By Cal Garrison
This week’s horoscopes are coming out under the light of a void-of-course Cancer Moon. The sun changes signs this week; it will move from Libra to Scorpio at 1:20 p.m., on Wednesday, Oct. 23. I thought it might be helpful to give you a rundown on what happens when the Scorpionic bandwagon rolls into town.
The sun’s entrance into Scorpio is hard to miss if you’ve got your eyes peeled. The trees stand naked against the bare landscape, the sky turns gray, the atmosphere gets raw, and all of a sudden the earth that was once beautiful and alive feels more like a gothic cemetery. The minute we leave the sweetness and light of the Libran frequency we get sucker-punched by something dark and ruthless.
What’s the explanation for all of this? The truth is, love and death are intimately entwined. The Victorians referred to the deepest moments of lovemaking as ‘the little death.” Anyone who’s ever really been in love understands this. In those moments we surrender our own separateness in order to merge into oneness with another human being. On some level, something in us has to die to feel love.
The most important pagan cross quarter is Halloween or “Samhain,” the Wiccan New Year.
The Wiccan take on Oct. 31 is that it’s a time to bury the past in preparation for the future. Mythologically speaking, Oct. 31 is the point where Ceres parts ways with her daughter Persephone and sends her down into the “Underworld” to live with Hades, her father. What we’re supposed to do between Samhain and the Winter Solstice is travel deep into our own underworld and acquaint ourselves with all the issues that stand between us and the full development of the dreams that we will birth in the coming year.
As nature’s light decreases, the darkness that shrouds us is a sign that we can only go within to find a different kind of light. I’ve heard it said that the only way you can really begin to see is in total darkness. And that may be true because it’s the issues of our shadow self that keeps us from being fully who we are. And if we don’t use this time to look them over one last time and close the vault on whatever they represent, we won’t evolve. By the time the sun returns on the Winter Solstice we should have enough clarity about what lies beneath to move forward unencumbered by it.
The real meaning and the beauty behind all of the Halloween traditions has been lost. In the old times, everyone wore Halloween costumes so that on New Year’s Night they could embody the image of what they saw themselves becoming in the next cycle. It was a magical way to imprint what they wanted for themselves into the universal matrix.
The only way you can really begin to see is in total darkness.
The skeletons, and the emphasis on “creepy” things had to do with owning our greatest fears. All that dark stuff has its place.
The real beauty of this cross quarter and the season it holds sway over is that it’s the point where the darker forces meet and become one with whatever it is that we do want to acknowledge. And when you erase the line that separates good and bad, fear and love and life and death you see that it’s all just God here. Don’t expect to be on top of things for the next month or so. Explore the passageways that you’ve closed yourself off to and make every effort to see what’s in them. Think about what you don’t want to see and ask yourself why it scares you so much. Bring all of it into the light and embrace it. When you do you’ll discover that absolutely everything about you is Godlike.
It ain’t just about ‘Trick-or-Treat.” The next two weeks are powerful. They will include a Scorpio New Moon on Oct. 27. Let your dreams for the future come to life. By the time you suit up on Halloween night, hopefully you will be clear enough in your heart and mind to imprint all that is in your highest good into the unified field and open the space for those things to manifest in the coming year. Let me leave you with that and invite you to take what you can from this week’s ‘scopes.
