Scorpio New Moon

Ancient astrology texts give the fixed, watery sign of Scorpio a special status due to being the place where the Moon experiences her fall. Being the place where Fortune has her fall, Scorpio is considered zodiacal terrain where nothing can be exalted. When planets are considered to be exalted, they are elevated into the highest strata of fame and status within the dominant culture. Considering the current state of those in hierarchical positions of power and the value to be found by playing into the games of present political and popular power structures, the fallen quality of the Moon in Scorpio deserves honoring and embrace. Scorpio penetrates through the false gloss of superficial interactions, cuts through appearances, demands the honesty of the depths and the desire to go there. During a period in which people all around the world are simultaneously poised on the precipice of an enormous threshold, when the structures of civilization are being challenged and torn asunder when incapable of enduring, we need to drink deeply from the dark well of Scorpio.

The New Moon at 12º40′ Scorpio is exactly opposite Uranus retrograde at 12º47′ Taurus. The Sun in opposition with Uranus is the heart of the Uranus retrograde passage, when Uranus is as close to Earth in orbit as possible within its cycle and can be more intensely felt than normal. Uranus stationed retrograde on August 19 at 14º48′ Taurus and will eventually station direct on January 18, 2022 at 10º49′ Taurus, demarcating the lunation as dead center on whatever internal journey Uranus has been calling you to fully commit to. The tension between the Scorpio New Moon with Uranus in Taurus can be released suddenly, striking with revelatory force into a moment in which a completely new understanding or path forward becomes revealed. Uranus electrifies the fallen quality of the Scorpio New Moon, like an otherworldly vision of healing and mystery received while laying low, incubating.

In addition to activating Uranus, in the bigger picture the Scorpio New Moon is triggering whatever tension has been building up between the ongoing square aspect between Saturn and Uranus. The Scorpio Sun recently formed a square aspect with Saturn in Aquarius on October 30, and in the week following the lunation both Mercury and Mars in Scorpio will form a clashing square aspect with Saturn on November 10. The speed of change and dismantling within collective events has been feeling overwhelming and anxiety provoking to many, yet in keeping with the mythic connection many astrologers make between Uranus and Prometheus, within the suffering can also be found the seeds of liberation. Prometheus brought the creative potency of fire, the arts, and sciences to humanity, yet his story also necessitates a confrontation with hubris and questioning of what kind of civilization has been constructed by humanity with the gifts of Prometheus.

Indeed, Tim Addey in Seven Myths of the Soul wrote that Prometheus requires the soul to ask, “what am I not?” Addey stated that “the mystic’s initiation into the mysteries of Prometheus is the voluntary acceptance of the limitations of matter, not its rejection.” Like Prometheus, integrating and embodying the radical awakening of Uranus necessitates a voluntary sacrifice to bring its emancipatory vision into the incarnated world of limitation, suffering, and death. Within the shattering to collective systems wrought by Uranus in Taurus, by going within and finding our center amidst the chaotic tumult we may liberate our authentic values from their concealment within cultural conditioning. To follow one’s true path in the face of consensus conditioning necessitates the risk of abandonment and fears of experiencing shame and betrayal.

With Mars ruling the New Moon while at full strength within its watery home of Scorpio, there is enduring courage waiting to be seized like an ancestral sword long bound by stone, awaiting release. Make the space and time needed, no matter how painstakingly slow it seems to be taking, to allow the decomposition and putrefaction of Scorpio to work its magic on the ways in which the conditioning of consensus culture has led you to believe you need to live your life. Ask yourself what you wish to awaken in yourself and others, and what you want to bring to civilization from the soulfulness of your own inner depths. We are in a crucial time full of crucial choices that deserve the thought and contemplation needed to align our actions with our essential integrity.

Mars is as strong as possible at the degree he is inhabiting during the Scorpio New Moon, as he is in his own domicile, bounds, decan, and triplicity. Meanwhile, Saturn is also especially strong due to being in his own domicile and triplicity. The fact that both Mars and Saturn are so powerfully positioned amplifies the tidal force of the tension building between them as they prepare to clash on November 10. Mars and Saturn are the planets most associated with being tested and learning how to traverse periods of difficulty and strife. While Mars can incite pushing forward with passion and making things happen with direct action, Saturn can push back through restraint, slowing things down with contemplative containment, and erecting boundaries and defensives to keep the red hot heat of Mars at bay. Yet Mars in Scorpio is in the dominant position by being in the tenth place from Saturn, the first time all year that Mars has been engaged with Saturn through being in a superior square. Thus while Saturn may attempt to clamp down on Mars, the propulsive force of Mars will topple the towers of Saturn, especially those systemic structures which lack a strong foundation and capacity for flexibly adjusting to changing conditions.

Adding to the intense, explosive quality of the conflict brewing between Mars and Saturn will be Mercury, as the star of Hermes will enter Scorpio on November 5, the day after the Scorpio New Moon. Mercury will form a conjunction with Mars in Scorpio on November 10, with both Mars and Mercury simultaneously forming an intensifying square aspect with Saturn in Aquarius. As a result the days leading up to November 10 may feel especially charged, with an extended release in the following week. Mercury will form a tense opposition with Uranus in Taurus on November 13, followed by Mars forming an opposition with Uranus on November 17.

The union of Mercury and Mars can weaponize language as well as increase the capacity of Mars for being cunning and tricky when implementing strategy. It will be wise to avoid unnecessary conflicts and walk away when possible to avoid escalation. Yet when brought to bear on one’s inner depths, the penetrative force of Mercury and Mars in Scorpio can dislodge potent desires to express through creativity as well as through protective support of one another within community.

While Saturn in Aquarius will be extremely activated with all of its defenses by the charge from Mercury and Mars in Scorpio, the star of Cronus will also be applying toward a potentially integrative sextile aspect with Chiron, who is retrograde in Aries and mutually applying with Saturn. Saturn will not complete his sextile aspect with Chiron until November 26, allowing for an extended period of time to explore what sort of dialogue and relationship can be bridged between Chiron and Saturn. Adding to the complexity, Ceres retrograde in Gemini is also involved in the dynamic between Saturn and Chiron, as Ceres is applying toward a trine with Saturn and a sextile with Chiron (Ceres will sextile Chiron on November 8 and trine Saturn on November 14).

Thus both Chiron and Ceres are available for tending to whatever wounds and burdens we have been experiencing related to Saturn. We may need to make space for grief related to loss, issues of identity, and feelings of alienation or dislocation that we have been experiencing. Yet the harmonious aspects between Ceres and Chiron with Saturn can also help retrieve a deep sense of the inner treasure we may find within ourselves, buried underneath the accumulation of so much stress circulating within collective crises and personal difficulties. Relationships we may turn to involving secure bonds of attachment can be particularly helpful in exploring whatever medicine can be alchemized between Ceres, Saturn, and Chiron.

We can expect the unexpected in the weeks following the Scorpio New Moon not only because of the activation of both Uranus and Saturn by transit, but also because we will be entering an eclipse season. Indeed, the lunar cycle beginning with the Scorpio New Moon will reach peak light with a Lunar Eclipse on November 19 at 27º14′ Taurus. Since this will be the first eclipse to occur in the fixed signs of Taurus or Scorpio, there will likely be important endings and beginnings in storylines taking shape in correspondence as we get closer to the eclipse. Pay attention for signs of what new stories may emerge in correspondence with eclipses in Taurus and Scorpio.

Another sign of changing narratives will be the entrance of Venus into Capricorn on November 5, the day after the Scorpio New Moon. Venus in Capricorn will begin activating a storyline that will have a long arc, extending across the threshold between 2021 and 2022. Venus will remain in Capricorn from November 5, 2021 until March 5, 2022 due to stationing retrograde in Capricorn on December 19, 2021. Tellingly, the first major aspect that Venus in Capricorn will complete with a planet besides the Moon will be a harmonious sextile aspect with Uranus in Taurus on November 18. Since Venus will be receiving Uranus into her earthy home of Taurus, their contact on the day before the Lunar Eclipse can help us find ways to relate and be more creative with the more explosive tension that will be released by the opposition between Mars in Scorpio with Uranus in Taurus on November 17. Venus in Capricorn knows how to play the long game, and while Venus can enjoy the lust of earthly delights in Capricorn she can also utilize boundaries to create the space needed for whatever she desires to gestate and birth.

Scorpio 2 Decan

The New Moon in Scorpio is in the second decan of Scorpio associated with the Six of Cups card illustrated above by Pamela Colman Smith. The image reveals the virtuous innocence of receiving through giving, which connects with the Sun and Jupiter being the rulers of the second face of Scorpio. Austin Coppock in his book 36 Faces ascribed the image of “An Apparatus for Mutual Distillation” to the second decan of Scorpio, describing it as a face in which mutual distillation within relationship allows for matters to be passed back and forth as in an alembic, “growing increasingly rarefied and potent.” Coppock wrote that while “it is easy to imagine these dynamics between romantic partners, all relationships which rely on trust and continuous exchange generate such circuits.”

Coppock’s description of ideal relational exchanges rooted in trust also brings to mind its antithesis of broken trust that unleashes overwhelming emotions and catalyzes separations and letting go. Twelfth century astrologer Ibn Ezra in The Beginning of Wisdom wrote that within the second face of Scorpio there “ascends a woman who has left her house; she is naked and has nothing on and she is entering the sea.” Austin Coppock described the second decan of Scorpio as warning that we need to be careful to whom we bare ourselves to, because the “virtuous circuit of exchange can become vicious in this face . . . the process of dual cultivation becomes one of mutual degradation, each destroying the quality of the other with each pass.”

Further showing the importance of separating from degrading relationships in the second decan of Scorpio, the Hellenistic text 36 Airs ascribed the Titan goddess Leto to the second face of Scorpio. Sister to the starry, divinatory goddess Asteria and mother to the twin lights of Artemis and Apollo, Leto’s presence in the face where the Scorpio New Moon will darken reveals the need to protectively nurture and cultivate whatever we hold most dear and wish to bring into the world. Leto had to flee and take refuge on an isolated island unattached to the ocean floor in order to escape the wrath of Hera, who had made all lands exclude Leto from entry due to her anger over the affair between Leto and Zeus.  It was said that the twin offspring of Leto would stabilize the new order of Olympian deities, and so her persistence in nurturing the birth of Apollo and Artemis was additionally a birth of a new collective age. In this time of great global shifts and collective thresholds, Leto is a fitting symbol for taking the necessary steps to give birth to the world you wish yourself and the generations to follow to inhabit.

As the power found in the second face of Scorpio involves distillation and cultivation from intimate exchanges, the closeness of our relationships and the mutual support and love found within them will be the vessel to tend and drink from in the coming weeks. Let the darkness of the Scorpio New Moon bring you closer to the community and relationships needed to help bring forth the blessings and beauty of your lineages more brightly into the world.

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References

Addey, Tim. (2000). The Seven Myths of the Soul. The Prometheus Trust.

Coppock, Austin. (2014). 36 Faces: The History, Astrology and Magic of the Decans. Three Hands Press.