Insights for Scorpio

October 23
Sun enters Scorpio: 12:20 PM EDT
Here, in the North, where the prototypical astrological seasons happen, we are letting go. There is nothing we can do about the length of days or nights. Sure, we can get on a plane and go somewhere else but the sky will have its way. Scorpio isn’t just about letting go. It’s about feelings, particularly the feelings we have about letting go. The complicated ones, the ones you wish you didn’t have, the ones you hide, the ones you project on to others. It’s so human. There is no bottom to the well of feeling we humans hold. The truth of them will always out.
All this letting go and feeling is a kind of initiation, Scorpio’s home place. To turn away from it, to deny the rich complexity of how we feel always makes things worse as it fosters the mirror world of people we don’t trust, people we look down on who become our scapegoats. Damned if you do or you don’t: that’s one side of Scorpio. There is also the potential for ecstasy as we ride the intensity of feeling with an open heart, without interfering, without judgment, without action; just traveling the river of feeling now and again.
Watch out this month for projections coming at you or from you in a world so intent on war and enemies and hate. Fear is easy, love is the medicine that turns hell into some other place.
The Sun will be busy in Scorpio this year as it trines Saturn, opposes Jupiter and Uranus, trines Neptune, sextiles Pluto and conjuncts Mars. No matter which hemisphere you inhabit, what leaves are falling from your branches?  

October 24
Sun trine Saturn             
Water (Scorpio and Pisces) needs containment: the banks of the river, a shoreline of rock or sand, a glass, bottle or bowl. Water takes the shape of whatever contains it. Astrologically water represents feeling. Water is not passive or weak. The waterfall wears down the mountain. An excess will overflow the banks and wash whole houses out to sea. A lack makes things dry and hard, unable to absorb or receive it.
What contains your feelings? What shape do you allow them to have? Do you save them for therapy? Share them with trusted intimates? Fling them at random people and situations? Do you offer them to others (along with your attention) to be shaped and directed by outside forces? Do you project them like movie images on others or do you channel them through creative expression or deep service to those in need? Whatever the shape that contains your feelings, today and on until the full Moon on the 28th is a time to step up and use the power of your feelings for the good of all. It’s not about holding the line or making a stand more like strengthening our ability to feel, focus and sustain what matters most.

 October 28:
Full Moon: Eclipse 05 degrees Taurus: 04:24 PM EDT
Mars opposite Jupiter
Mercury opposite Jupiter  
Whatever this lunar eclipse brings we will be unpacking it for a while. In the not too distant future Jupiter will slow down and station at this same degree (mid-December through mid–January). Seems like Mercury and Mars (in Scorpio) opposite Jupiter (in Taurus) want in on this as well. Perhaps Jupiter holds the keys to this Full Moon. Jupiter has two sides: One you might say, is wisdom; the other is prone to excess, even an excess of judgment. Perhaps the question is, ‘How much is enough?’
The Full Moon lights up the sky like a silvery Sun. Shedding cool radiance and bathing the world in shimmer. Of course if you live in the city you don’t get to bask in the shimmer. Nevertheless the night is a little brighter. There is more that can be seen in the dark. Full Moons are oppositions, inherently challenging. They illuminate extreme ends of polarities. Taurus and Scorpio are about holding on and letting go: pleasure and pain: trust and betrayal.  This Full Moon is strong because of the eclipse and two oppositions in the same signs. Taurus wants beauty, pleasure and value. Scorpio wants only the inevitable truth: What lives, dies: What becomes, transforms. In these times of radical polarization and the desperate need for integration, consider the shadow of your attachments. What needs to be let go? How can we surrender without fear to inevitable losses? Courage is not just the project of fire signs. It also lives in Scorpio when we acknowledge, allow and even celebrate endings which reminds us that we have ancestors who did the same. In this way, the past becomes fertilizer for the present and the eventual new beginning to come.  

October 29 
Mercury conjunct Mars
The intensity of the Full Moon continues. It’s a hot topic. Or maybe a very cold and calculating one. Scorpio goes both ways. Feelings, whether hot or cold are more powerful and closer to truth when we allow them time to cook, to connect with other parts of ourselves: Not to repress them. Time can seem like a luxury when fear is present. Slowing down can dispel fear (if danger is not coming directly at you). Distraction won’t help. Expression might. Take your feelings for a walk. Write them down. Sing or listen to music. Look inward. There is a deep well of feeling in each and every one of us. 

October 31
Venus trine Uranus
We all know what today is. Or do we? Why the costumes, the candy? Why the gruesome graveyard decorations? Why is it one of the biggest celebrations here in North America? Step back for a moment and marvel at Nature’s power and relentless commitment to change. Here in the north we are deep into descending darkness. If you didn’t know better you might fear that the next six weeks of shortening days and lengthening nights is the way of the future: the way it will always be. Knowing better means acknowledging the ancestors. This might include your DNA relatives as well as the old oak tree that grew near your house when you were a kid or the glaciers that are melting. These ancestors were alive as they walked their path just like you. Nothing like a costume to allow a glimpse of another self, a slide in time. Trick or treat is one way. Dancing in a graveyard might be another.

November 3
Sun opposite Jupiter
Venus opposite Neptune
Oppositions require us to make choices about how we meet our challenges. These are challenging times – even on a good day. Do we project and polarize in an attempt to feel safe on our side of things? Is there a possibility to connect and integrate? Is it even possible to dialogue with someone who is stealing your resources or threatening your life? If someone is coming at you with a weapon you don’t think. You have been created over hundreds of thousands of years to protect your life. To survive. Good call. But if your life isn’t threatened in this moment, perhaps in the way of Sun/Jupiter you might consider how letting go of something you hold tightly is a sustainable option. For Venus/Neptune the consideration is about service. Whom do you serve? How is devotion a factor in your life?

Photo by Jash Sojitra on Unsplash

November 4
Saturn Stationary direct
Mercury opposite Uranus     
You know Saturn has you in its sites if you feel overwhelmed, responsible and confused about what you can do to alleviate the suffering in the world. The station has an arc that could be measured from at least October 12 and continues to resonate at least until November 28th. Stations are turning points. October brought us a terrible, tragic war, full of unspeakable suffering. We can’t say it will be over by the end of November (would that we could). Saturn shows us limits and by so doing encourages us to strengthen ourselves within those limits. Pisces is limitless. How do we bear the unbearable? What does it even mean to take responsibility? If you are overwhelmed by the sufferings in the world or even just your appointment book or people who expect you to show up in a particular way you are ready for some boundaries. This is not about R & R or a glorious distraction. It is time to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to obligations.
Mercury and Uranus inspire us to think outside the usual; to be open and accepting to a world that isn’t what you were expecting. Think revolutionary thoughts, not violent ones.

November 06 
Venus trine Pluto
Mercury trine Neptune
How we do what we do matters. Caring for the manifest world is a sacred task: everything from sweeping the floor and feeding the children to demanding peaceful solutions from our leaders. The Temple is everywhere and belongs to everyone. We are individual cells in a living organism, so vast as to be unknowable yet nonetheless real. Call it Life. This awareness probably won’t change what you’re doing, just how you do it. Such is the nature of trines.

November 08
Venus enters Libra  
Mercury sextile Pluto
Voluntary surrender to present conditions is profoundly relaxing. Involuntary surrender, call it capitulation, causes maximum stress responses. Surrender invites awareness, capitulation contracts us and breeds fear. It’s almost impossible to surrender or relax to a world on a crash-and-burn course of destruction. To turn away or pretend that it isn’t happening is not truly relaxing at all.  In Libra, Venus suggests that we find the stance of a warrior which might allow us to stay centered (balanced) even as we take up the fight against extinction. Mercury reminds is that practice is the way.

November 10
Mercury enters Sagittarius
Mercury square Saturn
Redefining the notion of freedom isn’t easy. For quite a while now freedom has been the freedom to consume. We have become collectively aware that one man’s freedom often means another’s slavery. How much is more than enough? Think hard about this. As you do, anchor your intuitive leaps to the reality of other people’s suffering. It is as real as your own.

November 11
Mars opposite Uranus
The power of things we can’t control causes fear as well as awe. The power of a waterfall to wash away a mountain; the power of wind to generate electricity; the powers of love and loss; and, of course the power of people to be the masters of our own oblivion. There is a radical promise in today’s astrology. Coming at the waning of the moon we might consider that awe precedes action. Love not fear. Kindness not territorial imperative.  

November 13
New Moon: 20 degrees Scorpio: 04:27 AM EST
Sun opposite Uranus          
New Moons invite us to begin again. If you’re making an intention for this New Moon consider how you feel about the economy. Which of course means how much money can buy for all of us. What is actually within your control and what isn’t?  Does this really surprise or shock us anymore?

There is no Planet B.

What if? What if this really is all there is? Is it even possible to meet it with our feet on the earth and our head aligned to the cosmos? If it is (it is) then we do best to meet it willingly; to be fully alive to the actual texture and rhythm of this moment which inevitably allows us to journey through time and space.  

November 15
Mercury sextile Venus
Art, music, dance, poetry and sport all can speak to the soul. You choose, according to your inclination, what makes your soul sing. It’s a kind of love-making, personal, intimate and real, or it’s nothing. Our soul knows how to dance, to sing, to catch the wave and ride it to shore.      

November 17, 18
Mars trine Neptune
Sun trine Neptune
Sun conjunct Mars
We are awash in a powerful mix of feeling and courage; compassion and action. The challenge (as always) is to be inclusive of all life forms. To be human is to be filled to overflowing with longing (at times). Consumerism has taught us to long for things. We have been at it long enough to see the empty promises in this kind of fulfillment. What kind of courage is required to allow ourselves to experience longing as a thing in and of itself? Not with the promise of satisfaction, rather the possibility of connection and perhaps a bit of bliss. Maybe bliss cannot be measured. In which case even a bit is as good as forever.
Humans are heir to some kind of divine paradox. The psyche is as real as our hands, our feet, our beautiful, unique faces: A tempest of rough magic.  

November 20
Sun sextile Pluto
Mercury trine Chiron 
Feelings are as real as rain, as powerful as Niagara Falls, as destructive or transformative as we make them. Feelings connect us as individuals to big things such as movements and trends that sweep through our world. Feelings allow us to be manipulated if we don’t know we have them. Feelings are the alchemical substance that enables us to transform hate into love, swords into ploughshares. Like all magics they are wielded most powerfully by the ones who know they are real.

November 21
Mars sextile Pluto
The call for transformation continues. Life offers endless opportunity for acknowledging and evaluating our feelings before we put them into action. It can take a minute or a few days. Feelings are always true but they are not always righteous. We may hate violence but it takes wisdom to know how to deal with that hate. Wisdom grows when we evaluate our feelings. Step away from the assault of lies and misinformation raining down on us all. They are fashioned by those who would tell us how we feel and fleece our pockets while they are at it. You alone know how you feel. Our collective feelings are a powerful energy source. Right action proceeds from true knowledge of feeling.