This month offers a crash course in power, strategy and subterfuge. The sky is full of Scorpio, so tune up your bat ears. We’re headed into dark caves.
It takes a certain kind skill to navigate in the depths of the self, a probing sensitivity that is Scorpio’s specialty. Pop astrology, which reduces the twelve signs to their personality traits, has a hard time translating outer-planet-ruled signs like Scorpio. Its impulses don’t always make sense to the materially-identified self.
So let’s consider instead the metaphorical meaning of Scorpio’s “hidden treasure.”
For the Romans, Pluto, the planetary governor of Scorpio, was said to preside over underground riches, a notion still used by astrology today. But I don’t believe even the ancients took the “buried wealth” trope literally.
If we see myths and legends as attempts by the human mind to explain itself to itself, it makes sense that the ancient bards understood Pluto’s realm much the same way modern astrology does: as a place within the human mind where valuable resources are stored. A place that is usually beyond the reach of ordinary conscious awareness.
The clue is in the element: Scorpio is a water sign (emotions, intuitions), not an earth sign (physical things). Whatever Scorpio means, it isn’t tangible. It specializes in forces which, especially if they build up over time, acquire a formidable potency. Once unearthed, they release tremendous power, like ancient sea plants drilled up for fuel.
Cats out of bagsOne of the reasons Scorpio is so misunderstood, including by people who have it in their charts, is because we human beings have always been spooked by things we can’t see. Like the unconscious mind. But when Scorpio is strong in the sky, as it is now, this is where the lessons lie.
Keep this in mind during the first week of this month. Mercury in Scorpio squares Pluto on 10/2; the next day, Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio, intensifying the emotional charge in the air.
The secrets of the psyche are out and about, circling like Halloween spirits.
In relationships, the subplots will be more important than the plots. The vibes your partner is giving off tell you far more than their words. And vice versa. You may think you know what you’re saying, but the person you’re talking to may be picking up on another layer entirely.
During Mars’s opposition to Pluto (peaking 10/3), you may find yourself in a tug-of-war, where one person’s desires (yours or the other person’s; the transit doesn’t care which) are up against someone else’s desires.
But don’t get lost in the drama of it all. If you keep the energy clean, this heightened egoic force can be used as a self-awareness tool.
Rather than trying to pinpoint who’s manipulating whom, focus instead on the raw energy coursing back and forth. Like a backhoe on an archeological dig, the dynamic is revealing something you didn’t see before.
Pluto timeThink about the contrast between Mars and Pluto, planets that are considered “octaves” of each other.
Mars is an in-your-face kind of planet, but it’s just the ego. It likes to flex its muscles, but it’s just about the personal self: what I want. Pluto, however, is Natural Law: it’s what the Universe wants.
When these two planets meet up, either in a natal chart or by transit (e.g. the 10/3 opposition), simple willpower is up against something far stronger than willpower. The regenerative power of the moment is in the room. And it is at our disposal.
If we’re centered, that is. If we’re able to use our little personal goals at the behest of something larger than ourselves. Otherwise, the transit might just show up as a craving to dominate someone or something.
As October comes to a close, practice what you learned as the month began. Pluto stations direct on the 15th, and the Sun ingresses into Scorpio on the 23rd. Mercury in Scorpio stations retrograde on the 24th, and the Full Moon (2 Scorpio/ Taurus) is on the 26th.
Something in your life is obsolete and wants to be let go. Let it decay gracefully. Let it pass back into the dark fertile void.
