Full Moon of Transformative Merging in Scorpio with Stinkhorns and Saprotrophs
Welcome to the Full Moon of Transformative Merging in 27° 39' Scorpio, Earth's 11th Full Moon of our lunar year on Saturday, May 18, 2019 (14:11 PST). During one of the most powerful Full Moons of the year, we balance on the the Taurus/Scorpio axis of life/death, simplicity/complexity, embodiment/transformation. Scorpio's most powerful lesson is to let go emotionally and to feel pain, life, and death throughout the subtle energies of your fruiting body. Through this experience we can expand our ability to love and for intense merging with others in energetic and emotional dimensions. Saprotrophs are death's unseen helpers, recomposing 90% of all life from decay to rebirth. Stinkhorn essence describes a spiritual penetration that unites us as an all-attracting cosmic magnet that unites polarities and intricacies. Stinkhorns also also reminds our yang-dominating society that to be direct about what you feel and want is an exchange of fluid energy, not an emotionless violence.
This Full Moon is also known as the Wesak Moon, or the Festival of the Buddha, which happens during the first Full Moon in the Taurus Season. While often associated with Buddha and enlightenment, Wesak marks a time for rapid spiritual development for people and healers from many disciplines. Wesak is a universal high point of the spiritual year when immense energy or divine light pours into the planet and every living thing.
During Wesak, the Buddha makes an annual appearance in a Himalayan valley and enacts a water ceremony before his other Divine brothers, sisters, and gender-non-conforming family of kin. This year we have the opportunity to enact our own deeply transformative water ceremony with the Full Moon in a Water Sign. Scorpio's deep watery wisdom of complexity is turning up the volume on the subtle vibrations that are like the memory foam imprints of everything our energetic body touches. The foam carries a physical imprint or a resonance into the energetic universe. Much like water, or sound, or mycelial growth, the waves carry out with momentum and their vibration creates a connective unity that moves emotions, energy (blocked and that which is already dynamic), and intuition. In other words, the movement of energy is an adaptation or transformation of energy. And for something to transform means it experiences a death and rebirth.
The moment of the Buddha's appearance is characterized by a great silence. The pure channel of light in alignment with the Taurus season penetrates into hearts and minds, connecting us as one great cosmic magnet. We understand and more consciously embody how we live in bodies to which our soul naturally belongs.
The Full Moon aspects describe energies influencing this cycle's illuminations. Venus and Uranus are conjunct in the first few degrees of Taurus. Our imprints are attracting innovation and ingenuity. The Moon is sextile Saturn and Pluto so there's a strong likelihood that some hidden information or unconscious ideas and will surface. We might feel rewarded or "leveled-up" by the the acceptance of power and duty. The Moon is opposite Mercury so our minds are restless and nervous systems may not be functioning at their best.
May 15th marks Venus (planet of love and connectivity) transcending willful Aries and entering transit through earth-centered, sensual Taurus until June 8th, continuing our streak of Taurus energy into the end of springtime. On the same day, Mars (the planet of doing) dances from Gemini to Cancer (until July 1). The ways we act and initiate movement are entering the zodiac sign of the home and how we became the person that we are always becoming. Transparency and honesty are powerful in this domain. Homelife is definitely seeing some action.
May 21st sees the shift of Zodiac season into airy, inquisitive Gemini. Mercury, the planet of the mind and communication also moves into its home sign of Gemini. There is a fair amount of "connecting the dots" energy that stimulates our curiosity and communication with others.
Scorpio Full Moon May 18, 2019 MycoAstrological Associations:
1) Saprotrophic fungi : transformation, death, sex, rebirth, nursing, subtle energies, digestion, power, fear, cosmic connection, truth, uncertainty
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Mars; Secondary Planet: Saturn; Day: Tuesday; Main Organ: Blood; 2nd Organ: Gallbladder; System: Immune; Tissue: Muscles/Tendons; Action: Hot/Dry
2) Stinkhorn (Phallacae family): unity, revolution, forgiveness, womb, control, gender identity, empathy, hero's journey
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Saturn; Secondary Planet: Venus; Day: Saturday; Main Organ: Spleen; 2nd Organ: Bone/Joint; System: Skeletal/Structural; Tissue: Bones; Action: Cold/Dry
During this Scorpio Full Moon water ceremony we call in the seen and unseen helpers. Living, moving, eating, singing, and dancing primarily underneath the ground or inside vascular plants, fungi are arguably the most important unseen helpers on our planet. Fungi are also some of the most radical change-makers and gatekeepers of nature who permeate the whole globe from sand dunes to arctic tundra to rich soil to the depths of the oceans through their mycelial webs.
At the same time, fungi have been some of the most feared and mystical creatures in our world. While many cultures have revered the medicinal uses, edibility, and cultural value of mushrooms, many peoples have ignored the mushroom's healing qualities and ecological and social relevance. Ultimately, to fear fungi, death, and the recompositions they create is to fear the essential transformative force of the feminine, or yin. If we call in a container of light for this water ceremony, eventually even the shadows become attracted to the light.
Scorpio Full Moon shines upon the raw, emotional, intuition, and the subtle vibrations that pervade our cellular experience of life. Scorpio is one of the signs with the most apparent associations to the transformative and regenerative teachings of the fungus. Scorpio's waves are tuned into the wisdom of complexity, death, extremes, and transformation. Scorpio, as with all water signs (Pisces and Cancer), has a negative feminine or yin polarity. In other words, Scorpio's way of life is based on the need for water, the most vital necessity for living things.
This Full Moon represents the development and lighting-up of the energies and intentions of our last New Moon of Ancient Rooting in Taurus on May 4th. The earth-centered wisdom of our elders, and the heart-centered wisdom of our earth encourages us to live slowly, simply, and through our senses. Our feet are on the ground and our heads in the stars. An invitation read...
"You who have bodies --
Be. Breathe. Dance, cry, laugh.
Remember your roots
and the delicacies of your foot.
A sprinkle of thyme to
replace your time adrift.
We are all here."
Now this Full Scorpio Moon illuminates how we have carried that invitation. As with any Full Moon, it might illuminate fulfillment or tension and conflicts, depending on the path taken since the previous New Moon.
1) Saprotrophic fungi : transformation, death, sex, rebirth, nursing, subtle energies, digestion, power, fear, cosmic connection, truth, uncertainty
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Mars; Secondary Planet: Saturn; Day: Tuesday; Main Organ: Blood; 2nd Organ: Gallbladder; System: Immune; Tissue: Muscles/Tendons; Action: Hot/Dry
Saprotrophic fungi, or "death eaters", are the fungi that recompose life, performing 90% of all decomposition on Earth. Recomposition is one of the most valuable lessons the fungi teach us for healing. Scorpio, zodiac number 8, is the sign of sex and death; complexity, connection, and transformation. Scorpio and Taurus inhabit two sides of the same axis in the zodiac wheel. While Taurus represents the side of life, growth, sensuality, and simplicity, on the other side of the axis, Scorpio symbolizes decay, vibrations, instincts, and wounds.
Scorpio reminds us that to live depends on feeling life and living in the feeling realm. Many secrets lie in the depth of the oceans that we cannot understand with our minds alone. Changeable water shape-shifts from bobbing ice, to a flowing river, to steam evaporating and recycling into yet another form. Scorpio, the Scorpion who stayed behind when the ocean dried out, is both the product and instigator of evolution. As pure water (a yin element) on our the so called "blue planet", becomes more scarce, how is our evolution changing?
Saprotrophic fungi are the key regulators to nutrient recycling on our planet, allowing organisms to access once unavailable nutrients like phosphorus and CO2. They include the molds that break down foods, Chytrids that consume pollen, the recyclers of animal and plant matter, destroyers of human-made materials and toxins, and creators of nursery logs that feed future generations of trees and symbiotic organisms using them as new homes. At the beach of every shore exists a mycelial bridge that bridges us to another birth.
Fungi take in nutrients and transform these substances into new compounds that other species can use to survive. The different types of fungal decomposition cycles include epiphytes (initiating decomposition of fallen leaves), heart rot (fungi that grow through interior of living trees, but do not consume the outer cambium layers, keeping the tree as host for diversity of animals, insects, and birds), white rot (fungi that degrade lignin and cellulose), brown rot (fungi that degrade cellulose, leaving most of the tree's lignin behind resulting in a natural sponge that holds water and nutrients providing refuge for insects and microbes), and soft rot fungi (mostly soil-dwelling fungi in damp areas that eat cellulose and hemicellulose but can also degrade lignin slowly; imagine the ones eating window frames and decaying fence posts).
Fungi have long been connected with the underworld. The Latin origin of the root fungus denotes its macabre association, funus for "corpse" and ago for "I make". In ancient Arabian texts, fungi were seen to be half-alive; somewhere between mineral and plant. 16th Century herbalists posited that mushrooms existed between animate and inanimate states. Fungi are bridges between lands of light and dark. Fairy Rings, featured in the New Moon of March 20th 2019, have been some of the most mythically involved fungi that bridge two worlds.
A scorpion is a poisonous creature that can paralyze its victims with a single strike of its tail. Selket was an Ancient Egyptian scorpion-goddess who was the protectress of the dead and she can be seen on the walls of tombs with her wings spread in protection.
Mythically, Scorpio is related to many the tellings of Orion's death. In one retelling, Orion boasted to goddess Artemis and her mother Leto that he would kill every living creature on earth. Artemis and Leto sent a huge scorpion to show Orion how they felt about that. One version is that Orion tried to rape Diana, so she brought a giant scorpion out of the earth that stung Orion to death.
As so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
-- Goethe, "The Holy Longing"
Scorpio and fungi help us tune into the continuity of our energetic universe and the temporality of our physicality. To grow is to change the frequencies, to experience a death so we can rebirth anew.
Scientists have also can see that death is genetically programmed into life. Apoptosis is the way that multicellular organisms are "pre-programmed' for death. Many of our healthy cells need to die in order for the overall health and optimal growth for the organism. This selective cell death even happens in utero as our limbs and organ systems develop, and it continuous throughout our lives. At different rates, all of our cells, including those of our stomach, skin, muscles, nerve, blood, and bones, live for a time and then die, and are replaced by new cells. On the other hand, immortality in our cells is cancer. Cancer cells do not receive the message that growing and dividing needs to be in service of a larger whole and therefore modulated, regulated as needed. Scorpio, fungi, and our cells teach us that we die a little each day, just as we are being born a little each day. We have been dying from the beginning.
2) Stinkhorn (Phallacae family): unity, revolution, forgiveness, womb, control, gender identity, empathy, hero's journey
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Saturn; Secondary Planet: Venus; Day: Saturday; Main Organ: Spleen; 2nd Organ: Bone/Joint; System: Skeletal/Structural; Tissue: Bones; Action: Cold/Dry
Scorpio rules the genitals and the mucous membranes in the body. Stinkhorns are the phallic looking fungi that help free our ideas of stereotypical pathways. Stinkhorns essence helps both the feminine and masculine connect with strength, passion, and meaning. Stinkhorns help realize the essential unity between yin and yang and eternal commingling with each other.
Phallacae is a family of fungus commonly known as Stinkhorns. Stinkhorns have a worldwide distribution and are prevalent in tropical regions. They are known for their excrement-smelling sticky spore masses, or gleba, that attracts flies, beetles, and other insects to help disperse spores. The idea of attracting spore-dispersal or attracting transformation is much more yin than yang. The idea of seeking transformation is the outward yang. Even though Stinkhorns look like a male reproductive organ, it doesn't mean that they solely exist in the realm of the yang. Stinkhorns remind us that with each fruiting body, there is a divine, fluid, and constantly changing mixture of yin and yang forces. As earth receives a divine download during this Full Moon, penetration of the united cosmic magnet into our hearts and heads can jolt us into transforming our soul connections. Live in the realm of the vast ocean, where waves commingle and flow between one another.
Mars has just stepped into Cancer, the receptive, sensitive, kind force expressed through emotions and seeks personal relationships. Cancer is the cosmic collector, the den keeper, and zen mother. Her most important learning is to be direct about what you feel and want. The penetrating theme of the Common Stinkhorn reminds to our contemporary, yang-dominating society that to be direct about what you feel and want is not an abrasive or emotionless exchange.
The placement of Mars and Pluto (Scorpio's ruling planets) in the houses of your individual natal charts are telling in how this transformative energy is taking place. These houses might show where strong passions and desires or marked increase of intensity and a heightened sensitivity are unfolding. This is a time for intense merging with another on a deep emotional level. Remember to forgive and forget. Scorpio's most powerful lesson is to let go emotionally and to feel pain, life, and death throughout your body. Through this experience we can expand our ability to love.
This Full Moon is also known as the Wesak Moon, or the Festival of the Buddha, which happens during the first Full Moon in the Taurus Season. While often associated with Buddha and enlightenment, Wesak marks a time for rapid spiritual development for people and healers from many disciplines. Wesak is a universal high point of the spiritual year when immense energy or divine light pours into the planet and every living thing.
During Wesak, the Buddha makes an annual appearance in a Himalayan valley and enacts a water ceremony before his other Divine brothers, sisters, and gender-non-conforming family of kin. This year we have the opportunity to enact our own deeply transformative water ceremony with the Full Moon in a Water Sign. Scorpio's deep watery wisdom of complexity is turning up the volume on the subtle vibrations that are like the memory foam imprints of everything our energetic body touches. The foam carries a physical imprint or a resonance into the energetic universe. Much like water, or sound, or mycelial growth, the waves carry out with momentum and their vibration creates a connective unity that moves emotions, energy (blocked and that which is already dynamic), and intuition. In other words, the movement of energy is an adaptation or transformation of energy. And for something to transform means it experiences a death and rebirth.
The moment of the Buddha's appearance is characterized by a great silence. The pure channel of light in alignment with the Taurus season penetrates into hearts and minds, connecting us as one great cosmic magnet. We understand and more consciously embody how we live in bodies to which our soul naturally belongs.
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May 15th marks Venus (planet of love and connectivity) transcending willful Aries and entering transit through earth-centered, sensual Taurus until June 8th, continuing our streak of Taurus energy into the end of springtime. On the same day, Mars (the planet of doing) dances from Gemini to Cancer (until July 1). The ways we act and initiate movement are entering the zodiac sign of the home and how we became the person that we are always becoming. Transparency and honesty are powerful in this domain. Homelife is definitely seeing some action.
May 21st sees the shift of Zodiac season into airy, inquisitive Gemini. Mercury, the planet of the mind and communication also moves into its home sign of Gemini. There is a fair amount of "connecting the dots" energy that stimulates our curiosity and communication with others.
Scorpio Full Moon May 18, 2019 MycoAstrological Associations:
1) Saprotrophic fungi : transformation, death, sex, rebirth, nursing, subtle energies, digestion, power, fear, cosmic connection, truth, uncertainty
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Mars; Secondary Planet: Saturn; Day: Tuesday; Main Organ: Blood; 2nd Organ: Gallbladder; System: Immune; Tissue: Muscles/Tendons; Action: Hot/Dry
2) Stinkhorn (Phallacae family): unity, revolution, forgiveness, womb, control, gender identity, empathy, hero's journey
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Saturn; Secondary Planet: Venus; Day: Saturday; Main Organ: Spleen; 2nd Organ: Bone/Joint; System: Skeletal/Structural; Tissue: Bones; Action: Cold/Dry
During this Scorpio Full Moon water ceremony we call in the seen and unseen helpers. Living, moving, eating, singing, and dancing primarily underneath the ground or inside vascular plants, fungi are arguably the most important unseen helpers on our planet. Fungi are also some of the most radical change-makers and gatekeepers of nature who permeate the whole globe from sand dunes to arctic tundra to rich soil to the depths of the oceans through their mycelial webs.
At the same time, fungi have been some of the most feared and mystical creatures in our world. While many cultures have revered the medicinal uses, edibility, and cultural value of mushrooms, many peoples have ignored the mushroom's healing qualities and ecological and social relevance. Ultimately, to fear fungi, death, and the recompositions they create is to fear the essential transformative force of the feminine, or yin. If we call in a container of light for this water ceremony, eventually even the shadows become attracted to the light.
Scorpio Full Moon shines upon the raw, emotional, intuition, and the subtle vibrations that pervade our cellular experience of life. Scorpio is one of the signs with the most apparent associations to the transformative and regenerative teachings of the fungus. Scorpio's waves are tuned into the wisdom of complexity, death, extremes, and transformation. Scorpio, as with all water signs (Pisces and Cancer), has a negative feminine or yin polarity. In other words, Scorpio's way of life is based on the need for water, the most vital necessity for living things.
This Full Moon represents the development and lighting-up of the energies and intentions of our last New Moon of Ancient Rooting in Taurus on May 4th. The earth-centered wisdom of our elders, and the heart-centered wisdom of our earth encourages us to live slowly, simply, and through our senses. Our feet are on the ground and our heads in the stars. An invitation read...
"You who have bodies --
Be. Breathe. Dance, cry, laugh.
Remember your roots
and the delicacies of your foot.
A sprinkle of thyme to
replace your time adrift.
We are all here."
Now this Full Scorpio Moon illuminates how we have carried that invitation. As with any Full Moon, it might illuminate fulfillment or tension and conflicts, depending on the path taken since the previous New Moon.
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Mars; Secondary Planet: Saturn; Day: Tuesday; Main Organ: Blood; 2nd Organ: Gallbladder; System: Immune; Tissue: Muscles/Tendons; Action: Hot/Dry
 |
| Brown Rot, a type of Saprotrophic fungi (Kaltimber). |
Scorpio reminds us that to live depends on feeling life and living in the feeling realm. Many secrets lie in the depth of the oceans that we cannot understand with our minds alone. Changeable water shape-shifts from bobbing ice, to a flowing river, to steam evaporating and recycling into yet another form. Scorpio, the Scorpion who stayed behind when the ocean dried out, is both the product and instigator of evolution. As pure water (a yin element) on our the so called "blue planet", becomes more scarce, how is our evolution changing?
Saprotrophic fungi are the key regulators to nutrient recycling on our planet, allowing organisms to access once unavailable nutrients like phosphorus and CO2. They include the molds that break down foods, Chytrids that consume pollen, the recyclers of animal and plant matter, destroyers of human-made materials and toxins, and creators of nursery logs that feed future generations of trees and symbiotic organisms using them as new homes. At the beach of every shore exists a mycelial bridge that bridges us to another birth.
Fungi take in nutrients and transform these substances into new compounds that other species can use to survive. The different types of fungal decomposition cycles include epiphytes (initiating decomposition of fallen leaves), heart rot (fungi that grow through interior of living trees, but do not consume the outer cambium layers, keeping the tree as host for diversity of animals, insects, and birds), white rot (fungi that degrade lignin and cellulose), brown rot (fungi that degrade cellulose, leaving most of the tree's lignin behind resulting in a natural sponge that holds water and nutrients providing refuge for insects and microbes), and soft rot fungi (mostly soil-dwelling fungi in damp areas that eat cellulose and hemicellulose but can also degrade lignin slowly; imagine the ones eating window frames and decaying fence posts).
 |
| Ganoderma lucidum or Reishi mushrooms are an example of white rot fungi, degrading both lignin and cellulose (Mushroom-collecting.com) |
Mythically, Scorpio is related to many the tellings of Orion's death. In one retelling, Orion boasted to goddess Artemis and her mother Leto that he would kill every living creature on earth. Artemis and Leto sent a huge scorpion to show Orion how they felt about that. One version is that Orion tried to rape Diana, so she brought a giant scorpion out of the earth that stung Orion to death.
 |
| Ancient mushroom stones found in Maya tomb (Carl de Borhegyi). |
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
-- Goethe, "The Holy Longing"
Scorpio and fungi help us tune into the continuity of our energetic universe and the temporality of our physicality. To grow is to change the frequencies, to experience a death so we can rebirth anew.
Scientists have also can see that death is genetically programmed into life. Apoptosis is the way that multicellular organisms are "pre-programmed' for death. Many of our healthy cells need to die in order for the overall health and optimal growth for the organism. This selective cell death even happens in utero as our limbs and organ systems develop, and it continuous throughout our lives. At different rates, all of our cells, including those of our stomach, skin, muscles, nerve, blood, and bones, live for a time and then die, and are replaced by new cells. On the other hand, immortality in our cells is cancer. Cancer cells do not receive the message that growing and dividing needs to be in service of a larger whole and therefore modulated, regulated as needed. Scorpio, fungi, and our cells teach us that we die a little each day, just as we are being born a little each day. We have been dying from the beginning.
Wouldn't it be cool to reintegrate our bodies back into the earth's cycles when it does come time for our physical bodies to die? On April 19, 2019, Washington State (USA) passed SB 5001 which legalizes the natural organic reduction, or "the contained, accelerated conversion of human remains to soils". Instead of cremation or conventional burial, they can cover your deceased body with wood chips, aerate -- and voila! -- the perfect environment for naturally occurring microbes and beneficial bacteria will decompose your body in 30 days and inside a reusable vessel! Recompose (great name!) is a service that is changing the way we think of our current death care paradigm, one that has gotten to be extremely abrasive and careless towards the earth. For each person that chooses to be physically recomposed, a metric ton of carbon will be saved. We also minimize waste, avoid polluting ground water with embalming fluid, and prevent the emissions of CO2 from cremation and the manufacturing of caskets, headstones, and grave liners.
Evolving our conventional and modern idea of burial revolutionizes our relationship with the land and how we are connected to the land as well as our own cycles of death and decay. The soil produced can be taken home by family or used as conservation land in the Puget Sound region.
2) Stinkhorn (Phallacae family): unity, revolution, forgiveness, womb, control, gender identity, empathy, hero's journey
MycoAstrological Correspondences: Planet: Saturn; Secondary Planet: Venus; Day: Saturday; Main Organ: Spleen; 2nd Organ: Bone/Joint; System: Skeletal/Structural; Tissue: Bones; Action: Cold/Dry
 |
| Stalked Lattice Stinkhorn or Lysurus periphragmoides attracts flies with gleba, or sticky spore-masses (Steve Doonan). |
Phallacae is a family of fungus commonly known as Stinkhorns. Stinkhorns have a worldwide distribution and are prevalent in tropical regions. They are known for their excrement-smelling sticky spore masses, or gleba, that attracts flies, beetles, and other insects to help disperse spores. The idea of attracting spore-dispersal or attracting transformation is much more yin than yang. The idea of seeking transformation is the outward yang. Even though Stinkhorns look like a male reproductive organ, it doesn't mean that they solely exist in the realm of the yang. Stinkhorns remind us that with each fruiting body, there is a divine, fluid, and constantly changing mixture of yin and yang forces. As earth receives a divine download during this Full Moon, penetration of the united cosmic magnet into our hearts and heads can jolt us into transforming our soul connections. Live in the realm of the vast ocean, where waves commingle and flow between one another.
Mars has just stepped into Cancer, the receptive, sensitive, kind force expressed through emotions and seeks personal relationships. Cancer is the cosmic collector, the den keeper, and zen mother. Her most important learning is to be direct about what you feel and want. The penetrating theme of the Common Stinkhorn reminds to our contemporary, yang-dominating society that to be direct about what you feel and want is not an abrasive or emotionless exchange.
 |
| Bridal Veil Stinkhorn (Phallus indusiatus) (Atlas Obscura). |
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| Tiny stinkhorns that show in groups in Colombia (Laternea dringii) (Daniel Winkler). |
- Golde, H. (2019, January 14). Could 'Human Composting' Mean a Better, Greener Depth? Retrieved from https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/01/human-composting-washington-katrina-spade-burial-death/580015/
- Kabat-Zin, J. (2005). Coming To Our Senses: Healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness. New York City, NY: Hachette Books.
- McCoy, Peter (2016). Radical Mycology: A treatise on seeing and working with fungi. MycoAstrological Correspondences by Jason Scott. Portland, Oregon: Chtheaus Press.
- Rogers, Robert (2016). Mushroom Essences: Vibrational Healing From the Kingdom Fungi. Berkley, California: North Atlantic Books
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