The Moon in Scorpio, the sign of its fall, grows mournful and macabre, and silently studies its environs, sizing up its surroundings. And, as it morphs from balsamic to new, becomes a black mirror, better for scrying than for seeing in the usual sense. While Mercury, coming out of a square to Pluto and heading towards Mars, takes the form of Odin leading the Wild Hunt, stampeding across the sky with the hounds of hell. He brings the prophetic messages, shocks, and insights of Uranus as Prometheus, pinioned in punishment to the rock, and sends back to him the disemboweling eagle of Zeus. Then, he shapeshifts into Charon the ferryman, and we are punting along on the River Styx, into the caves of our hearts and minds.
It’s a beautiful-dark-twisted fantasy-land, this Scorpionic inner and underworld, and the place where it is most clear that death, and life, are two sides of the same double-edged sword; or cut from the same cosmic cloth, and woven from the myriad threads of the Moirae. We are both old souls and newborns. Venom is both poison and medicine. The dead are ever present, in our memories, in our DNA, and just beyond the veil. The mortal coil is both a blessing and a curse; we are all alone and we are all together; no one gets out of here alive; and the only thing to fear is fear itself.
And as the Moon slips through undetected she pulls and swells the tides of grief, remorse, passion and pain, and delivers us onto the shores of our individual destinies, for a confrontation with Self. What shapes and shadows appear when you are alone with yourself and your thoughts? In what ways are you wicked, and in what ways wise? With skies such as this, we may feel pricked and provoked, our nerve endings on high alert. Sparks and irritants fly, threatening to detonate long-buried feelings and grievances. Our words may become weapons, as well as armor. But while we seethe, we sow seeds, for new stories of strength, survival, and personal growth to emerge throughout the upcoming eclipse season and beyond. This is not a comfortable lunation, nor month for that matter, but it will show us where our edges are, our trip wires and our triggers, all the better to know ourselves by.
Images by Gustave Doré from Milton’s Paradise Lost
Calling all Slytherins, Merry Pranksters, all hallows and hallowèd: Mars has entered the inky waters and Wuthering Heights of Scorpio, his nocturnal rousing place, where he has home-court advantage. It’s a real Thriller, a Samhain Spectacular, and a time for dancing with the dead; for devilry, revelry, dungeons, and dragons. We are pitched into a Kubrick-esque landscape, at once panoramic and claustrophobic, simultaneously hypnotic and jarring; sending our six senses to work—turned on, for better or for worse. So knives out—sharpen them on the whetstone. Bare the fangs, and the incisors; and cackle, scream or moan from the deep throat, as the god of guts has his way with you.
Note that, while Mars is empowered in Scorpio, he will also be tied up with Saturn and Uranus, whose ongoing square has been rearing its ugly head throughout this year in the besieged fixed signs. During this next six weeks, we may confront our relationship to blood, to honor, to pressure, to morality, and to the Animus. We peer behind the veil, and face whatever peers back. We duck, and duel, behind doors, plumb the psyche, and seek erotic encounters. We penetrate—in the desire to stress test the tensile strength of reality, and to attain ultimate, naked truth. Mars has transitioned, Libra’s light is now only a tiny flicker, and we go Back to Black.
October 22 - November 21, 2021
The Scorpio Sun is equipped not only to see, but to shine, in the dark, while at the same time, it casts long shadows as it goes. It illuminates for its natives a life path beset with sticks and stones, barks and bites, underground tunnels and secret passageways, caves and crossroads, closets and cupboards, bed knobs, broomsticks, wishing wells, magic mirrors, poison apples and all manner of strange fruit. Scorpio’s children, as a result of this second sight, are masters of hide and seek. And as the protégées of Pluto and Mars, life is a perpetual game of truth or dare. They are bestowed, by these gods, from birth with the gifts of eagle eye, serpent tongue and phoenix fire in the heart—all the better with which to win, and live to play the game one more day.
In this season, we honor these cunning folk, these shamans of the Zodiac. Our Scorpio friends, and foes, teach us how to pursue, to persevere, to plumb and to probe; to feel deeply, fight bravely and love devotedly. They encourage us to grasp, and hold on tightly, to whatever our quarry may be. This time of year brings initiations, large and small, into life’s mysteries; it brings gallows humor, strong opinions, a desire for privacy, and a dance with secrecy. We can all expect a deep dive into the area of our chart that contains this fixed water sign. Pick the bones clean, says Scorpio, and then go all the way to the marrow. There is hidden treasure to be found if we stay the course and don’t give up too soon.