But you have no idea how dark we yet may be, nor what that darkness may contain.
~Teju Cole, A True Picture of Black Skin
New Moon in Scorpio October 30th, 2016 1:38 pm EDT 7 degrees Scorpio 44 minutes.
Transformation. Intensity. Rebirth. Doing this sign justice means honoring that it is about the acknowledgement that these experiences extend over time. They are worlds in themselves. Deconstruction is a core element of these experiences, and as a process, its end state can’t be known as they are ongoing, but only in hindsight.
Sun and Moon are conjunct Mercury at the time of the New Moon, indicating that it’s possible to go beyond the stony Scorpio affect to reach a level of understanding on the level of the mind.
What ancient trauma informs responses to the world today. What vulnerability. What personal limitations affect the fullness of the self’s expression.
Neptune’s trine to the New Moon means making sense of emotional realities encompasses noticing the ways our personal worlds are sewn together along with everyone else’s, in a kind of panorama of small individual photos that are arranged to make one big one. With Neptune, all the photos are holographic, so that tilting the whole arrangement shows a gradual shift that sweeps across the whole board and makes something entirely new of the whole.
There are emotional fields that rational society and the structures generated by such a society is not friendly to. There are few socially accepted frameworks for legitimate variations in perceiving reality – like astrology, prophecy, or psychic experiences. Whole worlds are excluded, and often actively vilified, from the dominant narrative of acceptability in society.
However, I notice that as the Pluto in Scorpio generation comes of age and as Neptune gets deeper into Pisces, the broad scope of hues of emotional expression, perceptive variation and meaning-making, and the gradation in personal identity that resultantly arises, find more cultural acceptance.
Neptune brings in that collective or transpersonal force.
A New Moon in Scorpio wants us to explore further on the spectrum of emotions than we’re normally comfortable going to. It wants us to reach the emotions of shame, inner mess, and powerlessness and powerfullness and to remain with them, feel them, and explore them.
On the other side of that, Scorpio promises, is a world of fresh energy, new life, vigor, and real personal power. The expression of the latter in its true form never takes power away from another, nor can anyone ever give it to another.
Another message of this New Moon in water sign Scorpio is the way in which our emotional lives are braided in with those of others. Scorpio receives its emotional stimulation and nourishment from unembellished and raw interaction with others, which is energizing to the sign. Whether the effect of the other is positive or negative, Scorpio relays its personal experience of life off of a kind of mirror act of throwing out a veritable force of energy and seeing that force returned in some form, or vice versa.
Why does Scorpio make people squirm? Why is it uncomfortable to be around Scorpio? What is the purpose of the expression of this sign?
I think the answer to these questions lies in the extent to which individuals can truly be still and experience their own inner life, and embrace all its craggy rocks and steep cliffs. There’s a thick gravity of stillness that hangs around Scorpio like a dense fog on humid night. The natural activity of Scorpio is to raise poison to the surface, then thoroughly explore the composition of its constituent elements and trace them to their source.
Circling back around to the New Moon, at the time of its exactness Venus is separating from a conjunction to Saturn. This configuration is among other things a statement about the feeling of personal worthiness, and defining boundaries. I am making sure to make note of this concurrent alignment because Scorpio can represent an unyielding penetrating force, and where that is unwelcome formidable boundaries are appropriate, and an act of love.
Heavy stuff, but Scorpio is heavy. Sagittarius is lighter and brighter, and even though Saturn is currently in the sign, we can fill up on brightness next season.
As a final note, this New Moon is building toward an exalted Full Moon in Taurus and on a personal level, this astrologer thinks that’s about as wonderful as it gets. At that time Mercury will be in Sagittarius so we can take turns enthusiastically telling each other all the endless ways that that Full Moon could not be more wonderful if it tried.
With love,
Ichrak
References:
The idea of perceptive variation being associated with Neptune is detailed in Andrea Gehrz’s book, Astrological Remediation.
