There's a website that approximates how many times you will see your parents before they die (highly Scorpionic).* And of course, this calculator works for every relationship we have. Each time you see someone, make an X through a day. It's a concept I think a lot about and increasingly with age, knowing how brief remarkable situations can be, and often how fleeting it can be to find ourselves in the same room with a person or group of people with whom we harmonize and align. It makes the value of how we spend our time, and with whom, much more sacred and salient.
A female abalone diver wrestling with an octopus. Colour woodcut by Yoshitoshi, 1870s. Wellcome Collection.
What declines transforms necessarily, having either not reached its purpose of being utilized, or being drained of vitality and sustenance and unable to proceed. Scorpio is represented by the Death card in Tarot, and rules the 8th house of sex, karma, inheritances, death, taxes, mysticism, and the occult. This is an alchemical house where things transform through exchange -- something decays and nourishes the soil to create something new, or a transaction occurs and something is transformed, becoming a greater entity via an unseen power. It's the darkest house in the zodiac and thus one of the reasons why the veil is thinnest during Scorpio season each year. There is a transaction of dying energy and unseen seeding that will not be perceptible until spring. The 8th also rules deeper, primal emotions such as compassion, empathy, obsessions, and jealousy --- things that sit close to the bone.
The energy of Scorpio is the murky mire of deep, stagnant water newly stirred. It is Pippin dropping the armor down the well in Moria. It's the active state of putrefaction. We've lived most of the year under the building or sustained light, able to see and know our actions and their results, able to take in the full color of our surroundings. But Scorpio brings the dark months and dimming, causing us to have to feel our way and rely on more ethereal tools like instinct, intuition, and magnetism, encountering all of the things that we've not addressed or that we have tried to ignore. The feelings, issues, untended facets of ourselves and our intimacy and emotions are now stirred and clouding up around us. What presents itself now, returning to our desires and hearts (especially with Mercury retrograde) requires revisiting, resolution, revision, and reconsideration. What can also manifest are long-standing, unaired thoughts and issues. Much can arise that has been hidden or looked past, willingly and unwillingly. Scorpio abolishes ignorance, clearing the path for Sagittarius to impart truth.
Venus and Mercury are conjunct now at the end of Scorpio, right as Mercury stations retrograde tomorrow, until Nov. 20. Venus adding extra tender presence to this Mercury Rx can indicate themes of prosperity, affection, and love being up for review this next month and requiring address. Where do our minds, hearts, and urges return to now? What is of bone-deep knowing that we have tried to deny? Which issues around how we care for and harm ourselves intimately and financially need repair? Trust this wisdom and explore it deeply. What wants to be expressed and resurrected from the depths now needs to be privately illuminated and personally integrated.
Mercury also makes a harmonious trine to Chiron, offering the opportunity these next weeks for us to deeply heal in personal love and abundance through honest expression and communication. With Mercury, always be extra careful not to intellectually sterilize feelings. Mercury can make mincemeat of our brain convincing us that any thought is a good one when actually our brain simply wants to keep us "safe," even via complete lie. And as usual with Mercy Rx, sign no contracts, make no large purchases, and triple check details and schedules.
With Mercury retrograde in Scorpio, we have an open, deep window for methodical spiritual work, psychic dialogues, and meditative progress and healing. We can nourish and feed our own intimate and spiritual foundations. Mercury is traversing the underworld and inviting our comprehension and expression along. We can navigate our own depths and unearth matters regarding intimacy, sex, and physical exchange and prosperity with others, that have been ignored, stepped over or denied.
The way through this season and nearly every Scorpio season is to let the energy take you where it will and stay mutable and malleable, open to changes of direction and knowing. Bend with the wind, don't snap. Scorpio will work no matter what and attempts to deny change, realization, and profound revelation only prolong the painful stages of transformation.
