THE SMITH-WAITE TAROT is a quick and easy way to understand the Full Moon in Scorpio, opposite the Sun in Taurus, on this Lunar Eclipse on Sunday 15th May and Monday 16th May. Pamela Colman Smith’s illustration for THE SUN shows us what is being opposed. Where the clashes are in your life. If you have anything in Taurus in your natal chart, in the Second House of money, legacies, possessions, houses, apartments, shares, valuables, stock, insurance, business - then it’s personal. Something or someone is against that.
THE SUN CARD IN THE TAROT shows what is covered up. The red fabric (the same colour as this Blood Moon Eclipse) is concealing half the Sun’s face. There would be shadows on the ground as a result. Eclipses conceal, they never reveal. We are usually left in the dark. This Full Moon is in Scorpio, which rules family financial relationships as well as sexual relationships which involve money, a house or apartment. Taurus is your life budget. Scorpio is the economy which belongs to something/someone else.
THE SMITH-WAITE TAROT IS FREE TO USE ON MY WEBSITE with permission from U.S. Games Systems and gives you the option of a short interpretation, or (if you are a Premium Member) a long and detailed reading. Just asking the cards “What is the most important episode in my life, delivered by this Scorpio Lunar Eclipse?” can be useful. The chances are, the card will show what is obscured, concealed, covered up. In The Lovers, for example, the clouds screen part of the picture. We can see the sexuality of the Scorpio Full Moon, but not the whole story, because it’s clouded. Eclipses remind us not to make decisions with clouded judgement.
It’s amazing how often Pamela illustrated an eclipse - you can see THE MOON in the centre of a spread here - and also used screening in her imagery. This spread describes the cryptocurrency crash of May 2022. The Tower shows the sudden nature of the drop in value. The lightning bolt at the top of the card resembles the kind of zig-zag graph you typically see on Bitcoin news stories. In the middle, we have the eclipse itself. You can see a lobster - resembling Scorpio the scorpion - at the bottom of the card. Finally, The Magician (Elon Musk, perhaps, or another unknown figure) with the figure-eight lemniscate above his head.
This loop nicely shows the eternal loop of the North Node in Taurus and South Node in Scorpio. The endless circuit of the lunar nodes in opposite signs, is always the bigger clue with an eclipse. Just looking at the last time we saw the nodes in Taurus-Scorpio can tell us about May 2022.
THE NORTH NODE IN TAURUS AND SOUTH NODE IN SCORPIO show the background to the Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio. You always get eclipses in the signs the nodes are in, and as they take 18-19 years to rotate, just checking the history of the last cycle can tell you the global implications of an eclipse.
April 15th 2003 to December 26th 2004 is a mirror of our lives in 2022, 2023. China confessed to a SARS cover-up on 21st April 2003. Consumer spending in China sank during the 2003 SARS outbreak. The global cost was estimated by Jong Wha-Lee and Warwick McKibbin to be $40 billion.
There is very likely a cover-up by China now, on a similar cycle, about COVID-19 and it may take months or years before we realise the impact on the world economy. So what do we do on an eclipse? Pamela Colman Smith’s card, The High Priestess, gives us some clues.
THIS CARD SHOWS A NEW MOON ECLIPSE as part of a full lunar cycle. The round, white Full Moon is shown in the crown worn by The High Priestess. It also looks like a pearl of wisdom. Oysters respond to the tides and the Moon.
The New Moon is down the bottom. The black and grey columns, opposite each other, symbolise the opposite zodiac signs in any Full Moon. The Sun is always up against the Moon. The moon is always up against the Sun.
YOU CAN READ THIS CARD FOR YOURSELF IN A PERSONAL WAY as it shows the way through, and the way out, of any eclipse - be it Solar Eclipse or Lunar Eclipse. Female academics, female Tarot readers, female authors and writers may be your solution. The High Priestess has long been associated with women professors or lecturers. The scroll is a degree.
The card is whatever you see, though. Working with the idea that the Sun is in Taurus (values) and the Full Moon is in Scorpio (joint finances) and there is a cover-up or hidden component, what is going on for you?
You can see the screen behind The High Priestess decorated with pomegranates. This was possibly a real, decorated screen in Pamela’s home, or she’d seen it at Ellen Terry’s cottage, Smallhythe - or as a theatre prop. Screens were fashionable in 1909 when this card was created.
The point is, eclipses always screen something or someone out. And that is why professional astrologers and Tarot writers like me, advise waiting for them to pass, before judging or acting. Yet, the turn of a friendly card can help you at least guess at what you are not being shown.
I drew the High Priestess a few days ago too. I understand it's message to me. In relation to the nodes, I have gone back a further 19 years to 1984, and the bigger picture makes sense to me. Thanks for this article Jessica, it was exactly what I needed to read right now.
I am a Taurus with ascendent in Scorpio and in 2003 my last loved one died my mother and I had to go back in România and since 2004 I stayed out of Uk but I had years of depression and problems I tried to forget that time of my life
Now I am in Uk since 2015 and I am depressed again because I am alone in this country and I wish to go back home but I can’t do it because I don’t find a job there God is like never ending story I don’t know what this can bring for me but I hope will be better
Thank you