New Moon in Scorpio: Deep Change

Sunday night at 20 minutes to midnight EDT, the New Moon in Scorpio arrives. This will be Monday morning in Europe and points east, and earlier Sunday to the west.

The Scorpio New Moon marks one of the ways we move into the dark time of year.

Scorpio, the fixed Water sign, is deep, powerful, and challenging to grasp. Like the ocean’s deepest currents, Scorpio is not something we hold, but something that holds us. As soon as we think we understand an esoteric concept or manage to integrate a piece of our Shadow, the mists shift, the scene changes, and we are someplace entirely different.

Scorpio’s ancient ruler is Mars. The modern ruler is Pluto. In these two planets, we see something of its qualities and range.

Scorpio is Mars’ nighttime home. A place where action becomes indirect, subtle, and potentially manipulative. Where anger is hidden, expressed as passive aggression or cold revenge.

This is also the place where Mars learns that not all things are clear and bright, not all lines of force are direct. Our world is not all light. Learning to navigate the dark is also an important skill.

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With Pluto, we find power that can be implacable. We also find a deep kind of courage, the kind that emerges in the face of annihilation. Sometimes we cannot go to meet a challenge in open battle. Sometimes we must endure and find ways to accommodate and still succeed.

The gifts of Scorpio include a deep understanding of the motives and emotions of others, and what we call the clair senses: clairvoyance, clairaudience, and all the other ways we can know beyond our ordinary senses.

We can be fascinated with Scorpio people and Scorpionic things, but we are not always at ease with them. Taboos are found with Scorpio, the things we know are there, but prefer not to talk about.

Modern commercial Halloween presents us with Scorpio themes in cheapened form. Ghosts and graveyards as cartoon cutouts. Blood and death as jump cuts that make us gasp, but then laugh. Nothing to really worry about.

Still, something within us knows that these things we don’t want to look at, are quite real.

The New Moon happens at 4 Scorpio, in the first face of this sign. This face is ruled by Mars. It is a place where we meet desire and also the costs of desire.

This points up the difference between Aries, Mars’ daytime home, and this night place. In Aries, cardinal Fire, we see what we want and move confidently toward it. We are secure in our capacity to get what we want.

Scorpio knows that no amount of power can secure success. Through its familiarity with the depths of the human psyche, Scorpio also knows our biggest challenges can be internal.

This is deep stuff and not completely comfortable.

Now let’s toss in a wild card. The key aspect to this New Moon is an opposition to Uranus in Taurus. This opposition is very tight: The New Moon is only 12 minutes from the opposition. It is also applying, in other words, the New Moon will oppose Uranus very soon, but hasn’t quite yet. This makes it strong.

Uranus is the revolutionary. When this planet comes along, sudden change happens. Unexpected events unfold. All bets are off.

Scorpio doesn’t like this. Here, our keen sense of the seen and unseen dangers of the world makes us wary. We want to be fully informed before we make a move. We want the time to scope out a situation before we decide.

Uranus does not afford us the luxury of long timelines. Uranus makes stuff happen.

At the New Moon, we are in the dark time of the lunar cycle. The night sky is literally dark. We are confident the Moon’s light will return, but right now, we can’t see it.

And now we have the sense that something is about to happen. What do we do?

This New Moon offers a metaphor of our time. At many levels, we are coming to grips with Scorpionic issues. Issues we thought were resolved, we now see are still very much present. Things we thought would never happen, suddenly unfold before our shocked gaze.

How do we navigate a landscape that feels both dangerous and unpredictable?

Answering these questions will point you to the wishes and intentions you can choose for this New Moon.

Remember that Scorpio does not simply leave us in the dark. Scorpio offers the tools and insights we need to come to grips with its challenges.

We can wish more insight and intuition. We can set intentions to practice our divinatory skills in whatever ways we’re drawn to. Have you always wanted to learn tarot? This is a great time to begin. Are there skills you already have but have let fall? Set the intention to renew your practice.

Such skills are one way to prepare for uncertainty by improving our abilities to see ahead.

Scorpio also offers the courage to endure what cannot be avoided, look unflinchingly at our own suffering, and hold the suffering of others with compassion.

Yes, Scorpio is sometimes seen as cold. But think about it: When you’re at your lowest point, don’t you seek out someone who’s been there and will not freak out? You’re looking for Scorpio.

At this New Moon, we can wish for such courage. We can set intentions to get the training and experience to work with our own pain and, if it meets our goals, also the pain of others. This is valuable work in the world.

Mars, ancient ruler of Scorpio and therefore of this New Moon, is just leaving a square to Saturn. In about a week, he will square Pluto, Scorpio’s modern ruler. Mars has learned from Saturn what the limits are. Now he wants to see how much he can accomplish.

We know the world is uncertain. Big changes have already happened. We know more are coming. This Scorpio Moon challenges us directly to consider how prepared we are to face those changes.

We have a window of opportunity to align with this shadowy power to learn and grow, challenging ourselves to step into the power of seeing in the dark.

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All astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from the image of waves by Marko Blažević,
and the following images:
dark hallway by Jorge Rojas,
face by h heyerlein

Image created from a photo by Marko Blažević: https://unsplash.com/photos/4ibyBpL6bBA