Layers
We enter Scorpio season week, with the Sun entering this shadowy sign (Oct. 23, 2023, 9:21 am PDT, through Nov. 22). During Scorpio’s season in the Northern Hemisphere, the flat, autumn light is unforgiving, and if we look in the mirror, we see every imperfection. The nights are longer, and in the darkness it’s somehow easier to locate our faults and weaknesses, fear and grief. But it’s a little harder to share them, because that means admitting them to ourselves first.
I don’t think we change as we age. I think we just become more comfortable being who we’ve always been. We don’t feel the need to be false—more cheerful, more accommodating than we feel—in order to make others more comfortable around us. We become our Scorpionic selves, stripped of artifice and the comforting fictions of youth.
The Scorpio journey is about stripping off layers, year after year, and getting to know the essence of who we are. We may not be able to count on good genes or good luck, and some bad decisions can’t be undone. We may lose loved ones. We will probably lose some of our health. But we never lose the person we are underneath our clothes, underneath our skin.
The Wind at Your Back
Have you been working hard on some creative project since Aug. 27, when the Sun opposed Saturn and your eyes were opened to new opportunities? This week, as the Sun trines Saturn (Oct. 24, 2023, 00:13 am PDT), your efforts begin to pay off. Not only do you feel the satisfaction of a job well done, but someone in a position of influence, perhaps someone you knew or worked with in the past, offers praise, or you receive an offer to do more but on a larger scale. There will still be plenty of hard work involved– that’s Saturn for you! – but that’s a lot easier to do when you feel the wind is at your back.
Stepping Out Onto the Ice
This is a week when even the smallest step in the direction of a cherished wish will be rewarded, if only in personal satisfaction, as Mars opposes Jupiter (Oct. 28, 2023, 9:03 am PDT). Start with a single step toward something you’ve long wanted to do, and expect to feel nervous.
Even if you’re excited about trying something new, the first step out onto an icy pond is both exhilarating and scary. Will you fall through some weak ice? Will you land on your posterior? There are no guarantees… but when Jupiter is involved, that’s exactly what’s so exciting! The outcome is less important than the thrill of trying something new, something you’re not entirely sure will succeed.
Hands on the Wheel, Eyes on the Future
As a kid, I was puzzled by the message that appeared on our car’s rear-view mirrors: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. It still takes my brain a moment or two to adjust to what I’m being told, there, which I guess is… things look far away but they’re actually closer? I think?
It’s a Mercury-opposed-Jupiter kind of dichotomy, this concept of near vs. far, detailed vs. abstract. “You can’t see the forest for the trees,” we might tell a Mercury-oriented person, who focuses exclusively on details and misses the big picture. Like getting too close to a Monet landscape and complaining that it’s a bunch of little paint daubs. Or, “Your optimism is writing checks that your income level can’t cash,” to an incurable optimist who tends to get financial overextended.
Mercury is journeying through Scorpio as it opposes Jupiter in Taurus (Oct. 28, 2023, 8:44 pm PDT). Scorpio’s a sign that keeps its cards close to its chest, the better to evaluate others’ motives and offers. But Jupiter’s vision is long-range, and in Taurus, it symbolizes a future that is comfortingly familiar, like that view of earth taken by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders. Jupiter has a way of putting the limitations of our knowledge, and our wary Mercury in Scorpio myopia, into perspective. The challenge this week is to keep your hands on the wheel, but your eyes on the future.
A Harvest Dinner and a Load of Laundry
The work of Scorpio is transcendence; but sometimes, in the process of facing and overcoming fear and weakness, we lose track of the simple human connections, joys, and frailties that tether us to life on earth. In other words, the Taurus experience.
Each year while the Sun moves through Scorpio, the scene is set for facing fearsome realities and possibilities that we’d rather avoid. The days are short and the shadows long, the trees are losing their leaves, and melancholy easily gains a toe-hold. But at this season’s Full Moon in Taurus (Oct. 28, 2023, 1:24 pm PDT), life regains some of its flavor and color. We’re reminded of life’s blessings, not just its perils. We find ourselves opening a window to simple, happy pleasures, letting go of obsessive angst and allowing the world to simply be what it is.
Nurturing and caring for living things, an unshakable, unshockable stability in the face of life’s challenges, are Taurus’ birthright. The Taurus souls among us help us accept the world as it is and to commit to being part of it – to celebrate experiences and knowledge that can only be gained through being embodied. Transcendence is all well and good, Taurus might say, but you still have to get food on the table and make sure everyone has clean socks for the next day.
Times are difficult, and what was revealed around the Oct. 14 Solar Eclipse has left many of us reeling. This Taurus Full Moon is an eclipse, too, and Lunar Eclipses are by nature revelatory about our relationships with others.
But with the Full Moon conjoined easy-going Jupiter, this eclipse is less scary, because we’re assured that whatever happens is for the good. This is the last of the series of Taurus and Scorpio eclipses we’ve been working through since late 2021; we’ve done our homework, and this Full Moon offers opportunities for inspiration and joyful release, for community through music, art, and fellowship.
So set your harvest table for dear friends and family, share simple food and drink, and laugh together – because where there is laughter, fear is impossible. The Full Moon in Taurus invites us to get out of our heads and to commit to being and living in the moment; to enjoy everything we have, and maybe wash a load of laundry.
Work Disguised as a Party
Scorpio, symbolized by the Scorpion, is called one of the “mute” signs; it’s a secretive sign, and a deep, perceptive one. If you want to solve a puzzle or get to the bottom of a mystery, here’s your Mercury sign for it.
But it’s a water sign, much more susceptible to hurt feelings than it might like to admit. When Mercury comes together with Mars here (Oct. 29, 2023, 7:22 am PDT, at 11º53′ Scorpio ), all of us are a little more apt than usual to take offense – and a lot less likely to turn the other cheek.
This, of course, is an eventuality to be scrupulously avoided.
This conjunction takes place on the Sabian symbol 12 Scorpio: An embassy ball. An embassy ball is a serious work event disguised as a party, an occasion when every gesture, word, and detail of dress carries messages. This symbol is a reminder that, as in diplomacy, words are extremely powerful tactical weapons that must be deployed. At a moment when the world seems to be having multiple meltdowns at any given moment, this fleeting little conjunction asks us to pause, regroup, and choose our words carefully.
Writing and images © 2017-23 by April Elliott Kent
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