Astrology of Now: Journey Into The Heart Of The Night
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| Jean Marais as a modern Orpheus, in Cocteau’s visionary and beautiful movie of the same name. |
Someone said: “Bring the bodies upstairs.”
The house I’m staying in is 300 years old with walls as thick as the span of your arm. The room I sleep in is as dark and close as a coffin.
I awoke, pressed down by the weight of the empty room, that one clear sentence ringing in my head. Were there ghosts on the stairs? Then I was taken on a journey through coiling fear-filled labyrinths of my own imagination — or perhaps these phantoms were real.
The psychopomp, my own soul’s guide between conscious and unconscious, showed me through cobwebbed corridors, into the near and distant past, over an oozing serpentine river into the blackest belly of the night, and of my mind.
It is that time of year: the scorpion reigns. The days grow shorter and the dead rise. In fear of impending winter darkness, we light fires, dress up, and dance a devil’s jig. We tell ghost stories.
This year, more than any other, the dead are talking to us at Halloween.
Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio. Mercury, the messenger, Hermes to the Greeks; the only god — aside from the king and queen of the underworld themselves to move between the upper and lower worlds. To communicate with the dead, you need the assistance of Hermes. He is the one who guided Orpheus to Eurydice, who negotiated with Hades for Persephone, who can guide you to hell and back.
Scorpio, the sign of the underworld, death, crime and resurrection. The Sun, the North Node, Saturn and Mercury are meeting here right now, today, and for the first third of November they form a tight stellium. This is enough to make this an exceptionally powerful energy. This is about diving deep into your own depths. With Saturn involved, it’s about testing the boundaries of your fear, revulsion or desire. But there’s more. Pluto, The Lord of the underworld himself, is virile, active, engaged right now, and he demands that you go beyond.
Pluto in Capricorn is in mutual reception with Saturn in Scorpio. That is the god of the afterlife and the god of death and endings are in each other’s signs, and right now, they are also in sextile aspect. And of course, Pluto is galvanised by the threatening square from Uranus, the awakener.
And then there’s the eclipse on November 3, right in the heart of that massing in Scorpio, aspecting the U-Plu square. The Sun, the bright heart of our solar system, will be blotted out.
When Mercury retrogrades, we look to the past; We encounter people whom we thought we had long left behind; we return to old stories. Mercury is in the underworld. The question: what is your hell? A guide is available, who can both take you there — and bring you back safely, as long as you follow the rules.
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| Resurrection by Piero della Francesca |
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Fantastic post. Thanks for the introduction to the psychopomp — that is new to me, and really fascinating. I’m especially interested in Mercury Rx in Scorpio as the guide for Orpheus and Eurydice, and Orpheus’ ability as a vatic poet to channel material from other worlds, a psychic vision set to music. Do you see this Scorpio lineup as connected to creativity at all?
Yes, I think it could be about mining your subconscious.
WOW, Christina — Dark Matter! I’ve been thinking about death for quite awhile now (Pluto transiting Asc) and thought I’d arrived at a place of peace …
But am suddenly experiencing Troubled Sleep (in dreams I’m being occupied by a deceased Scorpio lover who is hell bent on “eliminating” me — o Freud where art thou?) and must admit to a few bleak moments upon waking …
So, just to cheer us all up, here’s a proposed theme song for Love in the Time of Scorpio — Bad Things … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiBhZIaJsQ4 …
Thanks.
Yesterday I had the strangest dreams where I was in a dark place and someone with a cold snappy voice was telling me about debt. And he reminded of all the boxes of frozen sweets that I had gobbled up and how they had eventually led to my flu(I am having a very bad flu at the time). And he kept telling me how we all have to pay our debt. Needless to say as soon as I woke up I started working. I am still trying to pay my debt.
I want to thank you for writing this post that actually helped me make sense of this episode. Thank you Christina!
Perfect.
Took 3, count ’em, 3 tries to get internet at my new place. My phone has to go back to the maker because it doesn’t surf at all (it was bought under a Merc retro about 13 months ago.) My sleep was going well but for several days now I’ve been waking in the wee hours and unable to do more than nap. And dreams of prison and debt and energy strangling; they’ve left me thinking about how we can buy into the lies we tell ourselves, and how that winds up betraying us with devastating results. HUGE blowup with my Scorpio lover last weekend (we were heard a block away) with some, I hope, good policies and practices coming out of it to avoid future blowups and keep things in a better state between us — more real. Insurance company and the federal agency that approves settlements has approved a solid settlement, but questions about how to handle it (how much good it will do me) remain. Seeing ways to monetize my private work and advance the interests of my nonprofit are just under the surface, waiting for this especially sticky Merc Rx to clear, I suppose.
This MRec/Eclipse time has been outstandingly eventful, if a bit too chaotic. But my story about Persephone and Hades is still stuck 🙂
Jupiter is sitting on my IC, Neptune on my Lilith, and Uranus on my Moon for this eclipse. The end of the month seems like a different world from here 🙂
Looking at the end of the month with the Ceres-Pluto opposition for more on that story.