New Moon in Scorpio: The Shadow is Confronted

This weekend, we welcome a New Moon in the fixed water sign of Scorpio. Themes arise of transmutation, magic, depth, intensity, and alchemizing the personal and collective shadow. This is the weekend of Kali Puja – celebrating the wrathful goddess and destroyer of illusion and egoic attachments. In addition, it is Diwali – the Festival of Light, bringing gifts! Mars stations direct after a long retrograde – still in Aries until January, confronting everyone with everything imaginable. And, last but not least – this week's conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto (ruler of Scorpio), just about puts us all into hyperspace!

What to do, Kathmandu?

We arise and shine, baby. When we face the shadow, we are no longer entrapped. Take a look at what is all up in your business, and accept everything. Truly everything. That which we dismiss as unpalatable, unacceptable, disgusting, unjust, unfair, unrighteous – well, those are exactly the things that we get to eat for lunch, and transform into nectar, ambrosia, amrita.

Such is the power of the Goddess Maa Kali. Remember: the role of the Divine Feminine is not to make YOU feel comfortable. Her role is to keep the balance of the universe.

Let’s examine this week’s impactful Jupiter/Pluto conjunction, archetypally. Jupiter is Zeus, ruler of Olympus and God of the Skies, and Pluto is Hades, God of the Underworld. Zeus and Hades are brothers (along with Neptune-Poseidon, but he's smartly sitting this one out, resting in the ocean of Piscean oneness). Think Cain and Abel. Karmic siblings. Both are necessary in the cosmic play.

The righteous Olympians, ruled by Zeus, truly despised Hades, lord of the underworld, and all he represented. They wanted to keep things looking good, kosher, organized, and righteous - they wanted him put away and out of sight, out of mind. But this doesn't work in the long haul, and that's what this week's meeting of Jupiter and Pluto is bringing to the fore.

We cannot disregard Hades-Pluto and lock him in the basement forever. Same goes for the absolutely despicable things that we try to deny or annihilate both within and outside of ourselves. It will seep up through the cracks, eventually.

Facing the Shadow

Now is the time when you need to ask yourself, can you hold the tension of opposites in your own soul? Can you experience true joy and elation and celebration in your heart, without being in opposition to something, whether a politician or a personality or part of self?

On the other side, can you feel pain, grief, powerlessness or put-upon-ness, and not polarize or make another suffer because you yourself have suffered?

Until we begin looking at our own individual shadows, we will have need to externalize it in the form of a despised leader or marginalized group or any easy target. We will continue to make them a repository of Hades, pointing fingers and doing our best to banish them to the underworld.

Ask yourself, what is your worst? What do you find absolutely unacceptable in yourself? This is where the real work begins. Are you jealous or envious of others? Do you crush others (or attempt to) in order to gain (false) power? Do you posture or politic with others in order to gain ground? To be liked? To manipulate outcomes?

In Truth, there is no elimination of any part of Nature.

From the perspective of the Absolute, and of Unconditional Peace, you are not separate. You are Life Itself. Face the Self as the Self, and it is easy to see there are zero problems in Reality.

Reality is Love, defined here as total acceptance. Zero resistance to What Is. No separateness from other, no opposition.

If you are celebrating some favorable outcome or 'win' this weekend, by all means dance in the streets, pop the champagne, and enjoy your victories. And if you want the joy to go all the way to your bones, be sure you check to see if you can LOVE that which you HATE.

Can’t stomach it? The very evil you are pointing a finger to is seething, boiling underneath your own ego.

That which you vilify will persist. That which you accept as part of the cosmic play will no longer make even a tiny speck of dust on the tabula rasa of an awakened mind.

The idea of being “just” or “correct” keeps one trapped in the layers and folds of dualistic thinking, a world wherein things must look a certain way in order for it to be acceptable, palatable, correct.

Love everything, and see there never was an issue to begin with.

So, as we head into this Scorpionic weekend, domain of the Serpent Eagle, the phoenix rising from the ashes, this Diwali-Kali Puji be sure to embrace the transformation of dark into light, through the very force of Love and clear seeing. See that the Love was there all along. For it is the Truth. It is What Is.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

~ Rumi

Erin Reese, M.S. is a contemporary spiritual teacher, author and guide. A modern mystic with over thirty years of experience, Erin Reese offers incisive, practical intuitive readings to her clients worldwide. She is a counselor, guide and mentor to those seeking an alternative to traditional psychotherapy or business coaching. Erin also offers non-dual meetings and retreats on embodied liberation and freedom from suffering. 

 

Transformational collage by Erin, November 2020