The Moon, dark and void, finds her reflection in Scorpio
On November 13th, the new moon will peak in the part of the sky known as Scorpio. This is a powerful new moon for a number of reasons, the first being that this is the first new moon since eclipse season. We are officially out of the frying pan, but not the fire, and are being asked to continue working with what we learned or discovered during the last month. Many of us took a break from our manifesting practices and can now resume our new moon rituals, and, as I’ll explain, this is a great moon in particular to manifest with.
New Moon
Each new moon is a new start and holds the potential to be the beginning of a cycle if we harness the energy with intention and ritual. We get to see our intention come into fruition with the full moon and if we have asked for little things or are working with ideal timing, we might see that fruition in two weeks to come. However, the greater cycle that we are working with when we set intentions with the new moon is the one that reaches its end when the moon is full in the sign we began with. This means you have the potential now to sow a seed that will fully blossom in May during Taurus season on the full moon in Scorpio in 2024. The larger and more meaningful manifestions – better put, the work of co-creation – needs space, tending and divine timing. When we wish to set big change and transformation in motion we need to surrender to a longer timeline, one that winds and bends according to a universal and spiritual wisdom.
Conjunction with Mars
This new moon will be conjunct with the planet Mars in Scorpio. Long before the discovery of Pluto, Mars ruled over the signs of Aries and Scorpio. As such, this is a bit of a homecoming for Mars, and he feels comfortable and natural in the sign of Scorpio. (This is also why Scorpio, despite being a water sign, packs a brass knuckle punch.) The addition of Mars is bringing even more intensity to an already intense new moon. It's also highlighting our motivations and is asking us to deeply confront – with radical and objective honesty – what those motivations are and where they’re coming from. Scorpio never takes anything at face value – it knows that everything on the surface is just a fraction of the iceberg below and it is in those depths where Scorpio is interested in being. It wants – no, it needs – to see everything underneath. We may have to peel back layers of our own psyche, possibly realizing that our motivations are unaligned with our values or need correcting in some way. Mars can also provide more fuel to whatever it is we are trying to get started, but if we are not acting in integrity and in alignment of our true nature we will experience obstacles and tension, and may even land on our own sword when taken to the extreme. On a more mundane note, we might feel extra aggravated, impulsive or irritable on this new moon and the days around it, so be gentle on yourself and take care to pause before reacting. The other side of this energy is the ability to speak our truth clearly and stand up for ourselves with more ease than normal. Scoprio is a highly emotional sign that has work to do with meeting those emotions in a productive and constructive way, so this moon might be more challenging emotionally and we may need to work harder to find ways to process those emotions.
Transformation and Major Life Changes
If you have been dreaming up a new life for yourself, or are creating into existence radical new growth and transformation, you do not want to miss the opportunity to work with this new moon. This moon is all about transformation and making radical changes in our lives. As the world moves into a more dormant state and growth moves underground, hidden away from the prying eyes of onlookers, we are invited to do the same. To lay down seeds in secret, to work tirelessly on our craft and travel through the inner workings of our psyche and our own personal underworld. There is a feeling here that the world, and others, will not be ready to see this work until it appears in spring, at which point people will recieve this gift fully formed in all its glory, and they may wonder just how it happened so fast. You, on the other hand, will have felt each day, week, month that passed, and you’ll come out the other side having moved through another lesson in patience; of the monotonous, daily process of culltivating the soil and tilling the land. We often forget when we encounter the creations of another what we intimately know – that creation is a slow, arduous process that exists almost soely in the liminal, the threshold between. We are tempted, again and again, to think we are the only one this applies to, the only one for whom this law of patience and process exists for. It's best to remind ourselves that only we can see the work that goes on under the surface – when we can't see the work it is simply because it was not ours to witness, not because it does not exist.
Putting it all Together
The astrology of the past few years has been heavy, which is just another way of saying that the past few years have been heavy. We are shifting, as many understand, and we are being asked to move differently. In many ways, we need to move differently. We are being asked – nay, pushed, forced, backed into a corner – to commit to sustainability in all forms. This deep and probing moon in Scorpio is asking some hard hitting questions: are you content to treat the universe like a vending machine, asking for things and receiving them shortly after, or do you want to make long-lasting changes to create a future life in which you are fulfilled and nourished? Do you want to consume magic as we consume products or do you wish to utalitize your connection to the All to create and support structures of love, humanity and care in the world? These things take longer and are in opposition with instant gratification. To see it through we must wade through the dark, through the muck. We must be present will all that we can not stand to look at, and we must get to work on transforming it in the deepest way possible, for it is only in that deep place that the roots of sustainabity – the roots of the future world – can grow.
This is Scorpio's superpower, and gift to the world: the willingness to wade through the muck and the dirt, to look at the gore and the madness, and to travel fearlessly, with curiosity and purpose, through the underbelly of the world. This is what gives Pluto his title as ruler of the Underworld. In mythology, Hades is the ruler of the Underworld not because he is evil or dark but because that is simply the corner of the earth that he was given, and he, unlike his godly brothers, did not shy from the responsiblity. Zeus took the Sky, Poseidon took the Sea – they did not wish to dwell in the Underworld amongst the dead, they would rather have glory and temples of worship. Few honor the dead, fewer honor the dark and unknown. Yet, how different would the world look if that weren’t the case? If we had prominent spaces for honoring grief, if we, with intention, purpose and structure, had spaces to mourn collectively? What if we embraced our fear instead of running from it? What would we find there? The answer, despite how corny is may sound, is love. In the heart of grief is love, in the heart of death is life. In the face of the horrors we are confronted with our own humanity – the parts of us that bleed, that feel, that love. If we run from these things we run from the best parts of ourselves, we run from all that makes us human.
It is needed now, maybe more so than ever, that we run towards our humanity at full force. This means running towards our fears. How could it not? Our fear illuminates the essence of who we are and what we are here to do. When our hearts break it is because we have run towards life. We have opened our hearts and now we feel everything. Most feelings, if we are to be really honest, are not pleasant ones. Within the spectrum of emotion there are actually few that we welcome with open arms. And yet, there the rest are, ever present, ever a part of this human experience. And if we were to close our eyes to shut out the pain, our hearts would have no choice but to follow suit. To this we say, fists clenched and ready for battle, I will not become that which wounds me. If we are bleeding from hate and apathy, the answer is never going to be more hate or more apathy. The answer is always more life, more love – more humanity. It is an act of revolution and an act of spiritual warfare to love in the face of fear, and this is what Pluto is here to teach us. The beauty you seek comes at a cost, and here is it: the cost of a beautiful life, a beautiful world, is being present with the hideousness of life, of the world, of yourself. The cost is the toll it takes to continue to wade through fire, to come face to face with despair and darkness and yet say, “here I am. I see you, and now you see me.”
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