The New Moon in Scorpio arrived yesterday morning, November 1st at 8:47am EST, coinciding with the midpoint between Autumn’s commencement and Winter’s slow return of the light.  Ruled by Mars in Cancer, as the red planet holds domain over all Aries and Scorpio placements, both the Sun and Moon are presently dispatched by its tempestuous glow.  What’s more, Mars is opposing Pluto, both at the final ‘anaretic’ or ‘crisis’ degrees of the cardinal yin signs Cancer and Capricorn, an emotional headlamp shone on structural and societal ills.

Mars is traditionally fallen in Cancer, and the Moon so in Scorpio, with both occupying each other’s signs in what’s called mutual reception.  A fallen mutual reception offers some kind of weighty support amidst what are certainly at times rather burdensome waves.

Water is like gravitation… the yin-ness of Water and Earth, the going ‘down and in’ or ‘down and out’ are that eternal entanglement between the sense-perceptible world and how we feel/relate to it…  that feely kind of gravitation ‘towards the thing’ is part of how Water goes… it is largely what we’re made of, you know?

For some, the heaviness of this New Moon and these recent skies might not be perceived as ‘negative’ but as perhaps a strong gravity towards home, hearth, family, close bonds and loving communion.  It may be as straightforward as a meal with people who bring you pleasantry or pleasure.  It may be demonstrations of secure attachment.  It may be uncorked inspiration, the stuff of song and succulence.

Yet the Moon in Scorpio can be like looking for gentleness among vehement hunger, openness among the armored, nurturance where there are memories of being wronged.  Mars in Cancer, to quote Diana Rose Harper, is often ‘raging against the insufficiency of care’… there is fire-water here, a hot stone dropped into still waters whose assurance might not soothe the echoes, undulations, memories of more aggressive waves which shaped its now burning contours.

In some of the past few days’ poetry, I wrote:

“your rage is sacred turned outward
we have been severed from the tender care

heaving, umbilical,
the same blade that separates
one day returns us there”

This is very much Mars in Cancer speaking.  We are pulled, alternately dazed and screaming, from the mother, often under the stun of fluorescence and no flicker of the sky beyond the valences etched into our beings and fluid psyches.

Yes, Mars rules the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, commencing Spring’s inhalation, and also the center sign of fall’s exhalation, Scorpio.  There is force in both these parts of the breath, perhaps more than any other when breathing deep and calm, or even when stricken with the Panic fear.

But Mars also rules the first -decan- of Aries, and the last decan of Pisces, by way of the Chaldean order… as Austin Coppock observed we are, after all, brought into this life by the blade which cuts the umbilical cord, and let go by that which severs us from this mortal coil.

That Mars has the final say in some way, even just unto the logic of the Chaldean order, rings true for this lunation.  Mars is also the ruler by face of Neptune, as he has been for some time… so much answers to the red planet, at the final ‘crisis’ degree of Cancer, just past the point of its maximum fall.  Mars in the Moon’s home conflates aggression and nurture, these themes entangled in a whirlpool of care-taking and potential toxicity wherein purgation and re-centering must happen at regular intervals to maintain equilibrium, as the astrologer Gray Crawford wrote about earlier.

Scorpio struggles with dark emotions, especially when the Moon is there.  Jealousy, resentment, conflations of love and lust… someone is desired by others?  This seasons a potential meal all the more.  Someone is devoted entirely to you?  Here is the fertile yet bloody ground for seeking something else while they are wrapped around one’s finger… always comfier to look for a job when you already have one, is it not?

But it need not be scenarios so bleak or disloyal — in fact, Scorpios can be some of the most attractive to experience or witness in contexts of secure attachment.  Let’s step back from arenas of relationship, to fulfillment more broadly.

There is a part of most people, no matter how great or infinitesimally small, that hurts when the other succeeds — and ideally, it’s not out of some core wish that the other not have this fulfillment.  It’s because we are separate, mired in the illusion of separateness for now, and the narrative of another’s success witnessed reminds us of some potentiality within that has not seen its next full realization for us.  “I could be doing something better.”  And you could… but do you -need- to be in order to feel worthwhile?  Are you not worthwhile, just as you are?

The Scorpio in us struggles with compersion.  To have joy at another’s joy can be a tall order when the stomach growls so, when desire overtakes, when the jawbone aches with anticipation of its next exerted force, biting down, down, down.  I’ll try to give some personal elucidation…

As a Scorpio Rising, and one for whom at birth the Mars ruling it sat in exact sightless 30° aversion to the Sun, I am pleased that I taught myself greater compersion from a relatively early age, sometime in my mid to late teens… and yet I must constantly keep my hunger in check, my propensity for indulgence, lest I exhaust balances of energy in greater need here or there.  I find myself not so much jealous of others or covetous of what they have, but covetous of their full sight of me… resentful towards myself for what more I could accomplish were I centered more often, for how much more fully I could be perceived were I always firing on all cylinders.  But who ever is?  And we all see each other only in part.

My resentment for others, where it does exist, often has less to do with them or anything they’ve done, and more to do with my insecurity as to their fractional perception of me.  While I do not have it natally, Mars in Cancer can stay hidden and moody in such a way.

At times this fractional sight is happenstance — like the high school crush who only saw your three awkward gaffes across the year, or some such story.  Other times, it is that through self-sabotage or lack of actualizing some kind of potential, plan, project in the works, and so on… others might not perceive you in your fullness.  We sell ourselves short like this all the time, which is also okay because of the whole paradox…

… that you have to put the work in, but you can also just hang out in the shade and eat fruit, because you don’t have to prove your right to exist.  You can’t force inspiration, you must wait for the moment to visit itself upon you… and yet at the same time, you have to sit down at the drawing board and see what you come up with every day, even if you scrap it.  Whether a creative endeavor or just being yourself, we know that life holds these kinds of fluctuating paradoxes.

Much of the current astrology serves as a preamble to Mars’ retrograde from Leo back into Cancer, which sees the red planet flit between Cancer decan III and Leo decan I, teasing our ‘emergence’ from the shell, one alternately of healing or hiding, and onto the stage where we must embrace ‘the Role’, whatever that might be.  It could be something we’ve been actively avoiding… it could be something incubating still.  There are many beyonds and in-betweens, and these narratives, while set in motion this past September, are far from culminating…

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September 4, 2024: Mars enters Cancer

November 3, 2024: Mars enters Leo

December 6, 2024: Mars begins its retrograde motion

January 6, 2025: Mars re-enters Cancer during its retrograde

February 23, 2025: Mars turns direct in Cancer

April 18, 2025: Mars re-enters Leo

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The New Moon in Aries, on March 25th, 2025, is the only other lunation besides this New Moon in Scorpio that sees both the Sun and Moon ruled by Mars in Cancer.  It’s worth noting that Mars is direct in both instances, framing its initial three months in Leo.

Just some themes to feel for, extending from this lunation…

*very f-e-e-l-y
*emotional heaviness
*passion, but is there enough compassion?
*what secure attachment feels like vs. insecure attachment
*themes of care and nurture entangled with aggression or coercion
*raging “against the insufficiency of care” as per Diana Rose Harper’s words
*a strong gravity towards home, hearth, family, close bonds, loving communion
*feelings of shortcoming, or lacking fulfillment; the desire to fully embrace ‘the Role’
*connection with people who bring you pleasantry or pleasure
*hiding/healing, waiting to rise again
*scorpionic themes such as desire, hiddenness, revelation, jealousy, ulterior motives
*’comparison is the thief of joy’
*turning the headlamp towards taboo subjects and parts of oneself / the world that may be uncomfortable to examine, as per the Mars-Pluto opposition
*Mars in Cancer also bears an unconventionality not always associated with Cancer, so there may be curious or roundabout avenues of work, income or conflict resolution
*time doesn’t need to heal all wounds; they give you character, and you get to build that more and more through the sunset of your life, even as your body slowly fades

Enjoy the high passion moments, and wade through the heavier ones with curious care… swim well stargazers! ~;)

—A.B.