The Moon is New in Scorpio at 4.02 pm GMT on 7th November 2018. The Sun is forming a trine to Neptune. Jupiter is in the final degree of Scorpio, a powerful position. He is about to move into Sagittarius, his home sign, which happens every twelve years. Venus is opposed Uranus the entire month – a massive astrological signature for November. The nodes are changing signs from the Leo-Aquarius to the Cancer-Capricorn axis.
6th November is the exact half way point of the autumn equinox, which is in fact the exact date for Halloween. This time represents the festival of death in the northern hemisphere, where we go deep into the shadow, acknowledging and embracing our disowned aspects, and everything we have polarised as ‘other’.
If you are in the northen hemisphere, t’s a potent time to seed intentions for death processes. The dark, new moon is akin to being in our own cave, doing some inner work, so that when we do come together, it’s all the richer for having gone deep within ourselves.
There’s a more inward, downward pull of energy seasonally now and at new moons generally, which contributes to the lower feeling of energy in us. The nature of new moons is get your Divine resource from within yourself, as making contact with the Source within is easier – the veils between the dimensions and worlds are thinned (magnified by the waning moon in Scorpio).
So this is one of the high point vortexes, a time of accelerated growth. In Lemurian and Mesopotamia times, at this time of year, priests and priestesses would do ceremony to raise the consciousness of the collective. It’s a time to revive the sacred feminine practises and rituals that reconnect us to love, letting this feed our intentions.
As we align with these natural cycles (within ourselves, life and nature), we move into more harmony, into states of grace. If we don’t, we experience downward spirals of entropy and somtimes even fear. Being connected to nature and the natural rhythms and cycles raises our vibration. Ceremonies mark these beautiful moments in seasonal cycles, and when we collectively anchor the love vibrations and higher levels of consciousness on the planet, we support the entire raising of consciousness on the planet.
Embracing a natural cycle means embracing the more challenging processes of growth – the ones that the humanity within us often resist or reject. The process of death and decay, where we exist now in the cycle, is not an easy time for a lot of people. Our culture rejects death and dying – both literally and figuratively.
But alchemists and Taoists, those that work with the earth, have different view. They recognise it as a crucial part of the process of change. Which we need to also.
Change is not as a consequence of force in as much as it’s a natural tendency of life. Neither does change arise from simply saying yes to what is so already. Love what is, sure, but also say no, as that’s just another form of saying yes to other things. Saying no is also saying yes.
We can still accept something as our reality, while simultaneously choosing a different reality. We always have a choice, although admittedly it might not feel like we have a choice sometimes.
So both arise from same source, the yes and no, both lead to yes. The yin and yang both complete the circle. We must assume that everything that is present is needed, while knowing that we can at a different consciousness level, still say no.
Either way though, it’s not good to set a programme around this; but to be in harmony with the process, staying close to it, not trying to change it, letting it lead the way.
The death part of our individual processes isn’t completely understood. I want to put it right. Recognising that we are constantly choosing, in a constant process of change, constantly differentiating and choosing what to bring our observation and awareness to reflects how life is a flow of experience. So when we get stuck in a state – ie we feel blocked, it’s often because we haven’t been able to stay in the flow and process of change. We have stepped away from the natural rhthym of life.
Perhaps we haven’t gone deeply into the letting go, or we haven’t fully experienced the spectrum – we are one sided, with just one part of it. We love the death or life, or the middle ground (sitting on the fence).
We need all the parts; the life, death, and middle ground. What do you resist or favour? Where do you tend to sit on the spectrum? What belief systems do you have that prevent you living the whole spectrum?
The Taoists and Alchemists studied the inherent patterns and flow of nature. We need to study the natural rhythm and patterns of experience we have, and work to align with this flow.
The explicit arises from the implicit; behaviour, our perceptions, information arises from the dreaming process, in the same way as 10,000 things is many manifestations of the Tao. But the Tao exists before the 10,000 things. How can we align better with the dreaming process behind the Tao, in our personal lives?
It’s knowing the the things that seem to threaten our identities, that conflict with our goals and intentions, or the dynamics of our astrological charts that are in conflict, are there to be grappled with, not resisted, eliminated or avoided contact with. The more we go into those disturbances, as that’s what they are, the more awareness we generate.
It’s less about generating some kind of unity (although it can be also), for wholeness in a way never in fact quite manifests. There’s always an interplay, between the polarised parts, we can’t get away from that completely.
It’s interesting, since you know perhaps the thing we think we need to get rid of or stop doing, is actually the thing we need to do more consciously or deeply, or fully live it. Nothing is what its seems. For example, lets say you always feel you give up your own needs for others. Something I suffer from personally. Well, it’s not straight forward.
We might need to look at how we DON’T give up our needs for others, and bring that in more. It is bound to be already there. Both sides of the spectrum are always in our psyche, it’s just that one side we can’t see – we identify with just one part. Or perhaps we just need to bring more consciousness to how we take care of needs, our own and others – in other words REALLY take care of other people’s needs, as that’s also taking care of our own and vice versa. Or take care of a different set of needs, from a different level. There are lots of possibilities, but it’s rarely going to help if we just release the belief ‘I put other people’s needs before my own’.
What is clear is that it’s very liberating when we stop aligning with just one side of the spectrum and start to dance between the polarities. It’s not very freeing when we just ‘release a belief’, but it can be part of the process of course too. Just don’t have a programme.
So start by being open to go to the opposite, to that which you polarise. It’s kinda a secret of life. If we want to resolve the trouble on our planet, we need to go to the trouble and understand it, not reject it. It’s often the opposite of what we want to do though.
In the same way, while we set intentions and clear ideas of what we want to achieve over the next week or year, lets also give space to embracing the unintentional in our lives. There’s always a large dose of uncertainty in our lives, particularly since we can’t observe something without changing it!
We are not observing nature and life itself, but nature and life exposed to our observation. When though we introduce the idea of process, as a unifying, underlying principle or pattern, the uncertainty of life or the Tao is not so unpredictable.
There are patterns, there are levels, there are ways to differentiate and unfold process, to get to the essence and personal meaning behind what appears to be a state of being (an experience or process interpreted as a block). We have not been left with no guidelines on this planet – we just need to know what they are.
So transformation happens then in accordance with nature, it’s not outside of it. Life is an alchemy process. The alchemist changes herself through bringing personal meaning (as opposed to symbolic meaning) to the process of life or for some, suffering.
At first, a problem might seem unclear, elusive, obscure – it’s a state, a block, the issue is vague – I hear regularly ‘I have a block to…”. We say this because we do not have a better way of understanding the block. We just know we have a problem. There’s nothing more concrete in our understanding, it’s just a difficult situation that we are enduring. We have our own ideas about what it is, which is usually from a primary conscious part of us – there’s not much awareness there.
Then we start to go into the process of the ‘state’. We might begin with little grace, and finally after weeks, months or years, we reach the meaning, the hidden spirit, the creative force, the prima materia reveals its gold. The gold might be that there is no meaning also – that’s a difficult one.
We are spiralling through the issue, each point on the spiral, a new layer is revealed. The spiral constellates, getting tighter and tighter as the experience intensifies, this is when we are truly ready for a new experience of the issue – a new depth lets say.
Becoming happy and fulfilled is less about being able to resolve inner conflicts as much as dance with them and see them as a process. Of course they often do resolve themselves for longer periods of time, once we learn how to dance with them and bring the grace of the Divine into our lives.
So, there’s no escaping this time of accelerated growth. Ritual and ceremony is a basic human necessity we need right now – it literally anchors shifts and changes in the physical realm. In your heart, is where you will find all your diversity. And from that space of purity, with intent, invoke the elements of creation. This puts us literally between the worlds, opens up portals and gates in the space time continuum, here is where we can seed an intention that will ripple out into the dreaming and physical realms.
But just as much, be open to the unintentional, the flirts of nature, what catches your attention, the unexpected, and let that world move you. Let nature and life teach you – get curious and open. Like the way a leaf drops off from a plant. Like the way the birds sing. What your eyes get drawn to. The unintended words that you speak.
These are all dreaming doors, portals, into the space-time continuum also. Ceremony and intention is not the only way to get our needs met. We can sometimes get our deeper needs met by being in deep contact with the everyday, very present reality around and within us. What we are looking for is not far away.
On 9th November, after this New Moon, the Moon soon joins up with Jupiter and Mercury in Sagittarius. Venus trines Mars, which works to establish a kind of balance between the yin and yang.
This whole Jupiter in Scorpio underworld thing over the last year, which has brought up extremes in our polarisation, how polarised the masculine and feminine has been, also has shown us how cut off from the feminine wisdom of awareness, and the need for inclusion of all inner and outer diversity.
This, at the start of the Jupiter in Sagittarius cycle, gives hope for some new understanding of gender but also an understanding of reality and soul itself. There’s lots of great mystical knowledge out there, and now we just need some development around how to actually live it, how to embody it in the moment, in the very real reality we experience.
On 12th November, there’s some stress with Mercury, Venus and Saturn. But the date to really watch for is 16th November when Mars moves into Pisces. Hours later Mercury begins it’s retrograde cycle.
Venus is now out of her descent phase and in the resurrected Goddess phase, she is now visible in the night sky. This is a time to reflect on the insights on love and relationships and start applying those insights practically in your relationships. Look for the signals.
There’s a sense of the deeper feeling exploration of all Venus issues – relationship, the feminine, our Goddess resource, down to the likes of finances etc, it will need our internalised, mental attention.
Mars’ move into Pisces opens our vision, but there’s a struggle here to orientate ourselves into reality. We might need to accept we don’t know where we are quite going yet. Again, have your intentions, seed them, but let the dreaming, emerging world orientate you also. There’s something here about following and unfolding your processes without too much thinking. Mars here is about the spiritual warrior, he notices his environment in a very dreamy way – what the dreaming world is drawing his attention to.
Sagittarius is the sign of distance. So as the underworld has just been amplified and opened all these polarities, perhaps now we can begin to see the wood for the trees while knowing there is no outer destination, just a journey. Seed the intentions but keep the vista open, be the spiritual warrior.
Venus is opposite Uranus all November, which is very unusual. We are balancing our need for independence in our relationships and social settings with our need to take care of each other. This could certainly bring some breakthroughs. This is a time to watch out for our righteousness (not sure when there’s not a time a time for this at the moment).
The North Node’s move into Cancer reminds us perhaps just in time that we need to take care of ourselves and one another, it’s reminds me of quantum physics butterfly affect – how one small flap of a butterfly’s wings can create a hurricane on the other side of the world. Everything has consequences and we cannot go on believing we are not all connected.
Or indeed that we are not powerful, as with the butterfly, it doesn’t need to take the same amount of energy to resolve a problem that created it, that is the illusion we are stuck in. We need to step out of that and experience that it takes a small thing sometimes, a few simple words, a simple touch, it’s not the quantity, its the quality, the potency. Make sure you get to the essence of things at some points over the next couple of weeks.
