12 May 2025 - Full Moon 22° Scorpio III – The Transformation Decan
* Co-rulers: Venus and Moon
* Element: Water (Fixed)
* Tarot: 7 of Cups
* Wild Way Oracle: Transformation
* Keywords: Unfulfilled Desires, Loss and Decay, Decomposition
Allow me to explore for you some of the astrological threads of the Full Moon in Scorpio on 12th May, maybe we can even begin to weave some together by sharing and breathing life into them.
This is a Full Moon that plunges us into deep, dark and still waters and shines a reflective light on the secrets held within. The Moon is in its fall here, a place of emotional intensity, secrecy, and desire. In the fixed, yin or feminine water sign of Scorpio, the Moon navigates shadowy terrain, where feelings run deep and transformation arises through cycles of death and rebirth.
Picture dark caves or maybe you prefer hot springs, the secrets held within murky swamp water, the soggy ashes after the fire. This is the spirit realm of the serpent, the compost heap, the scorpion and the phoenix. It is ruled by Mars, but here we are offered a battle weary side of the dusty warrior planet. This is the watery moat trench, or the hot bath easing aching muscles, where reflection allows old identities to dissolve and obsessions to rot into fertile soil.
Fixed, Feminine Water: Scorpio Container
Scorpio is a fixed water sign, deeply yin, still, and subterranean. This is water that doesn’t move quickly, it stews, it seeps, it remembers. The fixed quality gives it endurance, the feminine nature gives it receptivity, and the Mars rulership gives it resolve and the ability to transform. These waters do not flow around obstacles, they are more likely to dissolve them. They hold grief, passion, memory, and metamorphosis.
When the Moon is full here, emotions can crest with intensity. The past rises unbidden. Secrets resurface. Scorpio teaches us how to contain power, hold pain with dignity, and alchemise endings into thresholds.
The Scorpio Full Moon is placed in Decan III, a place of emotional saturation, longing, and profound letting go. This is the last and a complex decan of Scorpio, co- ruled by Venus and the Moon, two soft, yin and reflective inner planets of the Night, attempting to soothe and shape the waters of Mars’ domain. The mood is nostalgic, dreamlike, and infused with longing. It can also turn to a harsh side as well, just like the sweetest lover who suddenly ghosts you. Old desires may refuse to die quietly and could come up unexpectedly for reexamination.
It is here we are asked to honestly confront our unfulfilled desires, unrequited loves, our obsessions, our illusions of control. The brave may choose, if we’re willing, to surrender to the transformation that awaits.
The Moon in Her Fall, Protected by Mars
The Moon is in fall in Scorpio, depressed, discomforted, vulnerable, far from her exaltation where the Sun shines in Taurus. This lunar placement is often emotionally raw, exposing buried patterns and the desire to cling. Yet from this depth, a power can arise, the only path for the Moon now is to rise up, but how?
Mars, ruler of Scorpio, watches on from solar Leo, squaring both the Sun and Moon. This adds heat, friction, and a demand for courage, it asks us to find our authenticity and offers a call to action. Maybe you have the feeling of being watched by your own higher self, calling you to make the brave choice, not the familiar one.
Moon Family: Scorpio Moon Cycle
This Full Moon is part of a Lunar Gestational Cycle or Moon Family. These are a pattern that unfolds over 27 months, or just over 2 years, punctuated by key lunation phases in the same degree range of the zodiac.
These Moon Families mark developmental arcs, longer stories that build over time. They begin with a seed of intention or insight at the New Moon, find their first visibility nine months later, maybe asking for some adjustment or changes, reach full clarity and culmination after eighteen months, and resolve or integrate after twenty-seven months, when we then move into a time of release, reflection and preparation for the next cycle.
This method is introduced and outlined more fully by Dietrich Pessin in Lunar Shadows III.
This Full Moon’s lunar family began with the Scorpio New Moon on 13 November 2023 at 20° Scorpio. That seed moment may have carried themes of emotional intensity, obsession, hidden truths, or regenerative healing.
The first visible sprouts of growth came at the First Quarter Moon on 12 August 2024, when something asked to be acted upon, or a course corrected. This Full Moon on 12 May 2025 brings that story into full bloom, and its culmination and last adjustments begin at the Last Quarter Moon on 9 February 2026 when it begins to be time to review what to release and what to carry forward into the next cycle.
* New Moon: 13 Nov 2023 – 20° Scorpio
* First Quarter: 12 Aug 2024 – 20° Scorpio
* Full Moon: 12 May 2025 – 22° Scorpio
* Last Quarter: 9 Feb 2026 – 20° Scorpio
What has been composting in your psyche since November 2023? What obsessions, desires, or hidden truths are now reaching peak visibility? What must be released so that something deeper can be reborn?
If you have placements near 17–24° of Scorpio, Taurus, Leo, or Aquarius, this Moon may mark a significant illumination or time of realisation, reckoning or insight in your journey through grief, healing, release, intimacy, and self-trust. An astrologer or Astro Coach can help you explore further.
Decan Scorpio III — The Realm of Transformation
This Full Moon lands in the third decan of Scorpio, a place ancient astrologers knew as both treacherous and transformative. Ruled by Venus and the Moon, Scorpio III is where desire, memory, and emotion become entangled in obsessions, unfulfilled fantasies, and the painful process of letting go.
This is the decan Austin Coppock named the Crow, the bird who picks through bones and shiny objects, deciphering meaning from the remnants. It is where we might scavenge the past and repurpose loss into wisdom. A bird of deep memory and transformation. Crows will remember, crows mourn, crows collect the shiny fragments of life. They are scavengers and seers, bridging life and death, the known and the unknown.
Austin Coppock writes that this decan contains a “formula of liberation, for if we were not capable of laying our desires to rest, returning them to pure energy, we would be enchained forever, prisoners of what we once held dear”
Kira Ryberg captures the emotional texture of this decan through the lens of nostalgia, memory, and the haunting pull of what once was or might have been. It’s a decan of longing, both poetic and painful. There is an ache for something lost, something imagined, something that once was or what we think could have been. It matters, then, what we choose to do with these emotions, what will Mars choose to sustain?
Wild Way Oracle card -Transformation
The Wild Way Oracle card for this lunation is called Transformation, showing the mythic image of the cormorant. The card shows the bird, emerging from the water, head up and wings outstretched. The Sun, which isn't visible, has broken through the grey, cloudy sky and is bathing the bird in its rays. We see a full mirror image reflection of the bird in the water.
The card offers keywords to help and guide us at this time:
-Unfulfilled Desires
-Loss and Decay
-Decomposition
Exerpt from the Wild Way Oracle Book by Nicola Allan:
“..Cormorant is possessed by obsession. He dives to depths uncharted but returns to the surface with barely a sardine. As he slowly dries out his wings, he wonders what could have been. Though instead of grasping onto this, he releases the hungry ghosts and is transformed. A defeated and bedraggled seabird turns into a creature who is both wistful and wise. He can try fishing in a different spot tomorrow. Do you need to give something up that just cannot be? You are reminded that this often creates space for an alternative and much better option to emerge.”
It is time to get clear on what we really want, what we may be holding onto that could be blocking it, and why.
Seven of Cups – Enchanting Illusions
The tarot card correspondence for this decan is the Seven of Cups, a haunting vision of illusion, enchantment and temptation. A figure which we see from behind, stands gazing up at a swirling cloud of possibilities. 7 floating chalices, each containing a different dream, desire, or danger. There are riches, power, love, mystery, and destruction swirling before them, treasure, triumph, tempting if only they could be certain of what is real, each cup a spell. This illustrates Scorpio III’s lesson, discernment is born not in fantasy, but in the slow digestion of what dreams cannot deliver.
In this watery, Venus-Moon ruled space, discernment is difficult and challenging. Are these images prophetic visions or mere distractions? Which desire is worth pursuing, and which is a poison apple?
How can any of us tell which is real, or if all is as it seems? What are you wanting to see, that may be an Illusion?
For this Full Moon, the Seven of Cups reminds us that too many options, too much longing, or an inability to discern truth from fantasy can paralyse us, that phrase we hear now, analysis paralysis! It speaks to the heartache of wanting what cannot be, how we can easily become attached to that dream and stop questioning it so that we eventually lose sight of the real possibilities before us, and the wisdom that can come from choosing clarity over chaos and illusion.
In the clarifying light of this Full Moon, highlighting your hidden desires, the Seven of Cups asks us to:
* Name any illusions you’ve been chasing
* Ask what has possessed your attention, dreams or heart, is it true for you?
* Release any fixations, reclaim your vision, recalibrate.
We cannot transform what we refuse to let go of. But if we can name the fantasy for what it is, we begin a process of realisation. Who knows, you may find something better, more true, or more aligned, just waiting beneath the clutter of the choices.
Hidden Richness- Dreaming the Decans
This verse from T. Susan Chang’s Dreaming the Decans beautifully evokes the imaginative, decaying magic of this decan:
Images arise in me,Fictions born in fantasy.By some secret sorceryWhat I imagine comes to be.
Seeker, lost in endless dreamingDivine the truth within the seeming.Husks and remnants, dirty dregs,Incubate my precious eggs,Find the richness in decayHidden from the light of day.
This illustrates how Scorpio III is the underworld of the water signs, containing psychic sediment, emotional remains, but also the hidden wealth buried in decay.
The Astrological Conversation: A Martian Trial
This Full Moon is complex and emotionally intense, as we might expect when the Moon is in her fall in Scorpio. The Moon here must work hard to rise up again from her place of greatest challenge. Her usual nurturing light becomes filtered through underground, cthonic waters, slow, fixed, hidden, pressurised. She is uncomfortable, but facing her truths and allowing that discomfort to inform her journey through the 3 Decans, finally allows this transformation in the third and final decan. I like to think she becomes re-empowered here to continue on her journey where she nurtures and cares for us all, connecting with all the planets on her monthly trip around the zodiac. Temporarily, she is less able to tend to our needs as she first needs to address her own, as all Mothers must at times.
Mars, ruler of Scorpio, is in Leo, a fiery, regal and highly visible place, in contrast to the darker shade of Scorpio, in a square aspect to the Full Moon. This can show a tension between inward turmoil or processing and outer expression, assertion and action. How can Mars protect our identity when we ourselves are in flux? The Moon may wish to wallow, brood or grieve something old, while Mars asks that we act now, raising the temperature. Stay mindful of conflict born of unresolved emotional baggage. As always, even if you are not feeling this tension, stay aware that those around you may well be.
Also forming during this lunation:
* The Full Moon is within 4° opposition of Uranus and Algol, as the Taurus Sun moves closer to a meeting with them. Uranus is known as the Great Awakener and may bring revelations, sudden or unexpected events, disruptions, breakthroughs, liberation or insights. Algol, one of the darkest and a binary (dual natured) fixed star, introduces themes of the dark Goddess, offering protection and the creativity that arises from suffering as well as metaphorically severing that what cannot remain.
* This Full Moon bears the scars and wisdom of recent struggle. What was an intense T-square during the last New Moon in Taurus has now begun to separate, yet it leaves behind a signature of sustained tension. What remains now is a whole sign cross: the exact Moon–Sun opposition is held in counterbalance by the Mars–Pluto opposition, which, though separating, still exerts pressure. All four points fall across the fixed sign axis — Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. The fixed signs resist change but have the potential to be most transformed by it.
Fixed signs sustain and prefer stability, yet here we face forces that refuse to leave things as they are.
* Mercury square Pluto (perfecting within the hour) from its co-presence with the Sun in Taurus. This may be a powerful connection pushing secrets to the surface, bringing them into the visibility of our thoughts and words. Obsessions and fixations could intensify, especially around speech, thought, and digital spaces. This is not light conversation, rather it’s the dark mirror of self-honesty, where you have the opportunity to name what you’ve been avoiding and prepare to directly face all the truths therein.
* Jupiter square the Nodes: This fated curiosity from Mercury ruled Gemini challenges what we believe we know. It may introduce whispers or questions regarding the data you trust, soul contracts, or pivotal insights around communication, tech, or beliefs. What do we need to know, and what’s just an illusion? It asks us to reassess our data, truth-seeking, and the role of information, technology, and social media in shaping our destiny. There may be karmic, path opening invitations or sudden shifts in belief or direction.
* The Nodes sextile and trine the luminaries (Sun and Moon). This adds a karmic hue to the moment. The Full Moon is not just cathartic, it carries alchemical potential. Trines may offer ease, but as I recently learned in a workshop byMichelle Corbesier they can also mean events that you have no control over, it is a time when we surrender to the Fates.
Scorpio III: A Devotional Reflection
The Cormorant of the Wild Way Oracle swims alone. Obsessed, he dives again and again for what he cannot have. But at some point, he releases the hunger and the fixation on that favourite diving place. In that letting go, he transforms, not into something shiny or perfect, but into something wiser.
What desire must you lay to rest with this Full Moon? What illusion is ready to fall away, so that something more real may grow in its place? How can you release it lightly? Can you create your own watery ritual to symbolise the release? Speak your story, for one last time, into a stick or stone before casting it into flowing water maybe? Then allow it to be carried far away from you.
Let this Full Moon carry your grief, your ache, your old story down into the depths. It never gets a happier ending, no matter how many times you retell it or replay it in your head. And then, rise lighter. Rise ready.
Final thoughts
Let the crow guide you through the decay to the potential treasure you may have buried and forgotten. Allow nostalgia to soften your heart, and rather than blind you to what must be laid to rest, become a gentle guide.
This Scorpio Full Moon teaches that grief is not a failure. It’s a threshold. Consider if: What’s ending may never have truly been.What remains? Maybe it is you.More awake. More clear.More open to what is.
And tomorrow, you can try fishing in a different spot.
Travel well, friends.
Sonia
Chapters
00:00 Exploring the Scorpio Full Moon
03:10 Emotional Depths and Transformations
06:30 Lunar Family and Cycles of Growth
10:49 Illusions and Desires
13:42 Navigating Tensions and Truths
17:03 Releasing and Transforming Grief
If you are looking for an Astrologer, and you enjoy my style of Astrology, I currently have space to take on new clients. If you would like a personal individual Astrology reading, I set a healing Reiki intention for every client before the reading. You can opt out of this if you prefer when you book at CelestiaAstrology.com. The Guardian of Your Portal reading is still available by donation if you want to try a reading from a different perspective (please read about this style of reading before booking so you know it is for you).
If you prefer to go deeper and work with the Moons’ cycles and the planets in your personal chart then I also offer Astro Coaching. Contact me through a message here, or book at CelestiaAstrology.com. You can also become a paid subscriber to download my Astro Coaching WorkBook and access the archive of posts which guide you through it, working with the Moons. Upgrade your level to join the AstroCoaching Group and Astrology Q&A.
Please do leave a comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences or questions.
References:
AustinCoppock.com The Decans: Images and Applications
Bernadette Brady, Predictive Astrology The Eagle and the Lark
Dietrich Pessin Lunar Families III
KiraRyberg.com The 36 Decans
T Susan Chang Dreaming the Decans
The Wild Way Oracle deck and Oracle Book by Nicola Allan @nicola_allan on Instagram & Twitter
