Mercury has been in direct motion for nearly a week (hallelujah!), although it’s still shaking things out at a slow speed; the last of the October eclipses occurred a week ago. Likely you are beginning to get your bearings again after what might have felt like a giant release-valve being let off.
As you do so, are you noticing a pull to feel things more deeply? We have a cluster of planets in Scorpio now: the Sun, Venus, asteroid Pallas and, later in the sign, Saturn. That’s a lot of Scorpio for a culture that tends to orient on mental activity, with so much information and trending so-called news stories and “social networks” at our fingertips.
With so much Scorpio, the draw is to go deeper: deeper into your emotions; deeper into potentially transformative experiences; deeper into your erotic urges and desires; deeper into your understanding of cycles of life and death.
Is it really any wonder that we get Halloween this time of year, with its emphasis on scary stories and images of death, ghouls, witches and so on? The nights are getting longer, and being afraid of the dark is ubiquitous. Yet many people are even more afraid of “going deep” than they are of the darkness night brings.
Then again, perhaps they are versions of the same thing. Both the dark and the depths ask us to surrender our surface-level perceptions, our daylight-based ego consciousness of our place in the world and who we are in it. To go deep or to be in darkness, we must allow ourselves to become vulnerable in some way.
Or, as Eric Francis put it earlier this week, “Our abundance of Scorpio is an invitation to focus on inner awareness, your feeling body, your psychological well-being and your sexuality. If Scorpio is a sign that describes something about relationships, that would be true from the inside-out.”
Bringing what lies within you to the surface is an act of making yourself vulnerable, a key component to intimate relating. Look around and it’s obvious how much that scares the crap out of people.
Speaking of relating, a significant aspect is brewing involving one of the main planets signifying relationship (especially sexual): Mars. Venus may be the planet of love, but Mars represents libido -- along with drive/motivation, physical energy and militarism, among other things. And Nov. 10, Mars will conjoin Pluto in Capricorn -- the planet of change in the sign of established structures.
Nov. 10 might feel far away still, but time seems to keep speeding up -- and Mars aspects tend to feel strongest as they are building. With Mars conjunct Pluto, we have the traditional ruler of Scorpio and the modern ruler of Scorpio magnifying each other. That’s another layer of emphasis on Scorpio -- and a heck of a lot of energy and power being concentrated.
In fact, Mars-Pluto in Capricorn could translate into an explosive situation. You’re probably well aware of any situations with that kind of potential. This means you have the opportunity to let some pressure off now, before anything comes to a head or takes over in some way.
How you do that is something you’ll have to feel out for yourself. But Capricorn is a cardinal sign, meaning that taking initiative could work in your favor -- and never underestimate the power of open communication that goes (can you guess?) deeper than the surface, down to the root of the issue.
