Hey loves,
We’re in the depths of the Scorpion’s dark, watery lair with today’s new moon. It’s Monday the 13th, but it packs stereotypical Friday the 13th vibes. This moon has the potential to be moody as it unearths new truths about old situations. Conjunct Mars, it gives us energy and agency to step into a new beginning in a part of our lives that was feeling stuck or stagnant.
The Struggle is Real
Yesterday my therapist friend texted me, writing:
“I have a random question for you — sooo many people are in deep struggle right now. Astrologically do you have any sense of why?”
As a person who works with a lot of clients in a personal therapeutic context, it’s been interesting to hear her reflections on how personal issues consistently show up within larger collective patterns and themes. And more often than not, when we chat astrology, these themes tend to have striking correlations with the astro-weather.
And the astro-weather right now is, well… intense.
Deep. Emotional. Transformative. Scorpionic.
We don’t have to look far to see that, in the collective and at the personal level, many people are struggling. I’m hearing so many accounts of personal struggle with relationships, self-worth, work, and illnesses of the body and mind.
Personally, my household just got over a nasty, everlasting mystery sickness that felt like Covid, followed immediately by a vicious stomach bug. For the past 3. weeks, one of us would get a little better just in time to care for the next one getting bedridden for a few days. Simultaneously, my dog has had a stomach issue that has led to me having to steam vaccum my floor several times a day. (Ickk). At least a dozen other folks that I know are getting hit by double and triple whammies of who-knows-what sickness too. Covid-era fears of interacting with others and public gathering seem to be creeping up from the rear-view as the holiday season approaches.
And it makes sense. The uncertainty and stress for almost everyone about what to do on a daily basis during this broadcasted, Empire-backed genocide is definitely weakening to our immune systems, long after we turn off the news at the end. ofthe day. The horrors of constant bombs, insurmountable rubble, death, destruction and rising hate-crimes are always just a remote-control click or Instagram scroll away. It is impossible to ignore our deep interconnection with all sides of our little blue marble right now, and it’s a true struggle to remain on with it all the time too.
But to struggle is not to suffer.
And right now, to struggle means to be engaged. To be awake.
In thinking about all this struggle near and far, I had to look up the word:
struggle
strŭg′əl
intransitive verb
To exert muscular energy, as against a material force or mass.
To be strenuously engaged with a problem, task, or undertaking.
Struggle is attested by early 15c. as "argue, debate." The sense gradually extended to "put forth effort, strive strenuously”
What I love about this choice of words -as opposed to “lots of people right now are suffering / depressed / apathetic / bummed out” - a struggle is, by definition, engaged.
The definition I found of struggle is to be strenuously engaged. And in order to be engaged, one must be alert. Awake. Ready for action. Ready for change. Ready to transmute from a scorpion hiding in the corners to a Phoenix rising from the ashes. You feel it, right? I do. It is time.
A mass awakening is occurring right now, and there is no turning back toward ignorance or white-washed bliss. Truths are being clarified. Every moment that each person dedicates to their own internal struggle, as well as the struggle in the larger world, is helping to strip away propaganda and mis-information and show us the truth. The truth of the real differences between people and governments, between archaic, power-hungry infrastructures and humanity itself.
To struggle is to be resilient. To struggle is to admit to yourself the real possibility that effort and striving can lead to transformation and transcendence.
This horrific genocide, being executed by global superpowers with profits and gains in mind, is stirring up epigenetic and deeply embodied feelings and truths from all of our ancestral lines. Whether we’re labeled (or label ourselves) as Jewish, Palestinian, British, American Canadian, Indigenous, White, Black, or Brown- all of our ancestors know the evils and atrocities of war and of unjust, unbalanced power dynamics. We can feel it deep in our bones.
And more people than ever before are showing up, willing to engage, to strive, to put forth effort, to use muscular energy against what sometimes feels like an unmovable mass or force.
This takes extreme courage- fighting with the heart. It takes bravery. Strength. Compassion. Resilience.
This is the way of the scorpion.
The scorpion knows that to struggle is to be strenuously engaged.
And what’s another term for strenuous engagement? Intimacy.
The sign of Scorpio is the natural ruler of the 8th house, and both the sign and the house are associated with intimacy. In my birth chart, Scorpio falls in my 4th house of home and family, and with all the illness in my family lately, I’ve thought about intimacy a lot in that arena. There’s almost nothing more intimate than holding someone’s hair back when they’re throwing up, receiving their offer to do the same for you, and then still showing up to play dress-up with a sick-but-energetic 5-year-old before dropping to the bed together and snuggling close.
In the wheel of the Zodiac, Scorpio comes after Libra, the harmony-fueled sign that represents balance, relationship, and partnership: the union of the fallen leaves with the ground every Autumn. After Libra, Scorpio represents a deeper merging with the other: the composting of the leaves, merging together into a part of the ground itself.
The word intimacy can sound sexy - and it is, no doubt- but we oftentimes ignore the messiness, the struggle, that is contained within becoming intimate with someone or something. Moving past the cuteness and light mystery and romance of Libra, Scorpio is moving in with someone- and all their stuff, all their connections to the past, all their hopes for the future, all their messes. And in seeing the messes of the other, you can’t help but get a true reflection of your own messes, too.
I feel like we are becoming intimate with our own humanity, and with the humanity we share with people (and animals, and the entire natural world!) across this small globular planet of ours.
To be able to stay connected through the mess, to find love and beauty and tenderness and care when you are merging messes, it takes being engaged. And while it sometimes feels strenuous in it’s intensity, that initial engagement paves the way for a much greater depth of experience. It gives us far more capacity for transforming 2 juxtaposed, stinky compost heaps into a singular rich, beautiful soil. One that is capable of nourishing and cultivating new life. A new way of being human, even.
The astrology of this new moon taps into both struggle and intimacy: our life-force the Sun is conjunct the intimate and embodied Moon at 20 degrees of Scorpio. Both of these luminaries are hugging up next to Mars, Scorpio’s traditional ruling planet of activation, valor, energy, and survival. This Martian conjunction giving us the energy to wade through the compost, turn up the heat, and transform our world into something rich, beautiful, and sustaining of new life.
Let’s get intimate: A tale of two Scorpions
Scorpions seem like they could easily live on Mars, don’t they? If you’ve ever had an encounter with a real scorpion, you’d have to agree that resiliency is one of their top traits.
Have you ever met a scorpion? I have. I have a scorpion story for you.
(Trigger warning: This is a story about a scorpion.)
Several years ago, I went on an adventure to Costa Rica with my ex. We landed in San Jose and rented a car, and just as we got out of the city and reached some mountain dirt roads winding through the tropical vegetation, he had to pee. It was an emergency. So we pulled off to the side of the road, and he ran down a steep hill and behind some trees. A few minutes later, he showed back up at the rental car covered in mud. “It was slippery down there!” he said. I grabbed a San Francisco 49ers towel out of the suitcase in the back seat, and he wiped himself off with it and threw it in the trunk of the car.
From there, we spent 2 days in the mountains at Montezuma Cloud Forest, 3 days at Arenal Volcano, and on day 5, we took a long drive and ferry ride to Santa Teresa, on the coast. We were settling in for a week in a treehouse hotel at that point, so we cleaned out the car. We had been keeping our small suitcases in the back seat for access while traveling, and hadn’t opened the trunk since we stopped for the bathroom. I carried the muddy 49ers towel up to the veranda at our treehouse and layed it across the banister to dry. Seeing some dry mud, I lifted it up to give it a shake, and- you guessed it- a big, dark brown scorpion was clinging to the cloth. It looked quite dead, shriveled up on the center of the logo on the towel.
“What the fuq!” I screamed, and dropped the towel. “You must have wiped a scorpion off you along with the mud! OMG!” and we both did a freak-out dance. “And it’s been in the car since Monday? Ahhhh!”
Determined to get the dead scorpion off of the towel and out of our treehouse abode, I found a stick, and gave it a little flick off of the balcony toward the road below and the jungle beyond. To my massive surprise, at the poke of the stick, the dead scorpion CAME QUITE BACK TO LIFE, puffing up to literally about 3 times it’s original shriveled size as it lunged at me, it’s shiny black claws extended toward my face.
“Ahhhh! Fuqqq!!” I screamed, as I instinctually threw the whole stick off the balcony. Luckily, scorpion Jesus went with it. It fell off the stick mid-air, and bounced a little on the road 3 stories below us before stopping in its final resting place.
“Holy shit,” we said to each other, and then spent the next few hours securing the holes in the windows and doors to our treehouse.
Later that evening, we put on our brave-traveler hats and decided to walk down the road into town for dinner. I carefully watched my feet along the walk, looking for the scorpion by the stick on the road, but it was nowhere to be found. “Must have been eaten by something”, I consoled myself.
We let off some steam at dinner, laughing about all the could-have-beens in our run in with the Jesus scorpion. Finally feeling a bit more relaxed, we walked slowly and carefree up the steep road back to the treehouse. Then, under the light of a streetlamp ahead we both saw it: the very same scorpion, scuttling across the road toward the jungle. Alive and well. Thriving, I would love to think. Maybe this particular slice of jungle was its desired destination when it clung on to that football towel. I wouldn’t be surprised.
That night, as I was awoken by howler monkeys grunting loudly in the canopy around us, I was amazed at the lack of anxiety in my body. I was deeply struck with the fact that we were truly surrounded by life; we were in deep, messy, intimacy with so much beautiful life.
And from then on, I have always been in awe of the resilience of the scorpion, and by proxy, of the many Scorpio people I know that embody that same resiliency because of their true love of life.
My daughter is one of them. Today, on this new moon, it’s her 5th birthday, and I couldn’t be prouder to be a Scorpion mama.
A quick anecdote: When she was an infant, she wouldn’t give strangers a happy smile like a lot of other babies do. She was super giggly and happy at home, but incredibly discriminating with new folks. I remember distinctly when two ladies in my apartment’s elevator in Oakland looked down at her in her baby carrier and said, “That girl has a mean side-eye”. “Excuse me?” I said. “Oh, it’s a good thing! She knows what she deserves and won’t smile at just anybody!” they laughed. And then, on cue, she flashed them an adorable smile.
As my greatest teacher, my little Scorpio has taught me the deep beauty of intimate messes. She has shown me the truly transformative power of having high standards and standing up for what you believe in. She has brought me resiliency, courage, strength -born out of a pure love for life - that I couldn’t have imagined before meeting her.
Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart
This new moon in Scorpio, I’m sending love to all my fierce Scorpio friends out there, and to all of you who are calling upon this scorpion energy right now, using it to struggle the good struggle, to resist, and to persist against these very real material forces and masses in our world.
I’m reminded of the teaching by Brene Brown, “Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart”, inspired by this quote by Joan Halifax:
“All too often our so-called strength comes from fear not love; instead of having a strong back, many of us have a defended front shielding a weak spine. In other words, we walk around brittle and defensive, trying to conceal our lack of confidence. If we strengthen our backs, metaphorically speaking, and develop a spine that’s flexible but sturdy, then we can risk having a front that’s soft and open, representing choiceless compassion. The place in your body where these two meet – strong back and soft front – is the brave, tender ground in which to root our caring deeply.”- Joan Halifax
This new moon, know that our friend Mars has your back in this struggle, giving you energy, stamina and resolve to fight for what’s right.
Know that our friend Luna has your front, helping you to soften into your feelings, let them out, and let your expressed grief act as a healing balm for the world.
And let our friend the Sun be your Wild Heart, where you feel encouraged to share your stories, giving you courage to strive to share your truth and your love of life with the world.
Have a blessed new moon. See you next here on Substack for the full moon in Gemini download (or sooner if you’re on Instagram).
Keep it up with those deep inhales and long exhales,
Love <3 <3 <3,
Alison
PS. If you’d like a more personal take on how this moon is affecting you and your birth chart, please feel free to comment below or DM me. I’m doing some free readings for friends/family/readers before launching my new website and opening my books and would love to talk.