Happy All Hallow's Eve from Willow!

I hope everyone's Hallowe'en has been adequately ghoulish. 

Venus and Mercury are in the last gasp of Scorpio, adding some very potent spook to the atmosphere. This is the one day of the year I feel I can truly be myself... 

All the best this All Hallow's Eve from Willow!

Via Combusta Scorpio New Moon October 26 Opens Into the Dark Half and Sets the Tone for Saturn in Scorpio 2012 - 2015

Photo: Willow

Scorpio New Moon conjunct Juno - October 26 at 2:56 p.m. Central Daylight Time

There's a bit o' spook in the air along with the smell of fallen leaves as we cross into the dark half of the year in the northern hemisphere. The Sun enters Scorpio. Cailleach takes the reins from Brigid. Persephone starts her sombre trek. The veils between the living and the ancestors, the light half and the dark half, become so thin as to be nearly non-existent.

Witchy origins rise to the surface at this time of year. We recognize each other quite readily now - on the bus, in the grocery store, passing on the sidewalk. A knowing glance. A subtle acknowledgement. The history laid bare. We know each other. We know. It's not so necessary to hide ourselves just now, camouflaged amongst the ghosts and goblins, creatures and spooks.

The Scorpio New Moon is a moon of underlying magic and mystery, crackling with alchemical possibility. Drink it in, and feel how powerful, how potent you are, distilled into this very moment on this very planet.

Photo: Willow

Feel the responsibility you hold for being so powerful. The weight that keeps you here, grounded, enduring. The unyielding limitations and stern restrictions you've come to respect and even love, keeping you on the straight and narrow. Keeping you from devastation, disaster, attack, exhaustion, injury. The borders and frameworks that contain you and your power, keeping you safe and keeping others safe from you. Holding you at your most concretely effective position because anything less would be less than you are.

At this Scorpio New Moon sextile Pluto in Capricorn, we step through a doorway - open for a limited time only and only to the wise among us - into the tone and themes of the Saturn transit through Scorpio when it will be in mutual reception to Pluto in Capricorn.

Every New Moon indicates something emerging: new emotional realities related to the sign in which it falls, as well as deadfall - dead and done emotional realities - to clear away during the Balsamic phase. Here, we step into a new layer of inheritance. Sacred gifts of the soul, of our ancestral and spiritual lineages, are bestowed upon us at this New Moon. We step more fully into their power and into the responsibility we hold for making good use of them from our strategic positions of influence on this planet.

Saturn, the planet related to strategic positioning, is at 21 degrees Libra, about to enter its retrograde shadow November 3, and will be exactly sextile Mars at 21 degrees Leo at the time of the New Moon. Mars in Leo (square Mercury-Venus in Scorpio) is at a potent distillation point, closing out its two-year cycle under the energy overlay of the lion. Explosively creative partnerships emerge out of this New Moon in Scorpio along with corresponding new levels of social and creative responsibility for bringing about the particular astrological Aquarian era future we wish to be part of.

This is the last Scorpio New Moon before Saturn ingresses the sign of sex, death, regenerative healing, hardcore soul drive, and metamorphosis October 5, 2012. Those who understand the seriousness of the times in which we're living and the level of responsibility it takes to truly get the job done get a head start here - almost a full year of extra time to put in our energetic prep work. With Saturn, it pays to be both prepared and unrushed.

Saturn in Scorpio will require:

Energetic responsibility. Absolute energetic responsibility.

Intricate, masterful restraint.

Decision-making based in perfectly-honed intuition. Heeding gut feelings and Scorpionic spidey sense, but waiting until we're absolutely sure of what they're telling us before acting.

A new level of care and caution with emotions, psyches and psychic space.

A much lower tolerance for baggage, unfinished business, emotional/psychological/sexual entanglements, and otherwise bullshitty behaviours.

A no-nonsense release of anything no longer vital to our long-term soul-level success. (Saturn would call those things "frivolous.")

A slower, more gradual timing for the merger of energy and resources, especially financial and sexual.

A deepened respect for our power and our influence on others, on the world, on the universe itself. A deepened respect for what flows through us, for what we're connected to, for ancestral context, and for how it works through us.

The understanding of our positions as change agents. The facilitators of structural metamorphosis.

Photo: Willow

As with the other 11 signs, under the astrological lens, everyone has Scorpio in one form or another. Because of its power, complexity, and extremes, Scorpio is an energy prone to misuses and abuses. It's the sign of "the occult," and there are many, many people being very, very irresponsible on this front.

Speaking of which, this Scorpio New Moon is potent for another reason: contrary to popular belief and all the December 21, 2012 hoopla, there's a good chance the date for the end of the Mayan calendar is actually October 28, 2011 - just as we unfold into the new energetic and emotional realities indicated by this Scorpio New Moon.

A bunch of fools is currently attempting to bring about the "end of the world" on this planet - at least for those of us considered expendable collateral damage for the ascended, the enlightened, the awakened, the raptured, and the planetary/inter-planetary elite. And yet another bunch of fools is vociferously glorying about this magical and wonderful culling that will supposedly bring about their new age, their saving grace, their shot in the big leagues, their ticket out of here.

Neptune is currently stationing direct at 28 Aquarius (November 9). Chiron Rx is conjunct at 0 degrees Pisces. The wound is a wound of faith, of naivete, of belief, of hopes, of glossing over, of pedestal placing and pedestal sitting, of damaging ethers, of pseudo-spiritual blinders and manipulation. Neptune and Chiron now straddle 29 Aquarius, the degree that tips us into the astrological Aquarian era. Make sure you know where you're placing your faith and which version of the Aquarian era future you're supporting with the choices you make in your life.

All these layers make keeping the Scorpionic bullshit detectors perfectly honed and perfectly attuned coming out of this New Moon that much more important. And they certainly add an element to the level of responsibility required as we navigate our lives during these particular times.

I wrote about the themes of this Scorpio New Moon previously in conjunction with the Libra New Moon. I'll re-post it here because I feel this is an important time frame. From September 23, 2011: Upcoming New Moons in Libra and Scorpio - More Spice Than Sugar For the Next Two Months

- Via Combusta New Moon in Scorpio October 26 Conjunct Juno -

The New Moon in Scorpio October 26 deepens the process. Things move from the social to the energetically alchemical, and a big part of the process moves out of our hands.

The New Moon (2:56 p.m. CDT) is in full-on Via Combusta territory at 3 degrees Scorpio, which will be tightly sextile Pluto in Capricorn. The New Moon is also conjunct soul mate asteroid Juno, newly in Scorpio at zero degrees. Venus and Mercury will be closely conjunct each other at 21 and 20 degrees Scorpio respectively. This is certainly a New Moon with an edge.

Sextile Pluto in Capricorn, it is an energetic precursor to the upcoming period involving the Saturn in Scorpio - Pluto in Capricorn mutual reception (October 6, 2012 to September 18, 2015) and brings us into the tone of that time period - deep, soulful, serious, pragmatic, no fucking around.

This Juno-vibing Scorpio New Moon opens into the knowledge that finding a "soul mate" is only the beginning of the work. We're in some thorny, collectively karmic relational territory these days, and there are plenty of knots to be worked out ahead of your standard 'utter soul union bliss.' Aspects of unbalanced power dynamics are perpetuated through our interactions just by virtue of us being on the planet at this time, and we're challenged to consciously work them free together.

The relationships that deepen coming out of this Scorpio New Moon conjunct Juno have to be right, no doubt about it. We still have some time under Saturn exalted in Libra to get the balance right, but under Saturn in Scorpio, our energy will be restricted; our resources will be limited. Heading into Saturn in Scorpio, we cannot afford to take losses (including emotional/energetic/psychic losses) or to make bad judgement calls as far as the integrity and abilities of the people with whom we enter partnership.

It will not be easy to get ourselves out of the wrong partnerships, and it will not be easy to recover from the wrong mergers of resources and energy (particularly sexual energy) from here on out...

The extrication processes during Saturn in Scorpio are more likely to be difficult: turbulent, protracted, nasty, even so enervating and devastating as to be deadly. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Make firm decisions about the people you have in your life now, and don't compromise your standards. Being a highly popular social butterfly spreading yourself over multitudes of acquaintances isn't going to mean much during Saturn in Scorpio. Only the relationships that truly pay dividends, soul-deep, are going to be worth the energy. Keep only the people you're absolutely sure about, and even then, work to create proper boundaries for all members of your social circle - including yourself. Good fences make good neighbours, especially under Saturn in Scorpio.

A major relational difficulty here is that with Pluto transiting Capricorn, the way things have been set up is corrupt. It no longer works. It never really did. The hierarchies are illegitimate. There is a detrimental power imbalance between men and women and the masculine and feminine energetic interplay. On a very many fronts, things are just plain wrong, and we have to change the course. All this must be consciously and mutually dealt with as mergers - business, love or otherwise - come about slowly and carefully, with full respect for the intricacies involved and the deep pitfalls to avoid. Trying to bring these combinations together fully before the power dynamics are reworked and the timing (Saturn) is right will only create more hurt and distortion.

In love, this involves creating right sexual relationships (Scorpio) with mutually held consciousness of the prior and current misuses and violent abuses of sexual energy. This especially involves abuses of women and the domination and control of feminine sexual power and knowledge. It also includes the damage done by the "too much, too fast, too often" mainstream sexual culture of the day. These misuses and abuses have become so energetically ingrained, hidden and accepted through millenia of cultural reinforcement, that it takes pristine focus and awareness within a sexual partnership not to repeat the dynamics in some form or another.

People are being kept from their full sexual power by false, mainstream-media constructed versions of sex, sexuality, beauty and attraction. But Scorpio is a sign that has the ability to make sex and the energetic interplay between people sacred and purposeful again. Issues start coming to the forefront out of this New Moon that will be on our plates during Saturn in Scorpio as far as the hidden energy exchanges between the sexes (and between those of the same sex).

The currencies of sexual, emotional and psychic energy as well as masterful Scorpionic healing abilities require conscious re-valuing and re-working, one interchange at a time.

We'll be working diligently on these intimate and highly complex issues throughout Saturn's transit of Scorpio into September of 2015.

In light of the complexities ahead, the decisions we make now must come straight from our souls, right from our core truth with no fibbing around the edges. There is very little margin for error now and there is a decreasing amount the closer we get to Saturn's ingress of Scorpio.

Allow the Scorpio New Moon October 26 to take you deeply into your intuitional guidance, the still place inside that already knows how the whole map has been laid out.

And don't be afraid. It all comes out OK, even if it doesn't.

Venus Clears the Fall 2010 Retro Degrees and Makes it Official With a Sun-Juno Conjunction on the Anaretic Degree of Libra

Venus leaves the degrees of its previous retrograde tomorrow at 13 degrees Scorpio, and if you've gotten through the past two weeks relatively unscathed as far as the sticky, tricky dynamics of relationships past popping up, consider yourself lucky. 

Actually, luck doesn't have all that much to do with it. If the clinging tendrils, unfinished business and ass-burning dynamics of previous connections haven't gotten their greasy hooks into you at this point, it's more likely a case that you've worked Saturn in Libra to the fine points, navigated your way out of the residual charge, and made different moves this time around. 

If a greasy hook or two is still latching, never fear. We're heading into a blisteringly potent Scorpio New Moon conjunct Juno and sextile Pluto in Capricorn October 26. Coming out of that New Moon portal, greasy hooks can be purged once and for all as long as we don't waver from the intention of ending the old attachments and attractions that would keep us from present and future relationship success. 

It's not necessarily all that simple, though: 

Mercury and Venus, conjunct in Scorpio, are opposite Black Moon Lilith in Taurus, and nothing gets past BML unless it's Super Hardcore Gritty Real X 10. If you want to be free of unsavoury and unsatisfying relations, don't let up on even a single point. 

The Sun and Juno also form a conjunction on the anaretic degree of Libra October 22 just before both bodies enter Scorpio and move into position for the New Moon. The anaretic (29th) degree holds the final exam lessons for the entire sign. At 29 Libra, there's the ability for absolute social artistry, wonderful, mutually-supportive reciprocity and masterful balance as well as lots of shoddy, shoddy, shirking behaviours that let everyone, including ourselves, down. 

The Juno soul mates in our lives right now are working with us to create true fairness and balance within long-term supportive frameworks of relationships. They're also triggering the last decan of Saturn in Libra work - what we're going to be working on until Saturn ingresses Saturn in October 2012. 

Juno connections don't always feel great. They involve a deep level of soul work that is not always comfortable to do and can involve difficult emotions and highly-charged trigger points. It might feel as if it's not fair (Libra) that we have certain people and certain relationship situations going on in our lives right now, but Juno is triggering the last of the relationship stuff here, and it's in our best interests to work with the people in our lives on these points. 

Juno hasn't been in Libra since 2007, and we haven't experienced a Sun-Juno conjunction in Libra since October 2002. It can feel a little overwhelming on the last degree of the sign like this, and the weak points of the sign of Libra screwing various pooches is possible. 

Give it all you can to keep your equilibrium and hold out for real relationship fairness heading into next week's New Moon.

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Willow 

Willow's Web Astrology

Venus Enters Scorpio: An Energetic Discharge of Venus Retro 2010

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes. - William Gibson, sci fi novelist and Scorpio South Node  

Venus in Scorpio - October 9 to November 2 

From October 6 to 19, Venus moves through the degrees of its previous retrograde in Via Combusta Libra and Scorpio (27 Libra to 13 Scorpio). This kicks up any unfinished business from the fall of 2010 (with roots to fall 2002, fall 1994, fall 1986, fall 1978, fall 1970, fall 1962...), allowing us to complete some things and to energetically reconstitute ahead of the upcoming Venus Transit and Venus retrograde in Gemini in May/June 2012. 

As Venus moves through this area, we're given a status report on how far we've come in relationship since last fall and on what points might still require a little alchemical pouring-of-the-coal-to-it to move beyond. 

It's possible, if one has very responsibly dealt with his or her relationships in the past year(s), to get a free pass here. Nothing left to examine, resolve, or purge. No etheric tendrils left to disconnect from at all. 

However, this is a fairly charged little stretch of the zodiac at the best of times, intricately connected to collective dynamics, and this is even more the case due to the previous Venus retrograde through this zone. Things can flare up in unpredictable ways with little provocation, especially if transiting Venus is making aspects to the natal chart. 

Love planet Venus is in detriment in Scorpio, the sign of all things socially uncomfortable and hidden. It's difficult. (Venus in Virgo hears what I'm sayin'.) 

Communication planet Mercury conjuncts responsibility planet Saturn in the sign of balance, justice, and equality Libra today (5:01 p.m. CDT). The Sun is also moving to a conjunction to Saturn in Libra October 13 just as Venus in Scorpio sextiles Pluto in Capricorn, and the key is to responsibly deal with any flares. (Keep a box of baking soda at the ready.) This includes staying out of other people's relationships and steering well clear of associated Plutonic detritus. Scorpionic relationship issues can sometimes be tempting to get involved in, but, for the most part, it's best to let the dramz move on past without our involvement. 

We're moving through a time frame when a lot can be energetically laid to rest. The focus is on allowing things to resolve themselves and moving onto new ground, not getting deeper into relational muck. Things shift, and new foundational steps gain traction here, but it won't necessarily be easy. 

Just before Venus enters Scorpio, it trines Neptune Rx in Aquarius from late Libra on October 7, bringing in the ghosts of relationships past and tempting us with mirages. Over the next month, don't be alarmed if you have a cringe-worthy "Not this again!" relational experience or two involving patterns, dynamics, or people you thought you had put behind you. This includes receiving poorer treatment than you warrant from people around you - Scorpio is a sign that deals with abuse and mistreatment, however subtle. Draw on the primal anger and strength of your lineage, hold your value, and respectfully demand better - for all of you. 

Work through the Scorpy paranoia and fears, stay conscious, and show unwanted dynamics to the door - firmly. Don't give them anything to attach to. Unravel from participation in the hyper-charged figure eight dynamics, ground them, and walk away. Make no bones about it. 

Consciously move out of reach of old attractions to people and situations that are not in your best interests, and keep moving. This is not the time to let things slide that really and truly need to be eliminated from your life and from your relationships. Scorpio relates to reading and heeding red flags and disentangling before you get sucked into an enervating black hole Plutonic vortex. Eventually, we get so good that we see the red flags a mile away, avoiding vortex territory altogether. Venus in Scorpio will lay out the path: we just need the trust, the grit and the courage to follow it all the way through the exit ramp. Easier said than done. 

There are things that need to be resolved amidst insecure and fairly dicey conditions on many fronts, creating a truly new energetic balance in relationship before we can move on, and this process takes longer than we think. 

With Saturn currently in Via Combusta Libra, soon to be disposited by Venus in Scorpio, we're challenged to responsibly bring to a close connections, dynamics, residual emotion, and entanglements from the past ahead of the whole new relationship ballgame indicated by next spring's Venus Transit. 

Until November 3, Saturn transits, in one pass, new degrees of the zodiac (17 to 22 Libra) that it will not be returning to. 

Until November 2, Venus transits Scorpio as the dispositor of Saturn in Libra. 

There is a lot of long-term relationship progress possible here, and masterfully working with tricky, sticky Venus in Scorpio is the key. Getting a solid foot-hold is more complex and challenging than most will realize. Under Saturn in Libra, we're building a new framework of relationships to sustain us over the difficult years ahead, applying lessons we've learned from previous partnerships. Simultaneously, we're required to responsibly extricate ourselves from past connections tying up our emotional, physical, psychological, and psychic resources. 

As we head into full-on Sun in Scorpio season October 23, we're working to shift deeply ingrained energetic dynamics while setting new standards for relationship (Saturn in Libra). Personal efforts to get down to core reality on this front shift things on broader, collective levels in ways that desperately need to see some movement. Every little flicker of 'intolerable' that enters our personal relationships has a long, dark, deep root to a broader collective issue. This especially relates to the piss-poor ways in which many women (Venus) are treated on this planet: domestic violence and mistreatment of all varieties, sexual and energetic control and exploitation, rape, devalued work, domination, financial dependence, poverty, invisibility, under-representation in positions of power, lack of access to resources, being shunned and stigmatized for not fitting traditional feminine moulds. 

Each individual who refuses to let things slide and digs in to set things right in personal relationships helps get things moving in a more beneficial direction on a larger scale. 

Scorpio asks us to go as deeply as we can into ourselves, to be truer to the actual experiences and emotional, psychological, and psychic realities of our souls in these human bodies. And with Venus transiting Scorpio, testing us on all the retrograde points, it's also about sharing this, responsibly sharing our process, with another person or people. 

With Venus in Scorpio, especially Via Combusta Scorpio, we have an access point where we can burn through artificial, socially conditioned ideas of what relationship is, what love is, what beauty is, what value is, what a healthy sexual relationship is. 

This transit is a time for a final energetic house cleaning, getting to all the nooks and crannies you might have been held off on during Venus Retro 2010. 

If you still have people and dynamics in your life that just don't do it for you, this transit is the time to gently shed them while coming together more fully with those that do. (It's also a time to work through the difficult emotions if you're one of the ones being shed.) 

This is about future success in relationship and releasing anything that would hold us back from that, but it isn't emotionally easy territory. 

Venus in Scorpio is a good time to forgive ourselves for getting involved with people in the past who hurt us, burned us, did us wrong, and did not have our best interests at heart. It's a time to forgive ourselves for allowing people into our lives who did not have the character to be there, and it's a time to make a strong commitment to ourselves that no one with those character flaws gets through the gates again. 

With the sign of Scorpio, there are themes related to the difference between meaningful, reciprocal, mutually-supportive and empowering relationship dynamics and relationship dynamics that just end up with someone getting used and burned. 

 Getting out from under relationship dynamics that drain our energy and resources is of especial importance now as we head closer to Saturn's ingress of Scorpio in October 2012, when it will be in mutual reception to Pluto in Capricorn. 

This Scorpio season is about putting ourselves in good position ahead of the Saturn in Scorpio transit. Make your choices with cold, hard Scorpionic resolve now to avoid being dragged through the Plutonic muck later by those who have not been so energetically responsible. 

Venus in Scorpio - October 9 to November 2 

Mercury in Scorpio - October 13 to November 2 

Sun in Scorpio - October 23 to November 22 

New Moon in Scorpio conjunct Juno - October 26