Full Moon in Scorpio May 12, 2025: Obsession and the Taste of True Power

Focus: Yes, it’s exhausting. This moon is seeded in the new moon that opened May with themes of depletion versus aspiration, themes of running on empty while trying to reach a future self. Now the diagnosis blooms: what belief, what pattern, what desire is keeping you from becoming who you see in your visions?

This is not a gentle moon. It arrives with a crash, like a mirror falling, forcing you to look into the shards and ask: what have I been refusing to see?

The Full Moon in Scorpio, occurring in the decan of the 7 of Cups, brings with it a crisis of clarity. This is the card of illusion and longing, of velvet dreams and poisonous promises. It shows us the holograms we project onto desire, what we think we want, what we hope will give us power, what we chase into the fog even when it makes us sick. Under this moon, those projections dissolve. What’s left is real and often raw.

This lunation forms a part of a larger tension: a cosmic crucible of tense aspects forged by the Moon in Scorpio, Sun and Uranus in Taurus, Mars in Leo, and Pluto in Aquarius. The fixed signs become the battlefield of these oppositions and squares, caught in a free for all between the pressure to evolve and the compulsion to hold on. We are asked to examine the scaffolding we’ve built around our identities and desires. And in many cases, to admit that we’ve mistaken imitation for authenticity, comfort for clarity.

There’s something surgical in Scorpio’s method. This Scorpio Full moon will break illusions, and go even further, exposing the power dynamics that made them appealing in the first place. Think of the times you’ve clung to a belief not because it was true, but because it gave you a sense of control. That’s the trap of Scorpio in its lower form: obsession as self-defense. Seeking domination due to inner denial. Delusion as a throne.

But Scorpio isn’t stuck there. In its higher form, it becomes the eagle: vision sharpened by descent, now given the power of flight. Power reborn through the struggle of having to take it yourself, and the humility that brings. Transformation that doesn’t just strip you of illusion, but strengthens parts of you so that you no longer need it.

We are, in a way, all Persephone now, each of us revisiting the Underworld we thought we’d already emerged from. There is unfinished business here, and fertile ground for something new amidst the darkness of these uncertain times. Venus is just one degree away from clearing her retrograde shadow, and the symbolism couldn’t be clearer: there’s something we almost resolved, but not quite. A residue of heartbreak, of self-betrayal, of a desire for actualization still clings to the psyche. Being so close to finally understanding clearly makes it feel all the more frustrating. “Can we finally move forward?” the chart asks. And the answer, maddeningly, is not quite. There is still a thread to pull, a truth to face, a weight to put down.

And yes, it’s exhausting. This moon is seeded in the new moon that opened May with themes of depletion versus aspiration, themes of running on empty while trying to reach a future self. Now the diagnosis blooms: what belief, what pattern, what desire is keeping you from becoming who you see in your visions?

This is a conflict ridden moon marked by opposition and tension. This isn’t necessarily in a cruel way, but more so in a clarifying way. One that offers a choice: if you insist on resisting the transformation, if you insist on continuing an illusion, then yes, you’ll feel the consequences. But if you open up to it, if you let it accomplish its task of transformation? There is an exhilarating clarity available here, a powerful route to soul-level honesty.

And the chart does offer a vision. The Sun in Taurus, closely conjunct the planet of promethean fire  Uranus, sits high in the sky, a symbol of embodied potential. A glimpse of what your life could feel like if it were built around truth. It speaks of freedom not as rebellion but as a natural state of being. One earned through alignment and surrender, through the willingness to break what is false so that something authentic from within, something that might not even make total sense to you yet, can live and thrive.

The question becomes: what must be transformed within you so that this vision has room to land? What has to evolve in the deep, interior architecture of your self-concept? The moon is guiding the spotlight to shine on the habits that define your identity, the fears that police your choices, the secret beliefs you inherited or absorbed, often unconsciously, that still limit your range and power.

Scorpio’s domain is the hidden realm, and during a Full Moon, those shadows are lit from within. This will feel deeper than just changing some opinions, it will feel like we’re meeting the ghosts that formed them. We’re seeing how our beliefs about power, worth, and desire were shaped not always by truth, but often  by trauma, mimicry, and survival strategies that no longer serve.

But Scorpio, in their veteran insight, knows grief is simply a tool to help release sorrow, so that our quest for freedom and joy in our life may continue. There’s a brightness on the horizon too, almost in spite of the weight. Neptune sextiles Pluto, hinting at a spiritual regeneration that doesn’t bypass pain but finds grace inside it. Mercury squares Pluto, bringing mental intensity and sharp insight, like a scalpel to the psyche, a real moment of inner wrestling (one of mercury’s old significations). And the very next day, a grand fire trine ignites between the Moon, Mars, and the wounded healer Chiron. It says: use what you’ve learned. Let the revelation and processing of pain turn into forward movement. Let the purge become power.

In the background, Jupiter sits in the 11th house of hopes and alliances, fallen but not impotent. He reminds us that there is still hope, still opportunity, but with his fallen nature we have to meet it with resourcefulness. With readiness, and that requires some rest too. It is only when we stop dragging the corpse of our old story behind us that we can walk freely into the new one. In this way, release of the old, stagnant waters in our cup is the start of something brand new.

So you can see, this moon does not offer escape. It offers initiation.

Scorpio’s trials and pain are entirely necessary. At first, we only transform because the old ways stop working. Because the illusions begin to crack under their own weight. Because we’re tired of pretending not to know what we know.

But as we learn and raise ourselves up, Scorpio shows us that transformation, the energy of change, of death, is the great sower of seeds that clears the way for newness. “We begin to honor the constant transformation at the heart of this world-in-becoming. And we learn to work with it harmoniously, to more naturally integrate into our environments finding meaning in this flow with the constant transformation that defines our existence. There is no peace without this understanding.

And in the end, this moon doesn’t want your pain, it wants your power. The kind that begins when you stop trying to control what’s dying and start listening for what’s trying to be born.

So let it come undone. Let the mirror fall. Let yourself be seen, even by yourself.

Because Scorpio learns the power of flight in the underworld before it becomes the eagle.