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“To live in this world
you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
(Mary Oliver)
November carries us into the deep and mysterious landscape of Scorpio, which speaks of the death we witness all around us in the northern hemisphere. Some creatures slip into the long sleep of hibernation. Trees release their leaves and reach with bare branches toward the sky, just as Scorpio reaches down into the depths and the mystery.
Intensity is the keyword of Scorpio season. The word first described the amount of energy with which a force operates, and it comes from the Latin intensus, meaning “stretched, strained, high-strung, tight.” That in turn comes from intendere, where in- means “toward” and tendere means “to stretch.” Picture a bowstring drawn back: the stretch into action before the release. Intensity also shares a root with intend, so intensity and intention are literally the same stretch toward something.
That is the heart of Scorpio: the energy with which everything is felt before the release, as if every act were done before one`s own last breath. And what an intense time this is, with the Sun, and the Moon at 18 degrees of Scorpio, along with retrograde Mercury at 7 also in Scorpio. They, like strong magnets pull us toward the depths to discover all that is hidden. On the other side of the sky, Mars, Jupiter, and the North Node shine in Leo, the mighty, fiery light-bearer.
In ancient Greek mythology, these two signs have very different rulers: Apollo, the sun god, for Leo, and Hades, god of the underworld, for Scorpio. One governs the world above, the other the world below. The Sun is visible to all, while Hades moves unseen through the earthly realm. This tension between light and shadow is likely to be felt in the days before the new Moon and for some days after, as Mars joins Jupiter on November 19.
Leo asks us to tend to where we feel special and unique, and to consider how we might orient our lives toward that. Scorpio calls us on an inward journey, to lift the veil of courtesy and nicety and dive into the shadow: grief, power, control, passion. Nothing is foreign to this sign, the keeper of the full spectrum of human experience that our culture invites us to hide. This new Moon asks us to notice these things and meet them with curiosity Mars, Jupiter, and the Node in might Leo, brings a quality of time that is fiery, exuberant, and possibly overconfident, while Scorpio invites us to probe within, to orient toward what we might not want to look or feel, so that it can be digested, understood and release.
One of Scorpio’s symbols, the phoenix, suits this new Moon well. In Greek tradition, the bird burns in flame only to rise again from its own ashes. This new Moon asks us to feed the fire of self-expression and to stoke the flame where all that is unseen can be grieved and purified, while we set our direction with intention as Jupiter promises new and fervent possibilities.
The time is right to turn toward the inner journey and hold these conflicting energies and inner experiences. What will rise from the ashes of this lunar cycle? It will come from the hidden, mysterious places within our body, mind, and beyond them, where we find once again the thread that leads back to the life force, the source of new growth and meaning.
Venus retrograde in Libra and Mercury retrograde in Scorpio continue digging up the past, offering a chance to rediscover relationships we thought were buried: an old lover, a friend returning, the value of a bond long lost. It is a time to explore and reconnect rather than to sever ties or start something new in the realm of relationship. On November 13, Mercury will turn direct at 5 degrees of Scorpio, and on November 14, Venus will turn direct at 22 degrees of Libra. Some delays, glitches in communication are likely, and as they move forward more clarity and resolutions are likely, particularly on what has been on hold since early October.
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