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Seeing in the Dark - Scorpio
To go in the dark with a light,
Is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.
Go without sight, and find
That the dark too, blooms and sings,
And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
~ Wendell Berry
The call towards darkness is upon us—both seasonally here in the Northern hemisphere, and archetypally with the Sun now abiding in Scorpio, classically known as the explorer of the difficult depths. A bumpy transition in both respects, many of us resist—even resent—this literal turn towards darkening days and longer nights, a turn made more acute by the ‘portal’ of end of Daylight Savings Time.
We instinctively favor the days and evenings spent in the warm, illuminated outdoors, where we can absorb the life-giving Sun’s fire, and interact with the other intelligent beings and elements of the Earth’s day world. But now, with cooling nights and shortened days at hand, we are called back into the rhythmic cycle of the wheel of life and death. Endless Summer never was more than a state of mind, even if this year it has felt like one here in Sonoma County!
The grounded earth sign Taurus part of us (Scorpio’s polarity partner), finds its meaning, and as well its very spirituality in matter/Ma-ter, in Mother Earth’s soils, rocks, plant life, animal kin, and in immersion in our own physical senses. So to that earthy, spring season part it’s almost wrenching when water sign Scorpio calls us within, to a realm less familiar, more threatening, signified by the dark, and that which lies below ground, in a place we call the Underworld.
This realm includes those deep feelings and provocative memories from early childhood that we have repressed from our conscious minds, and which occasionally lash out in surprise PTSD moments as adults. The pushing down of that which was too painful to bear when we experienced our first wound of separation (the asteroid Chiron being a primary significator thereof) was a very necessary survival strategy when we were young, but eventually, if we are on a path to wholeness, as adults we are tasked with facing and releasing what is buried in the unconscious. Otherwise these memories and emotions keep part of our creative, energetic life force locked up and inaccessible.
In perfect synchrony right after penning my observations above, I received the link from a friend to a candid interview between CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and grief psychotherapist Francis Weller, a Sonoma County native. Presented as a podcast interview, it was more like a recap of the therapy work the two appear to have been doing together through time, in which Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, points to and elaborates on some of the same concepts I described. Psychological practices are signified by the sign Scorpio, given they involve inner excavation for hidden gems of truth, which in turn bring healing. I applaud Anderson for sharing this exchange with the world, and for exposing his own feelings and vulnerability over his losses. I highly recommend listening to the conversation, especially if you are inclined to the difficult and tender work of being with, and “turning over the compost” of your grief, as Francis says.
Compost is itself a beautiful, earthy underworld significator of Scorpio, as it involves the regeneration of our cast-off ‘waste’—physically speaking as discarded food remains, and emotionally speaking, as the tears, anger, and fear that we reject for not being part of ‘the good stuff’ we think we’re striving for. Whether in the garden or within ourselves, composting is in fact a rich source of nourishment for a healed and renewed life.
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Paradise lost
Fundamentally, our primal wound of separation centers in some way around grief over our ‘Paradise Lost.’ (Interestingly the author of this tome, John Milton, had Scorpio rising, as did psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud). And Scorpio’s is the archetypal season that invites us to face our losses, our traumas, our fall from grace, and set to the work of dissolving our calcified coping strategies—coined as ‘complexes’ by C.G.Jung, otherwise known as default ego patterns.
Looking at our unconscious patterning is difficult work, and calls in the Scorpio qualities of courageous inquiry and perseverance. Engaging with this process can feel threatening, but it is paramount if we are to grow the robust resilience that is and will continue to be needed as we face the radical changes afoot on our planet. Without such healing work, we will be at the whims of our more primitive reactions to perceived threats. But when we have faced our inner demons, allowed ourselves to become ‘undone,’ and found our way back, we can be ready to hold steady when outer perils arise.
Of course the major news headlines are already replete with such perils, at the now-mythic level, whether of genocidal wars, famine, environmental catastrophes, or rising autocratic forces. These are but part of the story of our time, however—the dark one. There is another very real possibility afoot, that of awakening to the light within, equally apace. But this latter requires an embrace of, even an intimacy, with the dark. Scorpio, after all presides over intimate relating.
Most are familiar with the Scorpionic myth of Hades’ abduction of the innocent maiden Persephone, Demeter’s daughter, down to his kingdom below, while she was out picking flowers in the field. This was not in the plan…or was it? In last year’s Scorpio blog I referenced depth astrologer Liz Greene’s surmise that an unconscious part of Persephone longed for this experience, in the name of attaining wholeness. Hence her choosing to eat the forbidden seeds of pomegranate while leaving Hades. Seen in this light, we recognize perhaps that we, too, in our own ways, are called to an encounter with the dark and dangerous. And that by facing the shadows within (where it’s darkest of all!), such as Jung did over the 16 years chronicled in The Red Book, we can ultimately achieve a type of rebirth or renewal from the core of our being. No less than this is what the Scorpio archetype, with regenerator/transformer Pluto its modern ruler, ultimately asks of us.
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Shedding the skin
In step with the inward pull, I have been studying The Red Book lately (and its underlying astrological associations), including some of the many color plates of the evocative images Jung painted depicting his meetings with ‘underworld’ characters that came to figure as ongoing members of his inner pantheon, and in dialogue with whom he gained great wisdom, and furthered his healing process. While some had termed this phase of Jung’s life a ‘psychotic break’, from the standpoint of psychological practitioners who embrace shadow work, his was a deeply courageous act, to turn wholeheartedly within, with body, mind, and soul, at a time when he was feeling deeply fragmented and torn apart within.
As someone with my own fair share of Scorpio-Pluto energy, I have always felt at home at this time of year, and with the exploration of the psychological depths. This is why the type of astrology I specialize in is intended to transform, requiring committed work over time on the part of the client. (Signing up for regular periodic readings is advised!) Perhaps also testament to my Scorpio bent, I have done my own exploration of the inner world of the creative imagination through earlier years spent with The Painting Experience practice. This powerful phase of my life coincided with my initial encounter with Sufism, and both painting and Sufi practices wove together to usher me through my first Saturn return, leading to a complete change of life.
Once could say this time marked a type of death and rebirth, the shedding of an old skin, with the snake a significator of the Scorpionic impulse. We humans do need to shed our skins periodically, to greater and lesser degrees, depending on the cycles at hand. For me, the time of ‘greater’ transformation mentioned above coincided with Pluto in Scorpio passing over my Scorpio Ascendant—definitely a death/rebirth signature. But for the rest of us, right now, regardless of our transits, we find ourselves dancing with the archetypal forces of transformation in several big ways.
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Claiming our power
The Sun (life force) and Mercury (communication) are in Scorpio, so the very nature of the fuel we burn, and of our thinking, likely now partakes of Scorpio intensity. Pluto is poised to transition back into Aquarius for good on Nov. 19 (see my Wheels of Change Aquarius blog for more on this). And, Pluto is exactly opposing Mars (action, anger, and desire) at the 29th degrees of Capricorn and Cancer respectively, at the Nov. 1 New Moon. Planets in the 29th, or anaretic degree of a sign are in a critical ‘completion’ phase, with their power often emphasized, sometimes unpredictably so.
Since Scorpio modern ruler Pluto is about the struggle between power and powerlessness at a soul level, being provoked by feisty Mars suggests an intense and powerful time as we struggle to engage and assert our deepest truth and need. Mars wants to keep a strong ego in check, while Pluto wants to get to the very Truth of the matter. Chiron in Mars-ruled Aries, along with the Moon’s North Node in Aries, have been calling us to the self-assertion project all year, steering us away from codependent (Libran) patterns of giving our power to others. We are cautioned, with this much dynamite in the air, to proceed slowly and carefully, while attempting the difficult work of both asserting our desires, and being open to vulnerably yielding when we hit a calcified ‘hot spot’ within.
Impulsive Mars in sensitive Cancer can be easily triggered by and become defensive over perceived hurts, so we need to give space for our emotions and intuitions to play out and settle before taking any rash verbal or other types of actions.
With the opposition of these two powerful, and potentially explosive planetary gods we may experience confrontations, the smashing through of defenses or boundaries, the stirring of dark waters and primitive instincts, and yes, with the off-centered manifestation, more of the horrific violence and inhumane torture and killing we’ve seeing in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Death and rebirth
We’re also of course seeing the tense polarity within our own election, with the looming specter of fascism and the dismantlement of everything the US has been founded on—a chilling prospect. This election is perhaps the most pivotal the country has seen, taking us through a darker, scarier portal, into a new realm. Regardless of who is declared the winner, this is a potential death throe of the country as we have known it.
The completion of the death/rebirth cycle is right on cue astrologically, as the US’ Pluto return—completion of a full cycle, with Pluto having finished crossing back over its original natal chart placement—now coming to completion. Are we careening towards rebirth as a fascistic autocracy? Or a ‘one party’ corporate/conglomerate state headed by a bi-racial woman of color? Are big money and big tech the wizards in control behind the curtain on both sides? Who are the real demons at hand? It’s a house of every shifting, bendy mirrors.
It’s important at this point not to get locked into the ‘side-show’, albeit a very serious and compelling one!, that is political news. And to take the bigger picture perspective, which means to do our best to take world political affairs ‘lightly’. Not to deny what’s going on, but to keep our eye on the prize of healing and regeneration, which are Scorpio’s ultimate concerns. Big changes are demanding our attention, inwardly as well as outwardly. While those called to political action are doing good work serving a cause they believe in, Scorpio reminds that it’s important to take care of our own inner work, so that we can meet our time of radical change from a place of centeredness that keeps beauty, earth connection, kindness, accountability, and love at the fore.
Doing its part to help the cause, news purveyor NPR (National Public Radio) recently presented a new “Stress Less” series to ‘help one find one’s calm.’ An article this week featured the trending psychological technique, Internal Family Systems (IFS), founded by Richard Schwartz. “Parts Work,” as it’s referred to, encourages us to identify, and thereby navigate with, the various parts or voices in ourselves, such as the Critic, the Manager, and the Firefighter. It’s a somewhat ‘lighter’ version of Jung’s exploration into his depths, but it’s along the same lines, of engaging with the various characters, or archetypes, within—a process that has captured the therapeutic imagination these days.
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In pursuit of Truth
In perfect time, after I’d watched ‘undone’ Anderson Cooper baring his raw pain over the 40-years-on loss of his father, and the revelation that the ensuing ego strategies that had helped him successfully ‘hold down a job’ (a spotlit one at that!) were no longer useful, the next morning I read of VP Kamala Harris’ Pennsylvania campaign appearance, where she was interviewed by our depth diver Cooper. I can’t help but love this sewing together of above and below worlds that my ‘virtual’ news cycle presented.
Scorpio’s call to the vulnerable depths does indeed challenge us to take great risks, whether to our reputation, or our very sense of self, through facing, or revealing the truth. Another courageous, white-haired journalist in the news in the past month has been WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Interesting that both my astrological ‘subjects’ this month are journalists. I can point to Mercury being in Scorpio—investigative journalism in pursuit of Truth, a Scorpio theme—on the one hand, and Jupiter in Gemini as coincident signatures—with Jupiter the energy that posits in the public consciousness a vision or ‘North star’ in the realm of the sign it presides in. Positioned in Gemini until next summer, Jupiter’s North star of meaning now resides along the trade routes of information, and learning, if you can find your way to a source you trust!!
Cooper has Pluto squaring his 8th House Sun, and his Moon’s South Node in Scorpio. With the 8th house being the area of life where all manner of shadowy, emotion-laden matters arise, and the South Node describing our past ‘proficiencies’, his chart suggests he incarnated with a great deal of familiarity with the difficult realms of Scorpio, and had ‘signed up’ for more. Julian Assange, likewise, has his Sun in the 8th house, and his Moon and Jupiter in Scorpio. (For astro ‘nerds’, he has his North Node squared by that Jupiter, making Jupiter in Scorpio his ‘skipped step’, indicating an expansive (Jupiter) course of ‘bring it on’ Scorpio seeking to be integrated. )
Sadly, Assange has indeed brought it on, suffering greatly from the torture and isolation he endured in British prison for his ‘crime’ of digging up and exposing hidden information. Esteemed mythologist Michael Meade, who himself served some time, for his opposition to the Vietnam war, describes prison time as an Underworld Initiation, which for him was one of both indescribable darkness, and his greatest awakening. Assange may not have been so blessed, but he was released over the summer on condition that he confess to his ‘crime’. “I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today,” he said, “after years of incarceration, because I pled guilty to journalism.”
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Becoming who we truly are
Scorpio energy need not always be this brutal, but it is definitely not for the faint-hearted. Its processes, while ostensibly destructive, are actually intended for rebirth, as its highest totem, the phoenix, testifies to. As Meade stated in a recent webinar on The Soul of Change, “The emotions enter us to change us…the growth of the soul finds its balance through experiencing extremes.”
Meade points to the Earth, and Nature itself, as Creation’s primary force of change and transformation, with the best known emblem of its metamorphosing impulses being that of caterpillar to butterfly. The ancient Greeks used the word psyche to connote the butterfly, and given that in depth psychology we equate Soul with the human Psyche, we see that the butterfly’s biological rebirth is in fact a mythological story of transformation. The amazing fact about this is that the cells in the caterpillar resist and even try to kill the butterfly-programmed cells, called the “Imago,” or the image of what it is meant to become. Even more amazing (and heart-warming!) is that the attack mounted by the caterpillar cells, which are trying to protect its many-legged status quo, actually strengthens the growth capacity of the butterfly.
In this light, we see how resistance to change is part and parcel of change. All of this plays out for us as well. Our resistance comes disguised as deep fears and entrenched ego attitudes, battling against the ‘Imago’ within us that is frustrated with the status quo, and yearns for its possible butterflyness! “Becoming who we truly are, following the natural drive of the Soul, is the hardest thing we’ll ever do,” Meade attests. For it requires that we loosen the grip of the ego, and courageously allow the deeper Self to fill the places within.
Initiation is a revelation from within, a revealing of oneself to oneself. Each crisis brings us closer to awakening. The ‘inner initiate’ in us [the Scorpio part] knows that in order to be healed—to become more whole, more creative—so that we can add meaning to the world, something in us has to die. Then, something else can be born.
But death by necessity precedes rebirth, and ours is a dying time. Many I know are facing the loss of loved ones, of relationships, of beloved places, of homes inhabited and cherished for years, of stable health, of youth! And the earth, too, in this moment, particularly in my locale, feels more than ever to be dying, after an Indian Summer of extended, crushing heat. In my Qi Gong classes lately, which are intimately connected with the Ancient Daoist seasonal cycles, we have been doing practices that embody the wheel of life and death, and an awareness of our circulating blood. (Scorpio in medical astrology was in former times associated with “bloodletting.”)
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Persevering, darkness yields to light
The other day I was walking at my local laguna, usually a place of uplifting vistas, where the colors and textures of vibrant plant and birdlife abound. This time I found a type of wasteland. I’d been walking but 10 minutes when I was brutally stung, in two places, by an invisible and inaudible (Scorpionic!) stinger, such that I cried out! I haven’t experienced such a sting in decades, even while wearing close-fitting pants—it’s a mystery how the perpetrator gained entry.
I continued walking, only to discover the seasonal bridge I’d planned to cross over the waterway had been taken down. As I turned and headed back to my car, I noticed the hardened, gray-brown earth, that in spring hosts golden California poppies and soft grasses, was deadened but for a thick, viney, traveling weed. Amidst the snake-like vines I startled at the sight of a 9-inch green lizard, with gaping jaw, near my feet. My own private Underworld! Then I realized it was a rubber lizard, desposited by Coyote perhaps. (Two days later on a birding outing someone informed me that Badger and Coyote sometimes hunt together, as shown on YouTube!)
Somehow this all feels very consonant with the time – with so much not being as it once was, as we’ve come to expect. We are really and truly being called to a new level of strength, and to deepen in our determination to seek Beauty in all places. As Rainer Maria Rilke insists in one of his Letters To a Young Poet, “everywhere there is much beauty.” If so, we are tasked more than ever with finding it, even in a time of dying. In this spirit, I got back in my car and drove to the other side of the Laguna to continue my walk, and found there a simple beauty, just in the rhythm of my body treading the dusty path, surrounded by the expanse of land and sky. And, I was blessed for my effort by the majestic flight of a broad-winged Great Egret.
As noted by Michael Meade, Scorpio presides over extremes, of mythic heights and depths, which includes drama (particularly triggered in our relationships!). And here in my little underworld nature outing, I‘d met with some drama as well. But this is surely meaningful, taken through the lens of finding meaning in all things, as a sort of light in the darkness. Gene Keys author and founder, Richard Rudd, sums it up in a transmission recently shared about the energy of this particular week of Scorpio:
The mythic is even played out on a mundane level, but only when we give ourselves totally to the drama. This is the beautiful metaphor of drama, and it’s why we are so drawn to it, because it contains the codes of transformation. All drama has transformation woven into it, and that transformation always moves into higher and higher frequencies as the dark nature reveals its hidden light.
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Keep Calm and Carry On
If we approach the drama with both self-awareness and perspective, we can facilitate the ‘weave’ Rudd speaks of, which helps us in our passage to living with more light in our hearts and minds. But this takes time, so we must breathe deep, with patience for the journey through what Francis Weller calls “the Long Dark” of our time.
The upcoming New Moon in Scorpio falls on the important cross-quarter day of Samhain (Sow-win), equidistant between the Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice. For the Celts of Ireland and the British Isles (and of French Gaul and Spanish Galicia in ancient times), Samhain marked the end of the harvest, and the start of the New Year—the opening to winter, and the time of darkness. This is the time when the veils between the worlds are thinnest, when we can commune with our ancestors, hence Day of the Dead and All Soul’s Day coinciding. Bonfires were traditionally lit to help keep at bay the ‘spooky’ spirits that roamed the night skies.
I am noticing here in my town a shift in Halloween displays: giant pumpkins and cute scarecrows yielding to R.I.P. gravestones and death beings of all shapes and sizes. One display, right beside our Senior Center, features a placard, Keep Calm and Carrion, with black-necked plastic vultures with red heads (a morphed version of the ever popular pink flamingo) sniffing the ground below around a mock dead body, with a ghostly young girl playing with a skull. The photos above show the ‘white folk’ by the house looking on in horror.
With things looking this grim, remaining in connection and communication with the Earth, her elements, and her manifestations, is ever more important.
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New Moon Astrology
I’ve touched on the primary signature of the Nov. 1 New Moon, the Pluto-Mars opposition, which will be in and out of close aspect until April. So it’s something we’re going to have to get used to and work with, this upsurge in intensity, and desire to explore what is hidden. The opposition forms the spine of a “kite” formation—good news, as kites offer great potential for integration. This kite includes a tight Grand Trine in water between Mars, Mercury, and Neptune, and Pluto in sextile to both Mercury and Neptune.
The harmonious aspects of trine and sextile aligning around the fierce opposition, particularly with compassionate Neptune’s influence, help us tune into frequencies and dimensions beyond or beneath the hard facts at hand, so that we may open to, soften, and dissolve our intense defenses and rigidities within. Adding to the New Moon in Scorpio energy, the configuration further stresses the need for inner work (water signs by nature invite this), which serves in healing any deep-rooted relational struggles, and claiming our agency within them.
We also have a second kite aspect, with Uranus opposing Mercury forming its spine. This suggests unpredictable communication, and miscommunication. So we must tread carefully with our words, and interpretations of them. Cautious, responsible Saturn is trining the Moon-Sun in Scorpio, which points to the need to stay practically grounded as we work to avail ourselves of the growthful potential of an outwardly tense and challenging, yet inwardly productive time.
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Links For Further Meandering
Anderson Cooper with Francis Weller on Grief – https://youtu.be/BRWPA8oPyGs?si=ipAPIjWqS_RybbRT
The Red Book, by C.G. Jung, published in 2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Book_(Jung)
Democracy Now report on Julian Assange’s first international appearance after his release – https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/1/julian_assange_first_remarks_since_prison
Michael Meade – https://www.mosaicvoices.org/podcast
Internal Family Systems Summary: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/25/nx-s1-5055753/parts-work-therapy-internal-family-systems-anxiety?utm_id=10240936&orgid=15&utm_att1=