The October 26 Hunter's Moon asks you to stay rooted in your body while you let the depths move you: comfort and catharsis, trust and truth, all at once
By Christine Flora, NBC-HWC · Soul Alignment Coach & Professional Astrologer
HaTha Holistic Health · hathaholistichealth.com
Part of you wants to pull the blanket up and stay there. Light the candle, make the tea, keep everything exactly as it is. You've worked hard for this stability, and the last thing you want is one more thing shaking the ground under your feet.
Another part of you is restless in a way you can't quite explain. Something under the surface is stirring. It's a truth you've been circling, a desire you haven't said out loud, a feeling that the life you've built so carefully is a little too quiet. That part of you doesn't want comfort. It wants the real thing, even if the real thing costs you something.
Most women I work with think they have to choose between these two selves. Safe or alive. Grounded or deep. The woman who holds it all together, or the woman who finally lets it all fall apart. This Full Moon is here to tell you something different. You were never meant to choose. You were meant to hold both.
The Axis of Having and Letting Go
Every Full Moon is a conversation between opposites. The Sun lights one sign, the Moon reflects the other, and for a few days we feel the full stretch between them. On October 26, the Sun is in Scorpio and the Moon is full in Taurus. It's one of the most powerful tensions in the zodiac: what we hold onto, and what we're asked to surrender.
Taurus is the earth beneath your feet. She is patient, practical and deeply sensual. She knows the body is wise. She builds slowly and trusts what she can touch, and she understands that comfort is not indulgence. It's nourishment. Taurus is your self-worth, your values, your money, your pleasure, and your ability to say this is mine, and I deserve to have it. At her best she is steady trust. In her shadow she is stubbornness: staying too long, numbing with comfort, calling fear "stability" because change feels too dangerous.
Scorpio is the underworld. She is deep, intense and unapologetically sexual. She pushes every boundary to find out what's real on the other side of it. She isn't interested in the surface of anything. She wants the truth, the secret, the power underneath. Scorpio rules intimacy, shared resources, death and rebirth, and the parts of ourselves we keep in the dark. At her best she is profound, fearless change. In her shadow she is control: intensity used as armor, burning it all down before anyone can hurt you, trusting no one, including yourself.
After 25 years in corporate and employee wellness and 8 years coaching high-achieving women, here's what I see again and again. Most of us live at one end of this axis and fear the other. The Taurus-leaning woman has built a beautiful, secure life and is quietly suffocating inside it. The Scorpio-leaning woman has survived so much intensity that she no longer trusts peace, and when life gets calm she goes looking for the storm.
I know the first one intimately. For years I lived a life that looked right on paper, and I called the numbness "stability." When the Scorpio truth finally broke through, it didn't arrive gently. It arrived as a wall I couldn't push through. What I learned on the other side is what this Full Moon is teaching all of us. Depth doesn't have to destroy what you've built, and security doesn't have to cost you your aliveness.
That's the medicine here. Not choosing. Balancing.
The Astrological Energy
The Full Moon in Taurus · Monday, October 26 at 12:12 AM EDT (Sunday, October 25 at 9:12 PM PDT), 2°46' Taurus
This is the Hunter's Moon, the Full Moon after the harvest, traditionally the time to gather what will carry you through the winter. The Moon is exalted in Taurus, which means she is at her most comfortable here: calm, sensual, embodied. Taurus Full Moons tend to land in the body before they land in the mind. Pay attention to where you feel things this week (the tight jaw, the heavy chest, the sudden craving for rest) before you decide what they mean.
At its heart, this lunation asks a harvest question. What have you grown this year that is truly worth keeping? And with the Sun in Scorpio shining across the sky, it asks the other half too: what has to be composted so something new can take root?
Pluto Squares the Sun and Moon · exact Monday, October 26 at 8:11 AM EDT
This isn't a soft Full Moon. Pluto sits at 3° Aquarius, almost exactly square both the Sun and the Moon. That forms what astrologers call a fixed T-square, three fixed signs locked in tension. Fixed energy doesn't bend easily. It holds, resists, and digs in, until something finally gives.
Pluto is the ruler of Scorpio, so the Scorpio pull is amplified. Expect pressure around power, control and the truths you've been avoiding. If something has been building in your relationship, your work or your body, this is often the moment it surfaces. Pluto doesn't punish. It reveals. What you've been gripping too tightly is being asked to loosen, not so you lose it, but so you can find out what's actually yours.
Venus Retrograde, with Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio · Venus retrograde October 3 – November 13; Mercury retrograde October 24 – November 13
Venus rules Taurus, and she's retrograde right now. She stationed on October 3, met the Sun in Scorpio on October 23 (a symbolic rebirth in the depths), then slipped back into Libra on October 25, just hours before this Full Moon. Mercury joined her in retrograde on October 24, moving backward through Scorpio until the two of them turn direct together on November 13.
That makes this Full Moon a deep review, not a time for final decisions. Venus retrograde brings back questions of worth, love and value: who you give yourself to, what you settle for, what you believe you deserve. Mercury retrograde in Scorpio brings up the conversations you haven't had and the truths you've only half admitted to yourself. Let things surface. Write them down. Feel them fully. The decisions can come after November 13, when you'll have both the depth and the clarity.
Where Taurus and Scorpio Meet: Five Sacred Balances
The deepest work of this Full Moon is integration, letting each sign heal the shadow of the other. Taurus keeps Scorpio from burning everything down. Scorpio keeps Taurus from falling asleep in her own life. Here's what that balance looks like.
Comfort and Catharsis. Taurus says, rest, be held, be safe. Scorpio says, feel it all, let it break open. Alone, comfort becomes avoidance and catharsis becomes chaos. Together they give you a safe place to fall apart. Make the room warm, wrap yourself in the soft blanket, and then let yourself cry the thing you've been holding. Your nervous system can only let go of what it feels safe enough to release.
Trust and Truth. Taurus trusts slowly and builds loyalty over time. Scorpio needs the truth, even when it hurts. A relationship built only on Taurus can turn into a comfortable silence where nothing real is said. One built only on Scorpio can turn into constant testing, where nothing feels safe. The balance is trust that's strong enough to hold the truth. Ask yourself where you've been protecting the peace at the cost of honesty, and where you've been demanding honesty without offering safety.
Sensuality and Sexuality. Taurus is pleasure through the five senses: the taste of good food, the warmth of skin, the scent of the earth after rain. Scorpio is desire, merging, the intensity of being fully seen. Many high-achieving women have lost touch with both. We live from the neck up, scheduled and efficient and disconnected from what our bodies actually want. This Full Moon invites you back into the body. Start with Taurus. Slow down, savor, notice. Let that open the door to Scorpio's deeper question: what do I truly desire, and do I let myself want it?
Patience and Power. Taurus knows that the best things grow slowly. Scorpio knows that sometimes one decisive moment changes everything. Patience without power becomes waiting forever for the "right time." Power without patience becomes reactive, burning bridges you'll wish you'd kept. The integration is knowing your power while choosing your timing. That's exactly what this retrograde window supports: claim the truth now, act on it with intention after November 13.
Self-Worth and Surrender. This is the heart of the axis. Taurus says, I am worthy of what I have. Scorpio says, I am willing to release what no longer serves me. You can't truly surrender until you trust your own worth. Otherwise letting go feels like losing yourself. And you can't fully own your worth until you're willing to walk away from anything that asks you to be less. Worth makes surrender safe. Surrender makes worth real.
Three Ways to Work With This Full Moon
1. Ground first, then go deep. Let Taurus build the container before Scorpio does the excavation. Before any journaling or emotional work this week, spend five minutes in your body. Feet on the earth if you can, one hand on your belly, three slow breaths with a longer exhale. Then open your journal and ask the Scorpio questions: What am I not saying? What do I want that I haven't let myself want? Your nervous system can only go as deep as it feels safe enough to go. For the woman who usually thinks her way through everything, this one step changes what's possible.
2. Make a Hunter's Moon harvest list: keep and compost. Draw a line down the middle of a page. On the left, the Taurus column: what you've built, earned and grown this year that is truly yours to keep. Your worth, your values, the relationships and routines that actually nourish you. On the right, the Scorpio column: the habits, roles, old stories and quiet obligations that have already died and need to be released. With Pluto pressing on this Full Moon, be honest about what you've been gripping out of fear. Read both columns out loud. Notice which one was harder to write. That's your growing edge.
3. Feel it fully now. Decide after November 13. With Venus and Mercury both retrograde, this Full Moon is for revelation, not resolution. Give yourself one evening of Taurus pleasure (a slow ritual bath with salt and rose oil, a meal eaten without your phone, music that moves you) and don't use it to numb out. Let the sweetness soften you enough to feel what's underneath. If grief, desire or a hard truth rises, write it down without editing. Then let it sit. The conversation, the boundary or the decision will be clearer, and kinder, once both planets turn direct.
A Reflection Question for the Full Moon in Taurus
Where have I been calling numbness "stability" — and where have I been calling self-abandonment "depth"?
The Shift: From Gripping to Holding
There's a difference between gripping and holding. Gripping comes from fear. It's the white-knuckled control of a woman who believes everything will fall apart the moment she loosens her hold. Holding comes from trust. It's the open, steady hands of a woman who knows what's hers and isn't afraid to let the rest go.
This Full Moon, with Pluto pressing and the two personal planets turned inward, is asking you to move from one to the other. To stay rooted in your body, your worth and your values, the Taurus gifts, while letting Scorpio take you into the deep water where real change lives. You don't have to burn your life down to find yourself. And you don't have to stay asleep in it to stay safe.
You're not broken. You're patterned. And patterns can be seen, named and gently chosen differently, one honest moment at a time.
How Is This Full Moon Moving Through Your Chart?
Every woman will feel this Full Moon differently. For one, it lands in her money and her sense of self-worth. For another, it's a relationship that's asking for more honesty than it's ever had. For someone else, it's her career, her body, or a part of her identity that's ready to die so something truer can be born.
What decides which one it is for you is your birth chart: where 2° Taurus and 2° Scorpio fall in your houses, which of your planets Pluto is pressing on, and where Venus is retracing her steps through your chart this fall. The collective sky tells you the season. Your chart tells you the story.
In a personalized reading I'll show you exactly where this Taurus–Scorpio axis lives in your chart, what the current transits are activating for you, and what they're asking you to keep, release and choose differently. Not prediction. Remembrance. And then we'll talk about what to actually do with it
If This Landed Somewhere Deep
If the Taurus questions hit home (worth, deserving, the quiet belief that you have to earn the right to rest, receive and be loved), you may be living one of the patterns I see most often in high-achieving women. I call it the Venus Wound: the woman who earns her worth. It's one of five cosmic patterns I've written about in my free guide.
Download The 5 Cosmic Patterns — free
And if you want to know exactly where this Full Moon is landing in your birth chart — what it's activating, what it's clearing, what it's asking of you specifically — I'd love to look at your chart together.
Book your free 30-minute consultation
Christine Flora is a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC), Professional Astrologer, and Soul Alignment Coach. She is the creator of Divinely Aligned: Sacred Transformation™ — a 6-month program using the birth chart as a psychological map, paired with evidence-based coaching to help high-achieving women understand the patterns driving their choices and step into their most aligned life.
HaTha Holistic Health · hathaholistichealth.com
