It’s last quarter Moon time, and the Moon is in Scorpio today, applying to trine Neptune in Pisces before making aspect to Pluto later this evening. It’s a watery day today.
But how do we speak to water, its meaning or its presence in our lives without objectifying it? Without describing its character in the terms of solidifying earth, or passionate fire, or conceptual wind? How do we let the water describe itself? It takes a subtle noticing…or noticing that something subtle is noticing us.
When the Moon is in Scorpio we may find ourselves dwelling on powerful thoughts, lusts, desires, pains, or anguishes, and we may suffer or enjoy them quietly, holding them as “my deep thoughts,” or “my secret pains.” We make these subjective claims over our deepest thoughts and feelings when the Moon passes through water signs because water’s crystal clarity, its dark invisibility, and its continual smooth rushing passages mask itself in the content.
With subtlety we can see the deadly scorpion moving quickly beneath the rocks of our mind. We glimpse the fish tails swimming in their circles, a quick flash of silver below our moods. We spot the pearlescent ghost crab at the edge of the evening shore, watching us as we watch the world with longing. We mistake the content of OUR thoughts, moods, and feelings, for the water creatures like to hide themselves. Water keeps moving, revealing by concealing, and by its clarity we lose it once again.
On watery moon days a great practice is to learn how to approach the hidden animal. For example, if I’m having dark moods, thoughts, or worries on a Scorpio Moon, I might try approaching the Scorpion. Not through some simple formula, “Dark mood = scorpion = saracastic voice ‘Oh scorpion! You heavy beast; come on what do you want from me? I see you there!” This heavy-handedness doesn’t realize the Scorpion’s pincers are covering a region of space so vast that your life and your sarcastic relatability is already inside the Scorpion’s nest, not the other way around. No. Subtler. A hidden god, the scorpion is here. Abiding. Surrounding. Moving like dark water through everything. “Teach me your secrets,” we might say, and if not quiet, secret, and afraid ourselves then we haven’t approached the Scorpion…we’ve simply not spotted it yet. But once we have, once we know its near we might say, “Teach me your secrets, and what sacrifice should I offer?”
The word sacrifice has its roots in the idea of paying “homage” to a god, and the word homage, much like the lunar home and hearth, refer to the way in which we receive a guest. “What sacrifice shall I offer?” can only be asked sincerely once we’ve recognized the animal is near, at the doors of our home. We recognize this by that subtle light of the Moon…that subtle recognition of moods, thoughts, feelings, dreams, ideas, conversations, and themes that “seem as if my own.” This “seems as if” — the night stranger, the nocturnal water signs best reflect.
A few things I’ve found myself giving to the Scorpion..
* A prolonged focus on darker, broodier music…playing it in my home and letting the Scorpion wander. Protected by the music, the Scorpion feels safe to teach me things, to speak, but to remain in its twilight power, the music invoking and concealing it simultaneously
* Stewing in dark emotions or desires….not the acting out nor the repressing of them…but the working “in” of dark feelings, fantasies and pains…letting their quiet power move and speak
* Immersing myself in the landscape of a painful or erotic imaginal world through film or fiction
* Visiting dark topics with friends, clients, etc…letting the Scorpion speak without trying to “light and love” around or through it…
Though the Scorpion is a specific water animal, the elemental power of water in general has the ability to cloak itself and is thus a natural teacher of subtle relating, instinct, and psychic listening. The word “psychic” has far too much glamour around it. “I’m a psychic, empath, intuitive, channel, medium, etc.” None of these statements bear that invisibility or concealment, none of these self-proclamations carry the hard black fear of the Scorpion or the quiet lunar concealment of the crab shell. Nor the modest, puzzling of the two fish swimming in their eternal circles. Real water (rather than fire posing as water) teaches instinctual psychic listening, responding and reflecting in the way of itself…quietly, invisibly, dark as clear and clear as dark. Even here in my complaints there are small geysers of fire pretentious over the passing water…fire justifying itself as it makes its case, even when its case is against itself. For this reason, fire and water are so much like secret lovers. The diamond pendant of a scorpion pinned on the breast of a proud red dress.
So, today, in closing, we can learn the art of the Scorpion, but first we have to spot the Scorpion. We have to almost step on it, find it near to death as we turn over some topic or rock. Then we can pay homage. Bring it into our home and say, “Welcome to this place. What can I offer you?”
Prayer: Help us to be mindful hosts
But how do we speak to water, its meaning or its presence in our lives without objectifying it? Without describing its character in the terms of solidifying earth, or passionate fire, or conceptual wind? How do we let the water describe itself? It takes a subtle noticing…or noticing that something subtle is noticing us.
When the Moon is in Scorpio we may find ourselves dwelling on powerful thoughts, lusts, desires, pains, or anguishes, and we may suffer or enjoy them quietly, holding them as “my deep thoughts,” or “my secret pains.” We make these subjective claims over our deepest thoughts and feelings when the Moon passes through water signs because water’s crystal clarity, its dark invisibility, and its continual smooth rushing passages mask itself in the content.
With subtlety we can see the deadly scorpion moving quickly beneath the rocks of our mind. We glimpse the fish tails swimming in their circles, a quick flash of silver below our moods. We spot the pearlescent ghost crab at the edge of the evening shore, watching us as we watch the world with longing. We mistake the content of OUR thoughts, moods, and feelings, for the water creatures like to hide themselves. Water keeps moving, revealing by concealing, and by its clarity we lose it once again.
On watery moon days a great practice is to learn how to approach the hidden animal. For example, if I’m having dark moods, thoughts, or worries on a Scorpio Moon, I might try approaching the Scorpion. Not through some simple formula, “Dark mood = scorpion = saracastic voice ‘Oh scorpion! You heavy beast; come on what do you want from me? I see you there!” This heavy-handedness doesn’t realize the Scorpion’s pincers are covering a region of space so vast that your life and your sarcastic relatability is already inside the Scorpion’s nest, not the other way around. No. Subtler. A hidden god, the scorpion is here. Abiding. Surrounding. Moving like dark water through everything. “Teach me your secrets,” we might say, and if not quiet, secret, and afraid ourselves then we haven’t approached the Scorpion…we’ve simply not spotted it yet. But once we have, once we know its near we might say, “Teach me your secrets, and what sacrifice should I offer?”
The word sacrifice has its roots in the idea of paying “homage” to a god, and the word homage, much like the lunar home and hearth, refer to the way in which we receive a guest. “What sacrifice shall I offer?” can only be asked sincerely once we’ve recognized the animal is near, at the doors of our home. We recognize this by that subtle light of the Moon…that subtle recognition of moods, thoughts, feelings, dreams, ideas, conversations, and themes that “seem as if my own.” This “seems as if” — the night stranger, the nocturnal water signs best reflect.
A few things I’ve found myself giving to the Scorpion..
* A prolonged focus on darker, broodier music…playing it in my home and letting the Scorpion wander. Protected by the music, the Scorpion feels safe to teach me things, to speak, but to remain in its twilight power, the music invoking and concealing it simultaneously
* Stewing in dark emotions or desires….not the acting out nor the repressing of them…but the working “in” of dark feelings, fantasies and pains…letting their quiet power move and speak
* Immersing myself in the landscape of a painful or erotic imaginal world through film or fiction
* Visiting dark topics with friends, clients, etc…letting the Scorpion speak without trying to “light and love” around or through it…
Though the Scorpion is a specific water animal, the elemental power of water in general has the ability to cloak itself and is thus a natural teacher of subtle relating, instinct, and psychic listening. The word “psychic” has far too much glamour around it. “I’m a psychic, empath, intuitive, channel, medium, etc.” None of these statements bear that invisibility or concealment, none of these self-proclamations carry the hard black fear of the Scorpion or the quiet lunar concealment of the crab shell. Nor the modest, puzzling of the two fish swimming in their eternal circles. Real water (rather than fire posing as water) teaches instinctual psychic listening, responding and reflecting in the way of itself…quietly, invisibly, dark as clear and clear as dark. Even here in my complaints there are small geysers of fire pretentious over the passing water…fire justifying itself as it makes its case, even when its case is against itself. For this reason, fire and water are so much like secret lovers. The diamond pendant of a scorpion pinned on the breast of a proud red dress.
So, today, in closing, we can learn the art of the Scorpion, but first we have to spot the Scorpion. We have to almost step on it, find it near to death as we turn over some topic or rock. Then we can pay homage. Bring it into our home and say, “Welcome to this place. What can I offer you?”
Prayer: Help us to be mindful hosts
Image by courtesy of gumotorg, at creative commons image licensing
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