHIP READING – Watch it on my YouTube channel.
COSMIC WEATHER FORECAST: Videocast consisting of Astrological Headline summary + a Geoscope to gauge the major themes and cosmic energies for the next two weeks. (Watch below)
