12:35 p.m. PST; 3:35 EST
Sun and Moon joined at 12.14 Scorpio
It's the Scorpio New Moon - that magic time of year when the veil between the living and the dead is especially thin and the door between worlds swings open. The great Celtic cross-quarter festival of Samhain that occurs midway between the Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice has just passed. Celebrated as the death of the old year and the beginning of the new, it was once believed that this was the time of year when the spirits of the unseen world drew near to the visible world. All across parts of old Europe in late October bonfires were kindled in honor of the dead, and food and drink were set out to nourish departed ancestors. The nearness of the other side at this time of year is also felt in Mexico. There, on November 2nd, on the Day of the Dead, families gather for festive picnics beside the graves of departed family members while vendors sell toy coffins and papier-mache skeletons.
Flickers of the after-glow of these pre-modern rites still cast their shadows across our bright, high-tech world. Indeed, this New Moon, with four planets in watery Scorpio - Sun, Moon, Venus and Mercury - the stars compel us to dim our conscious minds and let the older, deeper layer of our psyches emerge. With Venus still retrograde in the sign of death and rebirth, our souls are being called by the Goddess to sound their depths. Neptune squaring this lunation casts a shimmering net of enchantment over all, ensnaring us in a luminous web of dreams, spells of the sparkling sea, and murmurs of singing, haunting spirits. Uranus stationing direct - squaring the degree of the coming Full Moon eclipse in late Taurus - waves his magician's wand over all, stirring a bubbling witch's cauldron of surprises over the next two weeks.
For many, the turbulent undercurrents at this time may feel unsettling. But one way to harmonize with the energy of this New Moon might be to focus our soul's attention on that power-point between worlds - the threshold where the living meet the dead, and where the visible and the invisible dimensions intersect. As the ancients intuited, now is a propitious time to seek the support of our otherworldly allies: departed ancestors, soul guides, and the spirits of the planets, stars, oceans, trees, and all of nature. In other words, it is a time to open and receive from the magical realms that encircle and surround our material world with a powerful field of magnetic energy. The living beings of these spiral realms are always there, ready to guide and inspire us - yet our senses have become dulled to their presence.
So this Scorpio New Moon - the enchanter's moon, the magician's new year - take a different approach to life's problems. Still, for a moment, the practical voice of your logical left brain and fine-tune the voice of your intuitive, right brain. Don't listen to the "should's, must's, and ought's" of your social self. Rather, heed the call of your essential real self and tack in the direction it is leading you in. Recognize that your support for this will not come from the outside world, but the unseen world-within-worlds of spirit beings, nature spirits, angels, and ancestors.
Drawing down the energy from the other side, you can receive guidance for your earth-journey from those who have an older, higher, broader, and more spiritual perspective. Listening with your inner ear, you can hear whispered knowledge from the millenia-old wisdom of these invisible spiritual elders. Seeing by the light of your inner eye, your soul can become imprinted with their visions for you. Feeling with your inner senses, you can sense their loving presence protecting you on your path.
In harmony with the potent occult atmosphere of this Scorpio New Moon, it is also a good time to ask for a guiding "life vision" dream; to cast the I Ching, do a tarot spread, or consult an astrologer. Or, you may want to write down your innermost encounters with your guides and place them in a sacred box, burn them into smoke, or bury them in the ground. Because it is the old world's New Year, choose an image and make a talisman as your spiritual "gold" standard to live by in the coming months. Then, in anticipation of the earthy Taurus Full Moon, let the magic of a new cycle - a New Year of positive possibilities - take root and flower.
(Look for the Taurus Full Moon Eclipse November 19, 2002.)
