Our Sagittarian Beacons of Light

Your friendly anarchist astro-reporter, Willow, in the cottonwoods

Photo: Willow's Mama

The Sun entered Sagittarius November 21, and we've officially broken the surface of our difficult and disturbing subterranean travels through Scorpio.

This Scorpio season was particularly challenging with the planet that rules challenges, Saturn, in the sign, colouring a seemingly never-ending Mercury retrograde through Scorpio (October 21 - November 10) that kept some of the darkest and most fearful subjects stuck on our minds. We were dealing with all the challenging aspects of the Scorpionic mind: paranoia, depression, dread, darkness, triggering conversations and information, detrimental thinking, intrusive and obsessive thoughts that gave us little rest, worst-fear subjects preying upon us, emotional and psychological difficulty that took us down for a death roll or two.

For those stuck under Saturn's thumb in Scorpio, there were some bleak Mercury retrograde moments, indeed.

To add to the challenge, we experienced Neptune and Chiron stationing direct in tandem (November 13 and November 19), stirring up painful confusion, illusion, over-sensitivity, disappointment, devastation, sadness, free-floating anxiety with no discernible cause, feelings of isolation, psychic overwhelm, exhaustion, disturbed sleep, and a strong desire for escape.

The Chiron in Pisces station was a particularly painful release point - and a time when many souls went on to the afterlife.

November has not been the easiest of months.

But now, layer-by-bleak-and-scary-layer, we re-surface from the subterranean Scorpionic depths.

Mercury completes its final challenge - the last conjunction to Saturn in Scorpio - on November 25 at 7:54 p.m. Central Standard Time. It will take a few days to move out of the reach of this dreaded conjunction to Saturn, but we've officially made it out of the most disturbing mental and emotional depths as we hit Hump Day this week.

In the wee hours of November 27, Mercury leaves its retrograde shadow at 18 Scorpio, clearing old, dreaded subjects from our minds. As we start our days on November 27, our minds are officially in new territory, on the other side of all the retrograde heinousness.

At the very same time as Mercury is moving on, Saturn cracks into its next retrograde shadow (the degrees to which it will return during its next retrograde) at 16 degrees Scorpio.

See that?

We have over half the Saturn transit through Scorpio under our belts now. We're not going back. And we've also completed the entire transit of Saturn through the often-difficult Via Combusta, an area of the zodiac associated with karma, misfortune, and unfortunate events.

Scorpio is a dense, complex, complicated sign. It's the sign most people fear. It's the sign where we hide everything we're scared of, everything we're uncomfortable with, everything left unsaid.

So as Mercury went picking through this sign, back and forth, we were touching on some of the most difficult subjects in existence (including the possibility of the annihilation of much of humanity via the Fukushima nuclear disaster). Not only that, but Saturn held our noses in these subjects until we got a good, old whiff. Until we got a full handle on every dark and disturbing angle, making the unconscious, conscious. We couldn't squirm our way out of any of it - not if we wanted to be fully responsible and on top of our games moving into the second half of Saturn in Scorpio.

Mercury went direct November 10 at 2 degrees Scorpio, exactly trine stationing Neptune in Pisces.

And now, as Mercury in Scorpio conjuncts Saturn for the last time until November 2014, we start to get some perspective on our hard-won mental, emotional, and psychological progress. We start to see the first fruits of our labours, the first bits of gold that come out of our pain.

As the Sun is shining down on us from jovial, humourous, gregarious, and optimistic Sagittarius, have faith that you will come through this. Have faith that relief is up ahead. Because it is.

Our Sagittarian beacons of light are in the window, guiding us home, guiding us to safety:

As stated, Mercury conjuncts Saturn in Scorpio November 25 and then cracks into new territory early on November 27.

Mercury in Scorpio will form a grounding and productive sextile to Venus in Capricorn (which is preparing for its own retrograde) on November 27, as well (8:45 p.m. CST). This Mercury-Venus sextile provides an earthy outlet and release for our hot and over-taxed Third Eyes, coming out of the extended transit of Mercury through intuitive, alchemical Scorpio. It's likely that we will be able to concretely apply the things we've seen and the things we've uncovered to maximum success here. Every last bit of difficult Mercury in Scorpio perspective is useful and usable now and will be through the upcoming Venus retrograde (December 21, 2013 to January 30, 2014), particularly for advancement in partnership, both personal and professional.

Mercury forms another nice, easy, flowing aspect on November 28 - a trine to Jupiter in Cancer (1:23 a.m.). This trine is some healing balm for our shredded psyches, as the raw Scorpionic intelligence finds a caring home and an accepting place. The meaning and reason for our deep, dark, painful examinations during Mercury's retrograde may become more fully known to us here, and we may have renewed faith that we are on the right track.

The Sagittarius Sun trines Uranus in Aries on November 30 (12:25 p.m.), providing another day of flowing energetics. This trine shines a light on our progress into the new astrological era, providing lightning-flash insight and renewed faith on our weird and wild path forward.

The Moon enters Scorpio November 29 (10:03 p.m. CST) in its Balsamic phase, indicating one last emotional/psychological hurdle as we close out the month of November.

This Dark of the Moon phase in Scorpio closes out a difficult lunar cycle that began November 3 with the New Moon Scorpio eclipse conjunct Saturn. That New Moon eclipse took some of us into very difficult emotional and psychological territory, and we've been kept there ever since.

This Dark of the Moon phase (November 29 - December 2) can stir up some difficult emotions related to this lunar cycle and to any associated events that occurred.

But we are folding it all into the alchemical soup, preparing for new emotional territory. Allow yourself to feel it, but don't get stuck. We're moving on.

The Sagittarius New Moon occurs December 2 at 10 degrees (6:22 p.m. CST), releasing us from the last grips of this very difficult Scorpio season.

Mercury in Scorpio will form another grounding and productive sextile to Mars in Virgo on December 3 (10:35 a.m.), indicating a time when we can practically apply our new intelligence to great effect. An awareness of the details right down to the X-Ray examination level assists us greatly here as we close out the Mercury transit of Scorpio.

Mercury leaves Scorpio (finally) for Sagittarius December 4 at 8:42 p.m., and a cheer goes up across the land!

The aspects as we close out November and begin December are highly supportive to our zippy little messenger planet Mercury (Mercury-Venus sextile, Mercury-Jupiter trine, Mercury-Mars sextile), which has been under such stress over the past six weeks. These aspects indicate that we now have mental support in areas where we have felt isolated, shredded, and under pressure over the past month.

The most debilitating weight of the world is being lifted off our shoulders and off our minds. Allow this process to do its work, layer-by-layer, and have faith that an acute dark period is now behind us.