There is much potent astrology at present, popping off on the waves of one eclipse and now this morning steeped in the next.  While visually transfixing, here the Lights are traditionally weakened, most eclipses being far from a ‘charge ur crystals baddies’ kind of lunation.  

Amidst this obscuring between Sun and Moon, some intense aspects among relationally charged Venus, Mars, and a few overarching outer giants of the solar system have struck a complex and dynamic drama that takes some doing to unfold even in part.

Venus in her sultry detriment of Scorpio just passed over Ketu, South Node of the Moon on Thursday, and Mercury in its combust state has caught the Sun, these two also submerged in the swirling center of the Scorpion’s zodiacal slice.  One might find these Ketu / South Node contacts have visited a sense of decrease upon Sun, Mercury and Venus themes: centrality of purpose, execution of willpower, clarity of communication, consistency of commerce, relationship harmony and cohesion.

On the upside, one might find a gleaming delight amidst the murkiness of Scorpio when dispatched by the mischievous rule of Mars in Gemini.  There is room to navigate tricky emotional confluences, in ways that strengthen boundaries just as there is the temptation to push them against a more virtuous compass.

The mounting pace of the lunar cycle brings heavy desire in the fixed yin signs of Scorpio and Taurus, but measured against the affliction of our luminaries in the Sun and  Moon, there is a hunger but hindered fulfillment — a mix of cohesion and coming together with a sense of falling away, elusiveness or stagnancy.  The eclipse axis is square to Saturn in Aquarius, a domiciled Saturn but one consistently disruptive, applying pressure, prompting us to build better containers and cultivate a greater balance of pleasure and purpose.

There is a strong sense of contrast between the watery, scorpionic and focused energy about — desirous, depth-craving, well-suited to singular aim — and the mental reconsideration, multiplicity of paths, and unpredictability of willpower co-present with Mars in Gemini.

Mars, natural ruler of Aries and Scorpio, is dictating the Sun, Mercury and Venus in Scorpio from its retrograde perch in airy Gemini.  This subterranean trifecta is at the red planet’s mercy, atop their proximity to the South Node — as the Lunar Eclipse sees the Moon in Taurus implicitly conjunct the North Node.  What with the square from Saturn as well, this Scorpio stellium already weakened by Mercury combust and Venus in Mars’ home is essentially dominated by malefics for a moment.

Uranus at 16° Taurus is also a rare ‘visible to the naked eye’ near the Moon during the eclipse, as the Breaker’s 84-year orbit has it presently conjunct the head of our satellite’s quicker moving nodal axis at 15° through the fixed yin signs.  Uranus adds an extra element of unpredictability to the peak astrology of this month, surging through life terrain guaranteed to look different on the other side.

Wherever there’s an involvement of Gemini and Scorpio, the mutable air sign and fixed water sign, Mercury’s yang home and Mars’ yin home, it’s important to assess where we are being reasonable in playing cards close to the chest, and where we are being covert or even unscrupulous…

Where we are being healthily investigative, or where we are meddling …

Where we are concentrating energy efficiently, or where we are too dispersed in focus…

Where we are cheapening the depth of our intentions, or at the very least our portrayal thereof.

The solidness and focus of fixed signs such as Scorpio is part of what makes them attractive.  When Gemini’s more meddlesome traits interact with the ruler of Scorpio’s ravenous appetite, the poker and prodder finds itself flitting into territory that wants others to drink deeply from the well.  This is where Gemini and Scorpio can contradict in pace, and it’s important to remember you can have ‘the thing’, the item of desire, but having it doesn’t necessarily ask the same rhythm of approach as the next.  ‘You can be all the things, you just can’t wear them all at once’ is a concern worth remembering with Mars in Gemini.

Both signs together make great investigators, but often with very different agendas.  Mars in Gemini wants to know it all and have both ends of any spectrum; Scorpio begs immersion down, down, down, further into one thing in its pressure-cooker distillation.  

Although Venus passed over the South Node days ago, the Star of Aphrodite is still within the crosshairs of the eclipse axis.  As go interpersonal dynamics, artistic aims, even some financial concerns, there may be an element of ‘I’ve been here before, walked this path… so this lesson again?’  Elodie St. Onge-Aubut of 9th House Astrology compares the South Node to a familiar but worn-out pair of shoes.  There is not only that amorous hunger Venus expresses in the nocturnal sign of her detriment… there may be a lingering sense we’ve been here, trodden this ground.  Reflection is begged as to the choices that got us here.

On a more immediate level, it might feel like our desires, biggest pursuits, and the mental frameworks we reconcile these aims amidst are not as clearly charted as we might -feel- they should be for the depth of our emotional integrity.  On the other hand, a restless mind may derail some dimension of focus or integrity with an impish ‘but what if…’ or the temptation to live out many other roles and potentialities in bored fantasy, interrupting the centrality of our foremost purposes.

On a longer timeline, the present astrology underlines an architecture of dynamic shifts that have been going since the beginning of 2021 — namely, a series of squares between Saturn and Uranus, February 14th, June 17th and December 25th, 2021, being the dates of the major ones.  This undoubtedly affects the fixed suns and fixed risings of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius more — as well as those with pronounced planetary placements therein.

Mercury and Venus as the planets between Sun and Earth, Logos and its enfleshment, are associated with commerce — Mercury more so as messenger god and merchant, Venus more obscurely with the coining of money.  Matters of finance tie into both the more immediately personal significations of this eclipse, as well as the overarching ones spoken by Saturn and Uranus’ supply chain disrupting and society-rattling squares.

Times surrounding eclipses are often experienced as particularly liminal — threshold, seep-y, ‘what is real’ kind of territories.  The waxing moon’s momentum has built with the different emotional contours of each moon sign between eclipses, from new to full.  Momentum is building, while the terrain remains largely unseen.  The Scorpio stellium’s square to Saturn in Aquarius endures a couple days beyond the fleeting moon’s, and might provide us a cooler vantage from which to consider; but it’s important to let things flow and not box in our personal endeavors and relationships with a stifling vibe.

Jupiter’s retrograde brought the big planet back into its nocturnal home of Pisces at October’s end, interacting with Mars’ ongoing square to Neptune.  While it can be sticky, syrupy, delightful, deluded… the visionary, humanistic and healing concerns of Jupiter and Neptune together again are like a soothing balm for eclipse season, if not one that adds to Mars executive confusion.

There is some murky and potentially deceptive astrology going on between Mars in Gemini and Neptune in Pisces.  There is also a sense of ‘some dreams will make it, and some will get the snip.’  The Astrology Podcast’s recent episode on the celestial spread of November 2022 contains a few insights from astrologer Austin Coppock about how some things will stick and some will fall apart during the mix of cohesion and dissolution that Jupiter and Neptune together bear.

The ‘heart mind, moon mind’ connection has long run strong throughout human mythology, astrology and psychosomatics, but this may very well feel like a time when the ‘heart and head’ aren’t exactly in the finest of accordance.  That, or they’re both playing in different time signatures.  It’s hard to say yes to one thing while thinking about a lot of other things, and in this way the scattered genius of Mars in Gemini might risk disrespecting the commitments of Scorpio.

The archetype of Scorpio has much to do with exploring the unseen, but governed by Mars Rx in a sign known for many endeavors like a frenetic balancing act, the energies at play range from creative, amorous and even ravenous… to mentally meandering or even downright misleading.  Reminder that Mars’ stint in Gemini spans August 20th, 2022, to March 25th, 2023, as every ~26 months the red planet has a long retrograde.

Scorpio’s first face (decan, or ten days), called ‘Disappointment’ by Aleister Crowley, and ‘The Jawbone’ by another A.C. — Austin Coppock, a better poet — deals with hungers literal and metaphoric, as well as a reckoning with the dramas that unfold from such devouring.  As the astrologer Diana Harper quoted Coppock saying in a NORWAC 2020 lecture, (approximately) ‘Getting what you want is not the same thing as dealing with the consequences of getting what you want.’

Since the Sun passed from the first face of Scorpio five days ago and now finds itself smack in the middle of its second — we’re dealing with the unspoken or implicit contracts we have with those to whom we are bonded, and potential renegotiation thereof.  This indeed has much to do with Mars’ rule, steering our seesaw of short term indulgence versus long term transformation.  Aims and misdeeds, successes and failures, fulfillments and disappointments loom at the accumulation of actions over time, the karmic boomerangs that wear into our hands and litter the ground around us.

This is an important time to reflect on priorities, and prepare to have the conversations one needs to have.  There is a Zen proverb that goes something like ‘a man who always tells the truth doesn’t need to remember anything.’  Depth is demanded, yet certainty is evasive.  ‘Stable ambiguity’ is a term @queercosmos used to describe relationships of today, and  and in one arena of life or another, things may feel that way!

Mars in Gemini’s puzzle-solving prowess would do well to remember that the soul craves problems so it can imagine its way out of them.  However, where the malefic planets say ‘the way out is through’, Mars in Gemini says the way roundabout is through… so make sure you’re sending the messages you intend to.  I truly feel like the medicine right now is reflection, and to not act with the haste.  And yet this month has some big twists ahead, and promises to be pivotal…

The emotional fixation, current, and murky undertow of Scorpio finds a more uplifting verve with a Sagittarius placement beside, something we were reminded of during the couple days of Sagittarius Moon that followed the eclipse on October 25th — but it may be important to not move too quickly, too vehemently forward when these upswing moments come later in November.

Just some things to look out for / capsule restatements of the above:

* desire, with a kink of mental self-stifling

* a sense of decrease surrounding Sun, Mercury and Venus themes: centrality of the will, clarity of communication, relationship harmony or momentum

* conversely, a heightened hunger around these topics, with satiation perhaps eluding us

* a missed connection between Scorpio’s desirous and depth-craving nature, well-suited to singular aim — and the mental reconsideration, multiplicity of paths, and unpredictability of willpower that Mars in Gemini disperses

* the ‘urge to merge’ with an object of desire, derailed by distractions

* big disruptor energy, coming through

* a priority crisis between the need for inner reflection and the desire for outer results

* clear communication vs. ambiguous intention

* secretive behavior, dishonesty, difficulty with self-leveling

* the difference between playing one’s hand close to the chest, being covert, or even unscrupulous…

* inspiration to navigate tricky emotional confluences, in ways that strengthen boundaries

* the simultaneous temptation to push said boundaries beyond virtuous compass

* the science and architecture of balancing pleasure and purpose

* something big is being reconsidered, one’s mind changing, new terrain being footed gingerly before quick flits in another direction; old contracts being redrafted as we eye the long game

* Mars as ruler of Mercury combust, and Mercury as the ruler of that Mars, have a reception conjuring the ever-daunting human truth that when you focus on one thing, you lose a bit of another

* quick and restless thinking feels simultaneously leaden, heavy

* the desire to turn something on its head, or to ruin it

* the need for a jolt of clarity, honesty, or optimism amidst Scorpio’s hunt and sometimes misplaced hunger

* tried-and-true grassroots solutions meet technological innovations

* reactivity vs. steadiness in the face of a chaotic world

* dreams being given a durability test — some will stick and some will fall apart

* the visionary, humanistic and healing concerns of Jupiter and Neptune together again feeling like a balm for inner and outer chaos

* where relationships are healthy, there is fertile ground to experience compersion, or to build one’s capacity for such — that is, joy had at another’s joy, to feel fulfillment because someone we care about is fulfilled

* there’s a part of every person, no matter how small, that hurts when the other succeeds, but it shouldn’t be for want of their failure… unless maybe you’re Daniel Day-Lewis (another Gemini Mars!) in There Will Be Blood, having an ‘I drink your milkshake!’ level of possession by one’s animus… it hurts because every victory reminds us of what more we’re capable of, and in turn what we could be doing even better than we are now

* jealousy is a waste of inspiration

* ‘getting what you want is not the same thing as dealing with the consequences of getting what you want’ [approx. quote from Austin Coppock]

* aims and misdeeds, successes and failures, fulfillments and disappointments loom at the accumulation of actions over time, the karmic boomerangs that wear into our hands and litter the ground around us

* where certainty is evasive, extra depth is demanded

Swim well, stargazers ~

—A.B.

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