Welcome to the May 2025 Full Moon Cosmic Weather Forecast by Curtis Lang with Jane Sherry!
At 12:57 PM Eastern time on Monday May 12th, we celebrate the Flower Moon, the second spring full moon of 2025, and we connect with inner spiritual guidance as we participate in the global meditations taking place on Buddha's birthday, the spiritual festival known as Wesak.
Here at Satya Center, huge, gorgeous magenta rose bushes are blooming on two sides of our house, alongside some startling yellow tea rose bushes.
The smell of the Chinese Privet inhabiting our tree line is intoxicating, much stronger than the honeysuckle I grew up with in Houston.
Clematis, dogwood, and young blueberry and blackberry bushes fill our yard with so much beauty it's hard to come inside, sit at the computer, and write this newsletter.
Sitting here at my desk, the tsunami of bad news continues to fill my screen morning to night.
If you're feeling depressed or burned out, despite the floral beauty unfolding throughout the landscape, you're not alone.
The first quarter of 2025 featured numerous planets in retrograde mode, and some difficult planetary aspects that challenged us in a variety of ways.
I've written a lot about the incendiary series of Mars-Pluto oppositions that sparked up on November 3rd, 2024 and flared up again early this month.
Justified Action, I Ching Tarot Card 34
The Dragon's Roar Fills the Sky
So far this year, you may have felt you've been trying to navigate through an intermittent series of crackling thunderstorms in a small boat on a raging river.
By the end of this month, there will be smoother sailing ahead!
This is the month we've all been waiting for, a month that could bring long hoped for relief from the tension, stress, trauma and melodrama we've all been suffering through during the ongoing on-again, off-again series of challenging Mars-Pluto oppositions that have been prominent in the stars since the November Presidential election in the United States.
By the time of this month's Scorpio Full Moon, the pernicious influence of the 2024-2025 Mars-Pluto opposition will fade away, and good riddance I say.
As you can see in the chart above, at sunrise on the day of the Scorpio Full Moon, Mars and Pluto will be a full 8 degrees out of direct opposition, which means their influence has weakened to the point that most astrologers would simply ignore the situation.
The two planets will be moving further apart after the Full Moon, so that chapter of our lives is basically complete.
The Taurus Sun, conjunct electrifying Uranus, planet of infinite surprise, opposes the Scorpio Full Moon, indicating a time of revelations.
Unexpected challenges and opportunities could arise.
There is the potential for breakthroughs in our personal lives that will help us let go of past patterns of thought and behavior that no longer serve us well.
Uranus, X-ray: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; infrared:
We can also expect surprising developments in our careers, relationships and families that could be exhilirating and potentially very challenging. These surprising events may appear unbidden from the unplumbed Plutonian depths of the unconscious self - an answer to our prayers, the fulfillment of our deepest, perhaps unarticulated desires, or perhaps the sudden confrontation with people and events that correspond to our deepest fears and phobias.
Fortunately, this Full Moon, Pluto in Aquarius forms a weak trine to both Sun and Uranus in Taurus, indicating that whatever Uranian surprises are in store, the stars provide support for us.
Since this is a positive flowing planetary aspect, it should be possible to handle the Uranian surprises with ease and grace provided we can maintain our equilibrium, stay grounded and centered, and exercise discernment.
Pluto could help us uncover astonishing, liberating insights this Full Moon week and next, and facilitate the release of stuck energies that structure our mistaken mental maps of the world and sustain repetitive self-sabotaging life scripts.
Pluto with his hounds and giant key, oil painting, 1592 by Agostino Caracci
In the beautiful oil painting of Pluto you see above, the Lord of the Underworld holds a giant key.
In Roman mythology, Pluto uses this key to lock all souls away in his underworld domain, but psychologically and spiritually, the key symbolizes potential for liberation from our deeply unconscious impulses and karmic scripts, the "dark" Plutonic energies that we find so difficult to understand and master.
This Full Moon, Pluto will offer this key to those with the courage to pursue their healing work and explore their own psychic underworld.
We can all benefit from Pluto's offering during this Full Moon week and the week to follow by utilizing meditation, prayer, ritual practices, past life regressions, and energy work designed to liberate us from our unconscious motivations and karmic attachments.
Joining with millions of spiritually minded individuals from around the world in the celebration of Buddha's Birthday, or Wesak, this Full Moon, would be a perfect practice for those whose intentions are to liberate themselves and all of suffering mankind from the demons lurking in our collective consciousness.
Jane and I will meet you then in the aethers.
For a complete guide to the festivities, see our blogpost entitled Wesak: Buddha's Birthday & the Shamballa Gathering. You'll find simple instructions for a meditation practice you can perform to join in with millions of other devotees around the world.
On May 25th, as Saturn enters Aries and conjoins Neptune, we will be called to face life's challenges with all the grit and determination we can muster, and to be extremely vigilant in our practice of discernment so that we may connect with direct spiritual guidance and work to manifest our most lofty spiritual and material goals.
The conjunction of Saturn and Neptune occurs on a cyclical basis approximately every 36 years.
The last Saturn-Neptune conjunction was in Capricorn in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. The fall of the wall ushered in an era of unipolar American hegemony marked by constantly expanding and accelerating globalization of trade, finance and culture.
Neptune in Pisces dissolved the Saturnian boundaries separating nations and peoples. Trade barriers fell, while climate change and Mid East wars triggered massive immigration flows across borders.
Now that Saturn-Neptune cycle, which marked the zenith of the hydrocarbon based global American Empire is coming to an end, and a new cycle is beginning.
Capricorn of course, is the sign of giant institutions, which flourished in the last 36 years of the Saturn-Neptune cycle.
Transnational corporations created monopolies and powerful oligopolies on a scale never before imagined.
Those giant corporations created global supply chains of unimaginable intricacy, which transformed the business of business everywhere in the world, and created an economic system exhibiting a neocolonial interdependence among nations.
The United States exported its industrial base to China, reducing costs for American corporations, like Apple Computer which created a whole ecosystem of best in class computers, smartphones, smartwatches and other electronic consumer products that have dominated global markets for decades.
Chinese capitalists made fortunes from the insatiable American demand for Chinese industrial products.
In addition, the Chinese government provided massive support for these new enterprises, as part of their long range economic planning.
Chinese capitalists exported the dollars they earned from new industries geared to satisfy the demands of American transnational corporations, and deposited them in America where the Chinese felt their money would be safe and secure, and where it could earn the highest returns available on their dollar denominated investments in stocks, bonds, and, of course, real estate.
Now, at the end of this 36 year cycle of globalization, Chinese industries have come to dominate the global economy, threatening American hegemony directly, and setting up the current conflict between Donald Trump's America First Presidency and the ascending Chinese Dragon.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at G20 Summit, Osaka, Japan, 2019
American companies no longer choose Chinese suppliers purely because of low labor costs in China.
Nowadays Americans realize that China has developed a global leadership position in cutting edge manufacturing technologies in many, many fields.
Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the new economic reality in a 2024 video. “China stopped being a low labor cost company many years ago,” Cook said. "In the US, you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I’m not sure we could fill the room." In China, "you could fill multiple football fields.... Hence, the vocational expertise in China is very deep”.
Cue Donald Trump's Tariff Wars against China -- and the rest of the world. Trump believed that America's giant consumer market is essential and central to the operation of the global economy, and that all other nations would rapidly make concessions to maintain their access to that American market.
The results of Trump's power play have so far been the exact opposite of his expectations. The tariff war has marked the end of the post World War II international global order established by the United States, and the emergence of a new much more decentralized, as yet still forming new world order of multilateral relations among competing and yet co-operating sets of nations and power blocks, with America still an important power, but no longer the global hegemon.
Why this unexpected outcome in the global economic confrontation that increasingly resembles the old Hollywood trope of the Mexican standoff?
Mexican Standoff at a "steampunk" convention,
Martin SoulStealer, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Trump faced off with China, and the result after 45 days is a mutual set of tariffs set at approximately 145%, effectively ending trade between the two countries.
Yet China is not in any way humbled, deterred or seemingly, very concerned. That could be because China's trade with America, though large in absolute terms, consists of only 2% of Chinese GDP. The Chinese response has been to enact reciprocal tariffs and to seek other markets.
Trump sought to blackmail America's oldest and strongest allies into cutting ties with China by placing large tariffs on their trade with the US, but he also placed a 90 day extension on those tariffs, giving Europe, Japan, South Korea and other allies time to seek to strengthen multilateral trading ties with countries other than America. Our allies have chosen to diversify their economies away from the United States because they know that if you give in to a blackmailer, the pain will never end.
"In recent days, Japan and Hungary rebuffed Washington’s attempt to force them to decouple from China," explains Professor Warwick Powell on his Substack blog covering China, digital technologies, supply chains, financial flows and global political economy & governance.
"This is quite remarkable given that Japan has long been subordinated to the US in geopolitical terms. Few can forget Japan’s caving in to Washington at the Plaza Accord. As for Hungary, this too shows some interesting dimensions. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is politically aligned with Trump, broadly speaking at least. There are strong philosophical sympathies. Yet, Hungary was not willing to jettison its economic interests in the face of American pressure," Powell continues.
Map showing the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
"At the same time, the EU resumed economic talks with Beijing, while holding fire on its own retaliatory tariffs aimed at American goods. The UK inked a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India, pointing to these nations' willingness to forge trade relations outside of America’s orbit. ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
initiated internal coordination and, at the same time, deepened ties with China and the Gulf States. Japan, South Korea, and China met to revive stalled trilateral FTA talks. Meanwhile, ASEAN+3 finance ministers reaffirmed commitments to open and multilateral trade, and to take coordinated actions to ward off any macro downside risks of Trump’s tariffs," Powell says.
In Powell's analysis, the bottom line is this:
"Rather than isolating China or compelling allies into bilateral trade concessions, the US triggered a multipolar coordination game. In such a game, nations are incentivised to delay action, deepen ties with one another, and shift away from reliance on Washington. The result is a consolidation of the evolving contours of global trade toward a post-American order. In this context, strategic patience, coalition building, and distributed power are the principal features."
Now that the brief historical moment of unipolar American global dominion appears to be coming to an end, and the 36 year cycle that began with the 1989 Saturn-Neptune in Capricorn conjunction dissipates into the aethers, the new Saturn-Neptune cycle in Aries is about to unfold - this month.As the 36 year Saturn-Neptune in Aries cycle begins, America and China, the two global superpowers, confront one another like a pair of rams during mating season.
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Rams of course are symbolic of the energy of the astrological sign of Aries, which is ruled by the red planet, Mars.
As Neptune, the planet of dreams, visions, intuition and cosmic consciousness conjuncts in Aries with Saturn, the planet of social structures, karmic tasks, and difficult life lessons, you can be sure that these two societies with rapidly polarizing, contrasting and competing social structures, ideological systems, and deeply held collective visions of the proper way to live in the world could easily enter into a 36 year cycle of intense competition for dominance on the world stage.
In that scenario, a newly isolationist America will be pitted against an expanding Chinese network of BRICs countries that are busily developing a new, China-centric version of the post World War II American financial and political world order.
Leaders and representatives of BRICS member states attending dinner
on the sidelines of the 14th BRICS Summit (2024),
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America will be hard pressed to maintain its hegemony while being challenged militarily, financially, politically, and culturally by an ever-expanding array of rising powers in Asia and the Global South.
Already former American allies like Europe are initiating trade talks with China and seeking alternatives to a historical military reliance on NATO, the US dollar based financial system, and US political culture in general, which leaders of the Eurozone equate with extreme right wing European political parties they consider persona non grata.
Of course that scenario is only one of many possibilities, but it has a high probability of unfolding, given events in the United States since the start of the Mars-Pluto opposition last November.
On the spiritual and psychological level, the new Saturn-Neptune cycle in Aries promises to deliver astounding revelations and transformations.
This will be a period of consciousness expansion for those pursuing the path of Spirit.
Colorized Modern Version of "A traveller peers through an opening in the firmament" from Camille Flammarion's L'atmosphère : météorologie populaire (Paris: Hachette, 1888), p. 163
Houston Physicist, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Saturn and Neptune will hover near the 0º Aries point, the steamy cusp of Aries and Pisces, and the very beginning of a new extremely long term Zodiacal cycle, starting this month. The exact conjunction will occur February 20th, 2026.
My intuitive guidance has already gone into overdrive in the last few days as we approach the upcoming Wesak festival and the May 25th Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries, when the two planets will be separated by one degree from one another at the Aries-Pisces cusp.
Here is what I heard in meditation: This new Saturn-Neptune cycle in Aries heralds the Saturnine crystallization and manifestation of all that which is held in the deepest Neptunian recesses of humanity’s collective consciousness, for good and for ill.
The divergent and polarized expressions of the deepest, darkest, highest and most enlightened aspects of human consciousness, supported by the will forces manifest through the First Ray of Will and Power will energize and activate the group minds of nations, religions, spiritual traditions, and political groupings worldwide.
These Neptunian group minds will be supercharged with Aries energy, and will establish strong cohesion and strong Saturnine boundaries, creating the conditions for an unprecedented degree of separatism among peoples around the world.
Masks on Display, Antigua, Guatemala, Photo by Julio Gutierrez on Unsplash
These groupings will collide like giant Rams in a global conflict that will determine the future of humanity’s material and spiritual evolution.
In sharp contrast, on a spiritual level, those attuned to the elevated energies emanating from Shamballa will be able to access the long unattainable wisdom teachings held in the safe keeping of the Ascended Hierarchy, which can now be expressed by Lightworkers and spiritual disciples around the world.
The work of spiritual disciples and initiates attuned to these emanations from Shamballa will constitute a powerful countervailing force to the divisive energies exhibited by competing nations, religions, races and classes, for the establishment of peace and harmony among all human beings on Earth.
Ascended Guides and Teachers, Виктория5551, Kingtooth, Abhishek.thakur19, Kitakitzcom,
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This new Zodiacal cycle constitutes the time of the apocalypse, which is the unveiling of our deepest drives and desires, when we come face to face with our inner demons and access the Higher Wisdom of Cosmic Consciousness.
The word apocalypse comes from the Greek word, Apokálypsis, which means "lifting of the veil".
This is the time of the unveiling of Isis for those of exceptional purity dwelling in love.
This is the moment that chelas who have been diligent and patient and faithful will receive benediction in the form of Unity consciousness- Unity with universal mind.
Now the wisdom held in the book of nature will be revealed and those who are chosen will experience the bliss of Unity with the web of life on Mother Earth and in the subtle energy realms where angels, Masters and deities dwell.
Structure of eucaryotic microtubules as formed by 13 protofilaments
As we ponder this deep mystery concerning the unfolding of the new Saturn-Neptune cycle, it is timely to reflect on new scientific research into consciousness from Wellesley University, as reported in Popular Mechanics: “A recent groundbreaking experiment in which anesthesia was administered to rats has convinced some scientists that tiny structures in the rodents’ brains are responsible for the experience of consciousness."
"To pull it off, microscopic hollow tube structures called microtubules perform some advanced physics; the experts believe microtubules perform incredible operations in the quantum realm. Citing the work of earlier researchers, the study infers that the same kinds of quantum operations are likely happening in the human brain.”
“The Wellesley study is significant because the physical source of consciousness has been a mystery for decades. It’s a major step toward verifying a theory that our brains perform quantum operations, and that this ability generates our consciousness—an idea that’s been gaining traction over the past three decades.”
Tarot Trump XXI, The Universe, Thoth Tarot
“If this quantum theory of consciousness tied to microtubules turns out to be correct, it could revolutionize our understanding of consciousness and even strengthen the trailblazing theory that consciousness, on a quantum level, is capable of being in all places at the same time. In other words, it can exist everywhere simultaneously, suggesting that your own consciousness can hypothetically connect with quantum particles beyond your brain, maybe entangling with consciousness all across the universe.”
Here we get a glimpse of the unfolding of a new science of quantum consciousness, depicting an interconnected, evolving Universe in which energy, vibration and consciousness are the primary elements, the building blocks for the physical reality we perceive with our five senses.
This new quantum science is displaying the Unity that lies behind the apparent duality of the 4-dimensional space-time continuum we inhabit on Earth.
Buddha taught that the individual Self, experienced as the egoistic personality, is an illusion, and that each of us is indissolubly united with the vast web of life that interpenetrates the physical and spiritual realms, extending throughout the space-time continuum, encompassing past, present and future.
That vast web, comprising all components of the space-time continuum, was first envisaged in Hindu philosophy in 900 BC, in the Atharva Veda, as Indra's Net.
Visualization of Indra's Net
No machine-readable author provided. Schnerf~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).,
CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Indra's Net is an infinitely large net which hangs over the palace of the Hindu Deva Indra, Lord of the Gods. Indra's palace is located on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology. Indra's Net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels. This symbolic depiction of the Universe hints at the interdependence of all that exists, and points to what modern science has discovered to be the holographic nature of the Universe. Each jewel within Indra's net contains a perfect reflection of every other jewel, just as every bit of information in a hologram contains all the information comprising the entire image.
Indra's Net has been used to illustrate the concepts of the concepts of Śūnyatā (emptiness), pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination), and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy. Indra's Net shatters the illusion of the individual self because each individual sentient being arises as an interdependent aspect of the entire Universe, and what appear to be individual qualities can be seen as mere emptiness, merely reflections of reflections arising from the interplay of various biological, mental, and karmic forces at play within and surrounding the individual in time and space.
Free of the illusion of the independent, individual self, we realize our radical dependence upon all the elements of the Universe, Universal Life Force Energy and the entire web of life comprising all sentient and non-sentient beings, past, present and future. We are part of that and that is who we are.
Buddha, Mosteiro Zen Mormro da Vergem, Ibiraçu, ES - Brazil, JSB Co, for Unsplash+
As the Buddha taught, when we help another being we help ourselves. When we harm another being, we harm ourselves. This is the philosophical and spiritual foundation for the practice of compassion and selfless service that defines Buddhist spirituality.
This Wesak Full Moon week, let us resolve to rise to the challenge of these apocalyptic times, summon our will forces, join together with our brothers and sisters throughout the world, and send waves of light, of joy, of healing wisdom and loving kindness to illuminate the darkness of humanity's collective ignorance and unconscious motivations.
This week's Wesak celebration provides the springboard into a much more astrologically hospitable late spring season, so let's give thanks for this respite from non-stop negativity and conflict.
The awesome, Cosmic energies of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries on May 25th usher in some calmer skies.
The astrology of the New Moon occurring on May 26, at 11:02 PM Eastern time looks very promising.
Sun, Moon and Mercury in Gemini all form a flowing trine with Pluto in Aquarius. Thoughts flow and shimmer like quicksilver in sunlight, and we can enjoy the depths of feeling that enrich our relationships as we play the Gemini social butterfly.
These aspects also support deep meditation on the Great Mysteries of life, and all practices designed to harmonize our egoistic personalities with Higher Mind, Higher Self and Higher Purpose.
Venus in Aries trine Mars in Leo promises to spark up our lives with passion as we seek to enjoy life with those we love. A great time for song and dance, above all, romance, for selfless service, and for creative work of all kinds.
On May 31st, all planets will be moving direct, except for Pluto in the early degrees of Aquarius, so we may be reflecting on deep psychological and socio-political or financial issues, all associated with Pluto, but we will surely find it easier to move forward on our path of Spirit.
Jane and Curtis Selfie, Reynolda Gardens, Wakeforest University, North Carolina
Jane and I send you love and light and we affirm that we all receive the grace and guidance we require to achieve our loftiest spiritual and material goals this Wesak Full Moon in Scorpio and throughout the monthly moon cycle to come.
Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh in Vught, The Netherlands (2006), by Marloes,
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.