Scorpio New Moon – 2011

I want to take a break from the Pluto series to talk a little bit about the Scorpio New Moon. It began last week on October 26th, 2011 at 12:55pm PDT at 3° Scorpio. As many of you know, Scorpio is the sign of the harvest, a time when we are surrounded by varying forms of death as we now can sense the approaching winter and the need to prepare for it.

It seems I cannot completely escape the Plutonic theme as this New Moon is in Scorpio which is ruled by Pluto and in this New Moon chart Pluto sextiles the Sun and Moon as well.

Pluto and the Principle of Dormancy

The seasons represent physically as well as psychologically the Sun’s vibrant energetic movement. In spring, the Sun awakens from its winter slumber and begins to pour forth in innocent exuberance, creating feelings of hope and optimism. In the summer, that solar energy reaches a peak and we can hardly remember when it was cold and nothing could grow. Now, as the fall season fully arrives, we are reminded of the cycles of life, that death follows life just as life follows death. What this tells us is this: the life-death process is one process, one principle, unified as the one true Life principle.

So, what is happening to the solar energy now? Is it dying? No. Energy cannot die. The life-death principle shows that the movement of the seasons reflects two sides of the same coin, always interconnected and flowing back and forth in their yearly dance. The outflow of energy that we see and feel in the spring and summer now reverses. Symbolically, it begins to draw inward or downward into the ground. Vegetation dies and becomes the fertilizer for future growth. The seeds created by the life force of summer enter the ground, nestled safely within the soil, lying quietly while waiting until they are called back into action in the coming spring.

Dormancy, then, is not a lack of energy as much as it is a refocusing of energy into the creation of potential. No, we cannot know what the growing energy of this dormant period will produce or yield. That’s for next year’s growth process to tell us. But, this period is as important as any other as the vitalizing force is drawn into the underworld so that our inner world can come alive again and grow outwardly during the next cycle.

In last month’s article in the Libra New Moon, I said that protests would grow. This was due to an exact square between that Sun-Moon conjunction and Pluto. And indeed, that monthly cycle did birth what was called the “Occupy” movement. It was and is inevitably unfocused, diffuse, chaotic and without any clear goals. It represented the first outward expression of citizen discontent about the abuses of the banking system and the super-rich’s abuses of the financial system. In many respects it is the opposite of the Tea Party and other regressive pressures aligned with Christian fundamentalism. Right now, the movement seems to be in a very messy, incoherent stage. But in my view, this winter, the coming dormant period, will cause the participants of this movement to take a look at what they stand for and refine their message, so that by the time, next spring arrives, it will probably be much more focused and clear. Then we will see the first real conflicts emerge.

What is the nature of this conflict? One of the interesting statements by Steve Jobs was that he believed that the terms or labels of ‘conservative/liberal’ or ‘Republican/Democrat’ were obsolete, outworn and completely false. Instead, he believed that the forces in this country should be seen as either constructive or destructive. He apparently even spoke to Rupert Murdock privately about this as he took Fox News to task about this. He referred to them as one of the most destructive forces in America today. I would term this slightly differently and call these forces ‘regressive or progressive.’ Obviously, the anti-science view of the fundamentalists I am terming regressive, to say the least.

Next summer we will have the first of seven squares between Uranus and Pluto and right now this is what is setting up. What I believe is that a titanic struggle between old and new paradigms is coming between the forces that want to take us back to the 1920’s and earlier and those that want to look afresh at all of the economic and political models, to question them fundamentally. There is no clarity about this yet, but those who can extrapolate can see it coming just around the horizon.

What this Scorpio New Moon Means for Us

I offer to my readers my thoughts about the power and importance of dormancy. It is the process that inquires internally to reach greater clarity, to understand what has not yet been seen, and to take stock of things in preparation for the future birth of the new cycle. This is the time to feel the coming winter in ourselves and begin to identify the forces within that now will begin to grow, if we can look inside. We benefit from paying attention to our inner drives and motivations and reflect on what we discover. We can ask ourselves what do we need to learn including how we can shine the light of our own ‘inner Being’ onto the world.

This is a potent period, not a dead one in the sense of no energy or life. In fact, this is what the transformation process is about. Without self-reflection, who are we? Are we not mere robots or automatons if we do not engage in this very fruitful aspect of every cycle?

I hope some of you might share your thoughts and experiences of this potent cycle.