Season of Decay

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The annual season of decay is upon us embracing the hollowed womb of the earth. Daylight is decreasing, evenings darkening hushed by a chilled breath, and leaves saturated with vibrancy  clinging to the last vestiges of life are falling from the sky coffered in the earth. The ancient Celtics celebrated the somber mood of November with the Feast of Samhain accenting the time of year when the “portals between worlds” opened and connections freely flowed between humans and spirits of the dead. This ancient tradition has survived to this day, resurrected in the secular celebration of Halloween when ghosts, goblins, and demons appear after dark to feast upon candied treats given them by the living. The Mexican culture inherited from the Aztec civilization a ritual feasting with the dead that began thousands of years ago in dedication to “The Lady of The Dead” and today, syncopated to  the Catholic celebration of All Soul’s Day, is celebrated as Day of the Dead when families’ picnic in graveyards sharing in the favorite foods of departed loved ones and the sugar skulls gleefully consumed by children consecrate the flesh and blood of those departed. Whether we celebrate Samhain, Halloween, Day of the Dead, or All Saint’s Day we are communing in a collective experiencing of life, and the Sun upon entering Scorpio signals our individual participation in a collective descent into the underworld whence death abounds.

Fall is the time of year when our conscious awareness of our external life diminishes in tandem with the light of day thus allowing us to journey into the hidden darkness of our psyche where upon facing our fears, dressed as the ghosts and goblins of our personal demons, we step through the portal of our personal transforming.  When the Sun is in Scorpio we are offered the gift of prophecy if we can shift our focus from being seduced by the surface reflection of our life to understanding the deeper significance of our life. Scorpio is that aspect in each of us breaking down surface appearances; turning old forms into energy which can be used for creating new forms. In essence when we are under the influence of Scorpio we are breaking down the form of who we are by eliminating physical and psychological obstructions that are preventing us from growing in a deeper understanding of ourself. Dane Rudhyar compared Scorpio to the mythological Egyptian bird, the phoenix, immolating itself on a self-made funeral pyre only to be reborn from its own ashes; an image worthy of the depth and breadth of our capacity for self-transforming when we understand the wisdom of Scorpio.

Self-transforming is far easier by word than by deed and for many of us a journey into the unfathomable depths of the underworld to face our worst fears can threaten the very core of our emotional security, which we need not fear knowing Scorpio holds the promise of resurrection with our return to the light, albeit irrevocably transformed in some significant way. This season, as the Sun enters Scorpio, fear permeates the present and threatens the future. Most of us, in one way or another, are wrestling with the palpable presence of Scorpio incarnate in the volatile instability of the world’s financial institutions ruthlessly gutting the value of assets many of us have spent years building. One of the darkest faces of Scorpio is our fear of powerlessness triggering feelings of being controlled and manipulated by outside forces beyond our control. Scorpio holds dominion over financial institutions, taxes, legacies, and inheritances, and every planetary ingress into Scorpio offers the possibility  for us to break down our fear, defense, and dependency upon the resources of others so that we can create new and improved ways of integrating what we own with what others own. It is tempting  to look into the eye of the storm and spiral downward into the murky waters of a collective fear but if we allow ourself to stay there we deny ourself the gift of our- transforming.