Nov

16

Filed Under Astrology In Daily Life, Illuminated Lunations, Moon, Pluto the Transformer, Scorpio

Today’s Scorpio New Moon is known by those in pagan circles as Hecate’s Moon. Hecate is the pagan Goddess of the underworld and ferries those who ask for her assistance through the cycle of death and ultimately rebirth. A three-headed Goddess of maidenhood, motherhood and old age, she symbolizes the progression of time, reminding us that for every spring there is an autumn and every summer, winter. As the Goddess associated with the invisible, she’s appropriate to the new moon that casts a dark glance toward our wishes, and during which our shadows loom larger, our fears spookier. Like Scorpio, Hecate’s Moon empowers inward-looking, toward how we block and empower our deepest soul desires.

Where do we find her empowering help? Hecate resides on the fringes of consciousness, in liminal places – our unconscious, dreamworlds, the invisible dimensions normally in the shadows of our lives. Because these places offer insights which our ordinary consciousness is ‘in the dark’ about, she connects us to timely spiritual messages. Hecate is present at the crossroads of our lives, suggesting that when we enter the world of the invisible, we become privy to ancient wisdom. As astrologers know, often astrology clients will consult an us when they’re at a crossroads, thus invoking or ‘bringing out’ the Hecate in us, and just as Hecate heartened Demeter when her daughter Persephone went missing, we are compassionate toward the cycles of grief, rage, loss of hope, darkness, primarily because we understand these as cycles of transformation. In that spirit, we offer Hecate’s insights. Hecate sees through the veils because she spends time there; so I often tell clients who are at a crossroads or dead end to look around and notice what the world is saying to them (and what they are saying to their self) – there are always signs! Unfortunately our modern world is so distracting, offering little ritualistic space for regular communion and contact with the world of symbols, archetypes and messengers, so we have to work a little harder to claim that contact, and also to decipher the messages.

Several years ago, one memorable client came to consult me at the end of her Pluto transit, wondering, ‘why hasn’t anything happened?’ Pluto is the planet of Scorpio, hastening transformations and deaths. My client had been in the same bureaucratic job for most her life and said she was lukewarm about it, but wasn’t motivated enough to make a change. Pluto transits can help us discover the burning passion within, motivating inner to outer change, so naturally I inquired whether she had any secret passion or dream desire which at it’s highest could lead her to a ‘high destiny’. She did not, which explained why she hadn’t moved out of a dead end job -there was nothing compelling compelling her forward. She had placed enough credence in astrology to be pretty frightened that this big transit was ‘ending’; admittedly so was I. Nothing had either outwardly or inwardly changed for her. It was as if she had ‘forgotten’ to have a Pluto transit! When we hung up I felt her disappointment as my own, as disappointment in myself. She had asked me for an answer because although I could offer insight, I couldn’t give her the soul-knowing she was missing. I secretly wondered what, if anything, would happen to her as a result of ‘nothing happening’. After all, in the spectrum of fate and free-will, we’re free to make choices and to consciously reflect on our lives, but when we don’t inwardly or outwardly act on behalf of our own destiny, how can we encounter anything but ‘fate’?

I never heard from this client again, though I wished I would’ve. Because I felt so inadequate to give her what she needed, I gained more insight into Pluto from our interaction. Upon time spent in reflection, this is what stayed with me: Pluto is the phoenix that rises from the ashes of a burning, and a fire needs something to ignite and burn first. It needs dead wood; the wood from a once-living tree. A growing and green tree is life-giving, and it both creates and takes energy to thrive. But there’s a tipping point for everything. When the tree consumes more energy than it gives off, it becomes a drag on the system. That dead wood could be a job, a relationship, or anything that once nourished us but when energetically consumes more than it gives, starts consuming our life force to stay alive. Just as we can’t move forward with a ton of dead weight, we can’t seize our ‘high destiny’ without killing off the energetic cannibals in our life. A tree that’s kept alive past it’s time cannibalizes our whole being, and that’s when we need to make the difficult decision to chop it down, and to eventually use that dead wood as fuel for our next Big Thing. Pluto may call us into larger more meaningful life missions, but as often Pluto presents as the dead wood that’s blocking us from moving forward.

Today’s New Moon in Scorpio hastens transformations, a big buzz word for Scorpio/Pluto. I’m wary of using the word transformation because we’ve become adept at glossing over the meaning of what that actually means. Casually, we banter about this awe-inspiring word around, yet how many of us are as casual toward our own imminent death? Something in us must die in order for something new to live. Death is emotionally painful; an extremely uncomfortable reality of being human. Death, both literal and symbolic, can be alienating, and yet death unites us in a common shared archetypal experience. How do we react when we hear of someone mysteriously cut down in their prime? How do we react to our own symbolic deaths? Chances are, not so well. Some of us may be too fearful, spooked or defended to chop down a life-force cannibalizing tree. Others of us may believe our pain and grief toward dying is antagonistic toward (instead of fuel for) a greater self-experience. Many of us, as Dylan Thomas recorded in this line of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light! There’s a reason why we cling so hard and fast; the sky must become dark and lightless for the tree to fully die. Who wants that? Yet we wouldn’t move forward into new life until we scrape the bottom of the barrel, and encounter our parasitic demons and ghosts. Yet what happens if we don’t, and we rage, rage against the dying of the light? Attachment, to keeping a thing alive past it’s time, is a fate far worse than death. We only increase our resistance and our suffering. Ironically as often nothing needs to actually die, but can be changed in own consciousness – that is, in the way we hold it. Death has life in it, but only if we realize that we need to encounter and then chop down the dead wood to use for new fuel.

Hecate’s New Moon in Scorpio empowers death transformations, activating our fears and our incomplete transformations. Neptune angles this New Moon suggesting the most potent ‘transformations’ or deaths will take place in the realm of consciousness. To tap into the ethers for guidance, try these astro-magical suggestions: over the next few days symbolically meet Hecate at that crossroads of your life. Make an offering of leftover food, slow down to reflect, consult your favorite divination system, record your dreams, and try viewing the people and events in your world as figures bearing messages for you; all will help you move forward more gracefully. As you encounter dead wood in your life, do what I try to do: go where the energy is. By going where the energy is, you become more willing to cut down the dead wood, and more able to leave the past behind.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Scorpio New Moon : Hecate’s Moon & Dead Wood”

fern on November 16th, 2009 1:20 pm

Great New Moon in Scorpio reading Jessica! Thanks for such an insightful post-love that Mercury in Cancer wisdom that shines so brightly in your writing:)
Kristine on November 18th, 2009 6:01 am

The paragraph you bolded? WHAMMO! My 4th house is empty of natal planets, but Pluto’s run through there ended about a year ago. I was SO MISERABLE in my long marriage, for a long long time, but just as it headed towards the cusp with the fifth, I left. Scariest thing I had ever done, altho I had wanted to do it for at least five years at that point.

Transformation is an understatement.

I’m very much still learning astrology, but Hecate and I know each other well. Thank you for this great piece!
Jessica on November 18th, 2009 7:55 am

Thanks, Fern. I bet your pagan wisdom has been in demand this Scorpio season!

Kristine, kudos for mustering up the courage to claim your life (& happiness) as your own…and how very Fifth House of you! Thanks for stopping by and reading.
LucyWatchTheSky on November 18th, 2009 12:17 pm

Wow, EXCELLENT post. I’m so glad that everyone’s been doing more investigation into Lilith/Hecate and the darker energies of astrology, so that we can debunk how scary we think they are and use them productively.

And I think you’re totally right on about looking for messages. I’m all about free will, but I feel like sometimes there are reasons that things happen one way and not others. For sure.

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