The Sun enters Scorpio I on October 22, 2024 at 6:15 pm EDT over my location, and proceeds through the first ten degrees of Scorpio over the course of the next 10 days and 23 minutes — arriving at Scorpio II’s initiating degree and minute at 6:38 pm EDT on 1 November 2024.
Austin Coppock called the first decan of Scorpio The Jawbone. It belongs to Mars as the administrator and ruler — rather like a tyrant who also appoints himself the chief of the police services as well as chief executive — and Mars is trine from a position in Cancer where he’s in exile… a deposed president-for-life making trouble behind the scenes and stirring up challenges with loose talk about lost privileges and powers he’d like to have again. Pluto, the planet of the merchant-princes, opposes Mars from Capricorn — the international leaders are doing what they can to keep the bad man on Elba, or St. Helena, where he belongs… but there’s no telling if an escape is possible even at this late date. T. Susan Chang called this decan (associated with the Five of Cups in Tarot) The Storm of Tears — how often do we want things we cannot have, after all, even when they are bad for us?
The hellenistic Greeks of Alexandria acknowledged the Nymphs during this ten-day period: the “feminine” (or mostly so) spirits of relatively safe environments in nature. These would be the spring, the pool, the woodland glade, the open meadow near the city walls, the grove of olive trees or date palms, the verdant edge of a vineyard. Myth associated these spirits with the teaching of the artisanal crafts of household and workshop: spinning and weaving came from them. So did dyeing and painting, pottery and carpentry, glazing and woodcarving, embroidery and fulling and beadwork. It’s thought provoking, of course, to think that the basic arts and crafts were taught to humans by non-human beings… but you don’t see the UFOlogy enthusiasts arguing that the loom or the drop spindle was alien technology, do you? No, they only want the grand public architecture of stone for their off-world visitors; our spirit-siblings from the same planet couldn’t possibly be the source of both the gothic arch and the grape arbor…
That’s sarcasm, in case you missed it. More seriously, it may be worthwhile to consider that the kitschy folk art your grandmother produced is evidence of contact between the spirit realms and the mortal world: the acrylic-yarn on plastic grid cross-stitches my grandmother made for Christmas ornaments are a point of connection between the nymphs and humans. They may be ugly — but apes and chimpanzees don’t do that sort of thing, and don’t produce raw materials for other chimps or bonobos to use as art supplies. Plato placed the Ideas, or the Forms, closer to the God, the Good, or the One of his cosmology, too — how is it that we, as humans, still think that we’re the ones having the Ideas, when the Ideas themselves are actually more real in the cosmic order than our souls?
Thus, acknowledging the contributions of the nymphs to human experience at this time of year is an important sacred connection: the gods taught the useful arts to the nymphs, the spirits of place, and the nymphs taught them to our ancestors who in turn passed them on to us. We’re not unique in the desire to make objects of useful beauty, or of beautiful usefulness. We are inclined, though, to turn from beauty toward mass production for the sake of convenience.
Of late I’ve been reading Slöjd in Wood by Jögge Sundqvist, published by Lost Art Press. While primarily a book about green woodworking and specifically carving useful objects like ladles, bowls, eating utensils, and other small useful objects from fresh-cut beech or birch — it also touches on this idea of Nature’s calm places as useful teachers of essential arts. A fork or a spoon is carved from a piece of wood with a specific kind of curve in it; it has to be green, living wood if you intend to shape an object that will have a long life — dry wood once carved becomes brittle and fragile quickly; wet wood carved to shape will hold that shape a long time and keep its resiliency. You can’t do a long carving process in a dangerous place, or collect wood in the right shapes in hostile country, either — it takes time and patience to learn to identify the wood that has the right shape, and see what must come out of it. Michelangelo is reported to have said, “every block of stone has a statue inside of it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” In similar way, there are many useful implements and tools, from knitting needles to to billiard cues hiding in a block of wood… and it takes a gentle nymph’s attentions for us to learn how to see the butter knife in the beech.
The dodeks of Scorpio I are Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius — the tale of the young apprentice seeking strange knowledge and hidden information from usually untrustworthy sources. Scorpio is the performance of the unusual rituals and acting despite the historical warnings. Sagittarius is waiting with the proper tools, libations and offerings at the fire. Capricorn is the long period of patience and delay in the cold and the dark, while Aquarius is the new insight that emerges in the early hours as the light returns to the world in the hours before dawn.
I’ve written about Scorpio I before, in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019.
Planetary Archetypes
In my last several columns, I’ve tried to imagine the space in which the planets are gathered, be it an assembly of delegates or the vendors at a farmers’ market. This time, let’s imagine that the planets are assembled in a series of interconnected workshops, where a group of artisans are being inspired by their own private genius to create and maintain works of great artistry or artisanship. Sometimes they’re working together, and sometimes they’re laboring at cross purposes — but each planet is working on something.
Uranus is making prayer beads at a workshop that faces meadows beyond the river. The beads are electric green and made of some sort of prickly material that stings the fingers. It’s a highly personal work that he makes at a leisurely and deliberate pace, and he’s all too aware that Pluto would like to sell them in the gallery shop.
Jupiter is working in precious and semi precious metals and stones, making a sculpture of hands clutching a sword. It’s beautiful, but Jupiter has made a mistake; in thinking about the big picture, he’s forgotten to consider some of the necessary details, like paying rent on his workshop space. He’s currently considering how to withdraw certain bits of metal from the sculpture, and use them to pay his costs. What will he substitute in his sculpture? Or will these manly hands have to be re-made in a more feminine way?
The Moon in the third house in Cancer is preparing to offer some much needed critique of Mars’ labors. She’s tiptoeing through there own workshop space, which she’s graciously loaned to Mars, who has made a mess of her workbench and strewn her tools all over. Some part of her is regretting inviting him to play in her usually private space, but she knows how contentious he can be. At the same time, his work is an attempt to create the cup or bowl of a fountain of iron and silver — bringing water together with materials that rust and tarnish. She admires the work, even as she sees how unsuitable it is. The dressing-down will be heard downstairs, and all the way down the hall to Mars’ usual workshop spaces.
The Sun and Mercury are currently working in one such space — and Mercury is brewing up some foul-smelling concoction using Mars’ standard chemistry lab equipment. THere’s black liquids bubbling and glowing in test tubes, and the furnace is firing up underneath a couple of sealed beakers at a temperature a little higher than it should be. Mercury is paying more attention to the Sun, who is carrying on an angry conversation with his girlfriend while he slaps a piece of jawbone armor against his hand. Is it a self-soothing technique, or a weapon? It’s hard to know for sure right now.
Venus in the eighth house is working on a halloween mask in the shape of a horse’s skull, and using a series of dental tools to do some very nit-picky detail work around one of the nostrils. There’s something off-kilter about the shape of the head overall, though — but she’s too deep in the details to see what the big picture problem is. She needs some conversation to distract her and help her refocus on the overall shape of her project — but the reality is that some people have told her to make it more detailed, and other people have argued for less detail… and she doesn’t know what to do. Detail work is substituted for dithering.
Pluto is in the gallery shop downstairs, hoping to make a pile of money from the sale about to begin. Winter holidays, and the gift-giving season, is near at hand; there’s likely going to be lots of shoppers coming by, soon, to buy the works of the artisans on display. He just wishes that the works people chose to sell weren’t quite so weird, though.
Saturn and Neptune are both at work in the watercolor studio, and they’re dimly aware of the shouting and argument from the Sun down the hall. Saturn’s work is rigid, deliberate, and representative art — it looks like the reference photographs he’s working from. But he too has made a mistake and has concerns about how this thing looks. Neptune is working in a more abstract, playful way, but with considerably more enthusiasm for brushstroke and flourish — and they’re getting paint everywhere.
House Analysis
The first house (of self, and self-presentation) is Taurus, ruled by inconjunct Venus from the trine, but receiving support and alliance from the Moon and Mars at the sextile, and currently hosting Uranus. Find some time and place to be thoughtfully and intentionally lazy, but also thoughtfully and intentionally spiritual. Your life is going to encounter some chaos in the next ten days — accept and expect that bad news is likely to disturb your equilibrium. You should make an effort to look good and dress nice while you’re dealing with trouble. The more you anticipate the bad stuff, the more likely that good stuff will surprise you instead.
The second house (of money and material possessions) is Gemini, ruled by inconjunct Mercury and hosting one of its triplicity rulers and Saturn is providing additional support from the trine. Check in with older money advisors about managing your resources — expect that you need a big-picture sense of the world and also have to be invested in the details. You’re going to make mistakes, and you’re going to spend more resources than you mean to.
The third house (of siblings, neighbors, and your inner circle of friends and extended family) is Cancer, ruled by present Moon who is getting ready to challenge Mars at a conjunction over the next couple of days. Cancer prefers relaxation and connection and community, but Mars brings ambitious heat and forceful instigation to otherwise placid gatherings. Expect a casual party to be off the hook at Halloween.
The fourth house (of home and family) is Leo, ruled by the Sun from the square and receiving support only from Jupiter from the sextile. Family matters and household concerns require funding or other resources (like time or personal labor) to resolve, but keep the big picture in mind — don’t repair the broken drywall inside the house until the problem with the roof is addressed.
The fifth house of pleasures and hobbies is Virgo, ruled by sextile Mercury and receiving help from square Jupiter and opposed Saturn. Getting your spouse’s hot-take on your hobbies and interests right now would be useful; getting their help in reorganizing your space and routines would be even more helpful; recognizing that helping your friends deal with their troubles before you can go back to your private entertainments is best of all. Remember that creation and critique of your personal projects belong in two different times and places — do one or the other, not both at the same time.
The sixth house (of daily routines and health maintenance efforts) is Libra, ruled by sextile Venus and supported by trining Jupiter alone; both the other triplicity rulers are inconjunct. Health management requires breaking certain standard expectations, but overall limiting what you take in. At the same time, Libra implies moderation even in moderation, and avoiding excess debt. You can’t purchase good health; you can only adopt good habits.
The seventh house (of spouse or significant other[s]) is Scorpio, ruled by trining Mars in detriment in Cancer, and hosting the peregrine Sun and Mercury; but supported by the trining Moon as well. Secrets, horniness, hidden desires, and powerful longings are a theme of this year’s countdown to Halloween — but so are clear communication and transparency, as well as clarity about boundaries. Too much of a good thing can be wonderful, as Mae West said… but don’t throw out your back while you’re getting it on, either.
The eighth house (of duties, obligations, and travail) is Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter from the opposition but hosting a peregrine Venus; squaring Saturn alone provides ‘support’ from your friends. You have things you really, really need to do — and funds are lacking to achieve them. Beautiful results will require more resources, of course; and advice will come from many quarters advising you to limit your expectations or restrain your impulses. It doesn’t change the fact that there are still things you must do, and do well, to retain your legacy.
The ninth house (of learning, travel and religion) is Capricorn, ruled by Saturn from the sextile, and ‘supported’ by the Moon and Mars from opposition. Pluto squats in the anaretic degree. It’s a time for collecting and collating the articles, books and other materials and resources you need for learning and future travel plans or for establishing your religious identity… and not letting them out of your sight. Accumulate what you need in physical format, and figure out where it should be stored and kept safe.
The tenth house (of career and profession, reputation and dignity) is Aquarius, ruled by inconjunct Saturn and ‘supported’ by Mercury from the square and Jupiter from the trine. Your spouse or significant other (a very close peer if you’re single) have a series of valid but secret criticisms of your current career trajectory which should be heeded and acknowledged. Consider the big picture — especially compensation — as you make decisions about next steps. Promises of money later are not as good as delivery of funds up-front, for example; and the ability to have control over your resources is more important than some exposure that might develop your future clientele’s interest in you later. Know your worth, because no one has your skill-set except you.
The eleventh house (of friends, associates and memberships) is Pisces, ruled by squaring Jupiter and hosting Saturn and Neptune when they’re both retrograde. Squaring Venus, and trining Mars and the Moon, provide additional support. Your most tedious tasks are only accomplished with a little help from your associates and acquaintances: that means paying your allies or at least favoring them with thank-you notes and gifts; and acknowledging the way that current circumstances put limits on your power that you can’t control.
The twelfth house (of solitudes, obstacles, dreams, and possibilities, as well as of secret foes) is Aries — ruled by squaring Mars and supported by the Moon from the square as well. You want to keep your troubles secret; your friends can help you, but first you have to admit them to your confidences, and you also have to accept that they may tell you you’re being a jerk or a dumb-ass about something obvious.
Horoscopes by Rising Sign
Decan I of any sign (usually covering the 21st of the month to the first of the following month) is free to all visitors; Decan II is only available to Patreon and Ko-Fi.com subscribers; and Decan III is available to Patreon, Ko-Fi, and MailChimp subscribers.
I recommend reading your Sun sign, Moon sign, and Rising sign for best results. I write them with rising sign in mind, but several people have told me they find that they do better with all three.
Taurus: Short-term disruptions that weren’t on your calendar get in the way of long-term thinking and planning that should really be your first priority. There are big-ticket items in your financial planning that should make you hold back from any smaller purchases that are unnecessary; review your finances to be sure you’re on steady ground, but recognize that you can justify almost any expense — and that’s an easy way to get into difficulty iwth a Mercury retrograde approaching. Your sibling is itching for a fight of some kind, and it’s likely to be over a question of resources and fairness; but there’s little to be done about it. Be alert to the desires of your significant other, and communicate clearly, but be creative about how you address their concerns. You can’t meet all of your friends’ expectations, but neither can you meet all your planned engagements with them; cancel what you need to cancel with honor.
Gemini: It’s important that you dress the part and expend your own resources on others while you seek a new career role or responsibility, but expect that the financial burden of new clothes (a job-ready outfit and something for playtime) is going to cut hard. Your significant other will want you to look good, and pulled together, for any halloween festivities; but you also have to think how the ‘fit will play with both more conservative tastes of clientele at work… and a desire to let it all hang out among fellow employees. The goal here should be to figure out how to be dressy enough for the big spenders, and risqué enough for the after-party. It may seem strange to comment so much on how you dress or look — but the ability to let loose while holding a boundary is going to be an important career-defining superpower this week, and you may as well make use of it to make some extra coin.
Cancer: Siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles are a source of both trouble and relief in the next ten days. You may find that your financial situation is an obstacle, and you must remember that it’s easy to justify expenses but hard to find new income. Friends throw their religious expectations in your face, but you should maintain your poise with them for at least another six months before you make a snap judgment to cut them off. Sometimes other people’s issues come out as proselytizing; be patient as they wrestle with their own paths. It’s going to be an important learning experience for you both — but remember that you have your own boundaries to hold here, too, and you are entitled to have security and safety as you pursue your own desires.
Leo: You have freedom to be yourself this week — at home. Be aware that this may come with quite a lot of personal baggage to unpack when you’re home alone… and may involve a lot of heart-opening conversations with a spouse or a significant other about your deepest desires, and the ways in which those desires are both frustrated and limited. Storytelling, rather than role-play, is likely to be more important in the bedroom. In the workplace, you’ll have to be a hard-hearted “numbers guy” even if you’re not a guy: as a buddy of mine says, “when you’re looking at a business spreadsheet, the numbers are the numbers, and f#*k your feelings.” Hoard information if you want to grow wealthy; set boundaries around how much extra work you’ll do without having clarity about extra pay. There’s likely to be a sudden explosion of work to be done late in the week; save your strength for “the last big push.”
Virgo: having fun won’t be hard, as long as you have a group of close friends as playmates, and you’re prepared to restrict some of your resources for future endeavors. Don’t put everything out at once; just keep cycling through your entertainments a little at a time — both you and your friends may learn more that way than with a firehose of material. Along those lines… it’s worth paying attention to where and with whom you put your trust? Don’t pour your heart out to people who don’t prove worthy. Money may be a sticking-point with current employers in negotiations, but it’s also possible that this is the right season for them to pony up for new raises. Now is not the time to talk down your accomplishments or self-deprecate. A spouse faces unpleasant limitations based on previous choices; don’t offer them unrealistic new enthusiasms that you haven’t researched.
Libra: Daily routines and errands are dumping new projects in your lap every day this week, and it’s going to feel unjust to add one more thing. Play hooky here and there from your obligations to do something creative but small. You don’t have to paint a 40×60″ canvas or carve a full-size replica of Rodin’s Le Penseur for your work to be appreciated. You just have to make something lovely and even temporary, quickly. Your desires for a spouse or significant other may feel particularly intense this week, but it’s useful to separate out the fantasy of what they might do for you, from the reality of what such a person might do (or genuinelyy does). Work mates share secrets that you probably shouldn’t have — is it to your advantage to know them, or does it put you at further risk? Your biggest resources this week are your foresight, and your tongue — are they for spinning a story that you know to be falsehood? Or seeing the truth and keeping it silent? One way or another, you have a tongue that can transform liquid lead to solid gold this week — use it wisely.
Scorpio: You’re going to have to stick close to your significant other this week (or keep an eye out for one, if you’re currently single) — there are sudden changes afoot in your personal sphere, and your daily routines are going to pull you into the path of unexpected possibilities. You may have to get creative with financial matters, but remember that banks always order checks and deposits in the way that best benefits themselves, not you. A long-distance trip proves too complicated to complete; a short errand may turn into an ordeal. When it comes to pleasant experiences, a long-desired opportunity may turn out to be a more limited source of fun — sometimes the fantasy is not as good as the reality. Doing a piece of work for a close friend brings in resources you didn’t expect to get; another ally may pay you for work already completed.
Sagittarius: There’s a creative way to address your responsibilities, even as your monetary situation seems like a house of cards. Be generous to your spouse or significant other, but help them review plans and goals with much more care than usual. You can see all sorts of troubles looming on the horizon, but you alone have the power to tell a different story, in which the current challenges of your shared experiences can evaporate like clouds. Learn to make magic with the tales you tell, and recognize that your home and family story doesn’t have to be one of limitation and unbounded desires out of sync with reality. Lean in toward these new expectations, and the rewards will come… but they don’t come without some heavy lifting first.
Capricorn: Hoarding knowledge is a bit like hoarding money — it’s rarely valuable unless it’s put to work. All the same, it’s worth spending some time scraping together a library of your favorite hits from the Internet this week, and developing an offline archive of your most useful resources and most-regularly consulted materials. You may want to consult, quietly and secretly, with your inner circle of professional acquaintances, and get a sense of what concerns they have about essential resources and technical data worth preserving. Meanwhile, don’t waste too much time worrying about this — keep working on building a plan to have fun for at least the next six months, even as you prepare your secret archive a little bit at a time. There’s a possible argument brewing with a partner or romantic interest — but it’s better to see this as a beautiful reconciliation of competing (not necessarily opposing) interests, and a memorable meeting of the minds… and possibly bodies too! Whereever possible, redirect plans from weaponizing tools to alchemizing them — wealth is not merely found in force, but also in healing finesse.
Aquarius: Professional matters take over your life this week, but for good reason — informally or not, someone is conducting your annual review. Now is not the time to be either dishonest, or self-effacing: boast in an honest way about your accomplishments, and take credit for work that is genuinely yours, especially when it involves learning new skills — that will be important. AT the same time, recognize publicly how others contributed creatively and synergistically to the labor that had to be accomplished. Spread credit around to your friends and allies — make clear that it’s the team rather than your lone genius, that accomplished great things. Everyone says they want the band to get back together, or to keep touring, but the truth is that the bottom-line bean-counters are waiting for the soloist to break out from the boy-band: Timberlake and Styles have had very successful careers in part by being less expensive than the needs of a five-part merchandizing effort. By being expansive in how you give credit, you’re helping secure a future for many: it’s a long-term play that may ding your wallet now, but pay larger dividends in the long-term.
Pisces: You may feel conflicted or troubled about some of your acquaintances and connections this week — wanting to reach out and dive deeply into relationship with others on spiritual questions and issues, and yet feeling a powerful and harsh wound from prior encounters that will not heal just because you want them too. There’s a strong desire to monetize some of these friendships, too — how can you get your friends to be clients instead of colleagues? If they want your labor, they can pay for it! It’s worth sitting with these feelings a bit, and trying to determine where they come from, and if they’re passing fancies or rock-solid truth — both are possible. You may want to get a friend of yours with a regular spiritual practice to weigh in with an opinion, as well as your family members: ask them each to present both sides of the argument, showing why you should put up walls, and why you should build bridges instead. If you’ve got a halloween costume planned, be ambitious about getting that thing finished; there will be more events on the weekend than on the day of.
Aries: I read this week about a new way of composing a “to do” list, which involves having an always-open “open list” and a “closed list” which never has more than 8-10 items on it. Any new project that comes up, goes on to the open list… but nothing goes onto the closed list except what you intend to complete. And once those eight or ten slots are filled: you do those things, and only those things, until you’re done. You may have to establish a similar kind of routine this week, this month, this year, if you’re hungry to complete your goals. You are creating your own obstacles right now, by thinking bigger than you think you deserve, and acting smaller than you are able to be. It’s worth remembering that responsibility is often a precursor to accomplishment, and that both are necessary components of greatness. Still, be alert to a chance to reconcile the challenges of your household, and deal with financial issues with calm deliberateness rather than surprise or concealment. Another way of saying this — cat puke doesn’t go away just because you pretend it’s not there. Clean up the mess, even if it’s not yours.
Colophon
You can hire me for a consultation.
I have a Patreon account for those who want to support this column as it starts its sixth year. Those funds support artists, artisans and thinkers that I regard as contributing to the well-being of the world. You can also buy me a Ko-fi in $3 increments; any column I write after receiving a Ko-Fi donation will be open to the public). .
If you want to read some of my astrologically-oriented poetry, the largest collection is called A Full Volume of Splendor and Starlight, available through my Etsy shop, and containing poems and hymns to the planets, constellations, decan deities, and Moon Mansion angels. While not astrological, Festae contains hymns to some of the older Roman gods and spirits from the calendar created by Numa Pompilius, the second ancient King of Rome.
I use iPhemeris for my charting software, and screenshot it to make charts. I want to thank the team that develops iPhemeris for the addition of Terms and Decans to their charts. I also use Hugh Tran‘s Physis typeface to craft logos for this blog, as well.
I use Christopher Warnock‘s The Mansions of the Moon as the basis of my Moon placement delineations, and Austin Coppock‘s 36 Faces for much of my planetary delineations. Neither gentleman endorses me.
